Monthly Archives: February 2015

Thirty  individuals arrived to our first discussion of denominational issues.  The discussion was supported by a Ruling Elder, Julie Wells who served as a subject matter expert in the area of General Assembly.   We were further supported by attorney, professional mediator, and Ruling Elder at First Pres, John Palmer.  This initial discussion enjoyed a positive and respectful tone.  After all, we would expect nothing less at First Presbyterian!  There were honest comments with enough candor and humor to make us feel like we were involved in a real conversation.

We covered questions regarding Presbyterian process and decisions about divestment from companies involved in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.   Concerns shared included:

•  a concern that the denomination was tilting toward a liberal orientation
• a concern that there is a lack of unity in the larger church
• a concern for a continued commitment to the Reformed Tradition in which we those with whom we disagree with kindness and respect. A word is missing here??
• a concern to stay, talk, learn, vote and find consensus

On the whole, the group seemed to be counseling togetherness to one another.

At the conclusion of our time, there was some question about meeting for subsequent gatherings.   There was enough interest that we will gather again on March 1st and March 5th.    Here is what one can expect at those gatherings.

March 1st will be a gathering from 4-6 p.m. in the church Fellowship Hall.

After receiving an overview of the book Godviews, we will discuss the various Godviews and their interdependence.  This lays the foundation for March 5th.  An intent to attend both  March 1st and 5th will benefit our process greatly.

March 5th will be a guided discussion on the redefinition of marriage.  This has been a discussion that some approach with fear and trembling. Because we are not in the business to persuade one another away from our opinions, the March 5th discussion will be an opportunity to listen to others, practice speaking and to engage prayer as we deepen our discipleship.

Our presbytery, Grace, votes on amendments,  at its  March 7th meeting.  We will be sure there is a congregational gathering to report the results of that vote and to have some conversation as a larger body as well.  Stay tuned for the date and time of that congregational gathering.

I will be posting in the days to come as we prepare for the March 1st meeting.  It would be great to fill Fellowship Hall with 100 folks.  Small group work alternated with large group conversation may  help us, as a March 1st  congregational  microcosm,  to imagine congregational sentiment at the macro level.

As we prepare for Thursday night, we hope to learn what participants will want to learn.  If you are planning on attending the event and have a specific hope, it would be great to leave a comment here.  All comments have to be approved to be posted.  So if you would prefer that your comment be private, simply say so.  We will take it as information for our preparation but we will not post it.  If you are comfortable with your hope being posted, it may help others clarify their own hopes for the gathering.

Some possible hopes that have been expressed to me include:

• better understanding of where we are in the Presbyterian process after General Assembly.
• more/better information on the decisions of the 221st General Assembly.
• a safe environment to talk about how I am feeling about our denomination
• steps toward making some sort of response to our larger denominational governance
• a greater understanding of what my fellow First Presbyterian church members think and feel

These, of course, are just a few and surely do not cover all the hopes.  Thanks for helping us prepare.

“When I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;  when I became an adult, I put and end to childish ways.”  1 Corinthians 13:11

For the Apostle Paul there is a continuing maturation of the believer as the Kingdom of God comes into its fullness.  Paul’s calls upon the Corinthian community to exercise themselves toward a unity in the midst of distinctions.   This is a challenging call.  Sometimes unity is easy.  As a church family, we come together to share meals.  We come together to celebrate a wedding, a funeral, a confirmation or a baptism.  We join in Sunday morning worship sharing in our hymns, prayers and confessions.  All of these are part of coming together and exercising unity.  However, sometimes unity is not so ritualized or even easy.

Think back upon the children you have known.  Some of them spoke early, some of them spoke late but all of them learned to speak by practicing.  When human beings are young, we do not expect them to speak perfectly.  We know that their good speech requires practice and practice happens best with others.  At their youngest, we ask children to simply repeat us.  Gradually, they begin to decide which words to use.  Words become sentences and sentences become opinions and conversations.   In this way, the speech practice of infancy continues into adulthood.

When unity is not easy, we can return to the idea of practicing our speech.  Paul is brilliant in his illustration.  In speaking to adults, he uses himself as an example a person in process. He calls upon the community’s memory of their own journey of maturation.  He invites them to understand that the journey of maturation continues.  He invites us to this same awareness during times when distinctions are painfully present and yet the call of unity is upon us.

As the world changes around us, we are challenged to continue to practice our speaking.  What, was once, management of our tongue and facial muscles to make the right sounds,  becomes attention to the mind, logic, emotion and meaning behind our words.  We practice talking in order to practice what we mean.   This still happens most powerfully within loving and respectful communities.  So when we come together to talk about life’s meaning, what we need most is patient listening, questions and a community that seeks understanding.

This is what next Thursday night is about.  We will practice articulating what our denominational decisions mean for us.  We will not always say exactly what we mean and we will have to try again.  But in an environment of listening, clarifying questions and striving to understand one another, I trust the Kingdom will emerge for us particularly.  I trust we will begin to perceive our way forward.  For all these reasons, I hope you will join us.

As long as our hearts are one in Christ, our minds don’t have to be.  This is a favorite way to voice our congregation’s self-understanding at First Presbyterian Church of Waco.  It helps us to  hold and honor a variety of opinions within a particular part of the Body of Christ.  We, at First Presbyterian have allowed this self-understanding to both comfort and challenge our mindset.  In challenging times, it is our ability to hold this phrase like a prayer that allows us to mindfully attend our individual hearts and minds.  Because passions and reasoning can overlap and run together, it is this particular congregational prayer that allows us to take time with the heart and mind separately when its necessary to do so.

The heart, in this prayerful statement, is not referencing an organ in our individual bodies. It is that a more spiritual seat of passion and emotion.   In fact, here the heart, here, is imagined as an emotional/spiritual front line receiving our passions. Passions arrive to the heart even before we reason through them.  This spiritual and emotional front line can be the place we feel our anxiety and our grief well up.  It can be the place from which we cry out, something like,  “My heart just aches over this.”  The heart, in this way, is a bubbling spring of passion and feeling.  It messages and appeals to the brain, “Let’s make some sense of what we are experiencing.”

If you could separate the concerns of your heart and your mind regarding our denomination’s decisions, how would you describe your heart’s concerns?

If your heart has been hurting in the wake of the General Assembly’s votes and actions, how might you rate the degree of your discomfort or even agony?

In the wake of the votes and actions, how much of your heart’s concerns relate to your personal values?  How much relates to the effect that the vote has had upon the wider church?

These questions are not the only ones. Perhaps they will help you find your better questions.   I hope you will join in discussion at our gathering on February 12th at 7:00 p.m.  Note the time change.

A picture of the assembly of commissioners to the 221st General Assembly in Detroit Michigan.

This blog on denominational issues requires a brief history of its purpose.

Prior to June of 2014 and the 221^st General Assembly, the pastoral staff of First Presbyterian was engaged with our local Jewish Rabbis regarding the upcoming General Assembly.  There was a great deal of anticipation regarding the PCUSA’s decisions at the Assembly.

The conversations continued following the assembly.  First Presbyterian Church of Waco met as a congregation in late June of 2014 to debrief the assembly.  Additionally, the pastoral staff hosted one other small group gathering.  We  met with local Jewish brothers and sisters and interested members of the congregation.  Finally, as individuals requested private appointments, we honored those also.    All of these were opportunities to share, what, was then, recent information from the 221^st General Assembly.

The session of First Presbyterian took up the discussion in two of its meetings in the summer of 2014.  Though they took no formal action, they remain attuned.   Your leadership is ready to listen, learn and lead in a way that strengthens First Presbyterian.  Each stewardship season, there is the opportunity to make comments about what we hope for our local congregation in the coming year. A number of congregants took the opportunity to share their continued concern regarding denominational decisions.    Such consistent and long standing concerns certainly suggests that additional forums for conversation are necessary.

pc-biz.org is still a website where you can find voting history and rationale for the votes from the 221st General Assembly should that be helpful for you.

So, the vision for this blog and the four face-to-face conversations throughout February and March is to honor one another in the act of listening.  Perhaps in we can grow in our understanding together.  We appreciate your prayers as we move forward toward the Lenten season and the ultimate hope of our Christian community.