Awhile ago while looking through the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order (BOO), I ran across this section:
G-3.0401 Called to Openness: The Church is called
- to a new openness to the presence of God in the Church and in the world, to more fundamental obedience, and to a more joyous celebration in worship and work;
- to a new openness to its own membership, by affirming itself as a community of diversity, becoming in fact as well as in faith a community of women and men of all ages, races, and conditions, and by providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity;
- to a new openness to the possibilities and perils of its institutional forms in order to ensure the faithfulness and usefulness of these forms to God’s activity in the world;
- to a new openness to God’s continuing reformation of the Church ecumenical, that it might be a more effective instrument of mission in the world.
While I’m aware this may not be that interesting to my non-Presbyterian friends, I think this is an important section of the BOO that I don’t hear all that often. There are a few things in here that I find very promising and hopeful, and I’d like to touch on those briefly.
Openness to the Presence of God
This is an encouragement to continue to be open to the presence of God, wherever God may be. I don’t think we allow God to surprise us enough these days, and while many of us like to think we’re open to experiencing God in new ways, I don’t know that we really are. Of course, this goes both ways. I also need to be open to the presence and Spirit of God being in places that I may not want to go, or with people who I may not agree with.
Inclusive Membership
We indeed need to continue to have an openness when it comes to the membership of the church, and to committing ourselves to being a community of diversity. As we live in an increasingly multicultural world, our churches should also be representative of that, not homogeneous gatherings. I like that language: providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity. As we continue to bring God’s radical love and grace into the world, it should lead us to a place where we are more accepting, more loving, more open to the ways in which God works in all people.
Openness to the Possibilities and Perils of its Institutional Forms
As we continue to move more and more into a post-denominational Christian world, I think we certainly need to keep this in mind. Yes, there are possibilities for the institutional church – there are ways in which it may still serve to be a tool for effective change in the world. However, those possibilities continue to decrease, and more and more, people are becoming aware of the perils of denominational and institutional structures. I don’t know that people in Louisville necessarily are, but clearly people today have issues with institutions. Institutions were once extremely effective in bringing about the kingdom of God in the world; it could be argued they do not have the place in society anymore. What does that mean for the future of the institutional church? Clearly, there is some future. There are still millions of members, millions of dollars. But I’m just not sure how much stock future generations will put in these institutions.
New Openness to God’s Continuing Reformation of the Church
As someone who is invested in the presbymergent conversation, this is clearly something we presbymergents care deeply about. It is our hope, as loyal radicals, to be those who stay on the inside to work to bring about creative, emergent expressions of our historic faith. The Presbyterian sense of the church reformed and always reforming comes into play here. Again, as I’ve mentioned before, we have done a great job of being Reformed, but have not allowed much creative room for the continual reforming that needs to take place. Yet here is our cherished and hallowed Book of Order, calling Presbyterians to be open to God’s continuing reformation of the church – God’s continuing challenge to the status quo of Presbyteries and to the ways things have always been done.
I can foresee myself reading this section at some Presbytery meeting in the future, trying to sway the “old guard” to be open to the movements of the Spirit in our midst. It’s unfortunate that us younger Presbyterians will have to fight for these types of changes, when they’re right there, in black and white print, in our Book of Order.
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One issue that has recently raised its head at my church is the ability of the church to respond to change.
It is possible to change TOO fast. This is particularly true when a pastor (having followed the suggestion to change nothing the first year) tries to make many changes in a short period of time. If the folks in the pews (particularly the gray haired folks) decide to dig in their heels, you’ve got the planting of the seeds for the usual “7 year itch” in a pastor’s pastorate.
Proper change should take time. Some things need to be changed right away, but others should be deferred. You need to gauge your congregation’s tolerance for change and make sure that you don’t cross the “too much” line.
Hey Adam-
I’m a new reader. I’m at Sunset Presbyterian in Portland, OR. Anyway, I really like that you’ve found this section on openness. You are right though, there is a fight to be had because the old guard rarely lets change happen easily. You make some great points though. Thanks.
A wise professor once said – you really only get one change to a church’s worship a year – make it count!
Welcome to the wonderful world of polity, which to me only makes sense if you use a theological lens.
You skipped what I consider the best part of G-3, which comes immediately before your citation. G-3.0400 (subtitled ‘Called to Risk and Trust’) begins “The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life…”
I do not understand why people with a yearning for change have not latched onto this powerful charge.
Yes! that’s a hott quote right there. Wish us presbys on this side of the world had similar open guidelines in our BOO.
Thanks for the good post. I attended National Capital Presbytery meeting yesterday and left muttering to Carol, “I had to really work at not being totally cynical.” So, thank you for reminding me about the passages in the Book of Order that attracted me to the PC(USA) in the first place.
Granting that this isn’t an academic paper, one would still hope that your time with these issues and at PTS would prepare you to make statements that were a little more meaningful, not just conjecture. I can’t see how the “conversation” is moved forward otherwise.
wow, adam. statements like those when found in places like the BoO renew my hope for the institutional church.
i wonder if there’s anything similar lurking in the UMC’s book of discipline…
off subject…please pray for me as I am being blasted on http://alexandertheatheist.blogspot.com
I feel more Christians should voice their truth on these kind of sites. please read it and pass the word on for other strong warriors to help me in battle
Not to play the “other side” or anything, but I think one think that we need to be, dare I say careful of, in our discussions like this, is that we don’t latch onto certain words or concepts out of context.
If we’re talking about PC(USA) BoO G-3.0401, we can’t read it apart from the overall title of this section – “The Church and its Mission.” The discussion of Openness is in relation to how the Church lives out its calling, lives out its ministry – how it exists and acts as the church. How we do what we do.
Second, you have to hit the very first part, G-3.0100 “the mission of the Church is given form by God’s activity in the world as told in the Bible and understood by faith. Our openness, is therefore understood through the lens of God’s work in Scripture and in the world that we experience.
This leads me to the final point that we often overlook, especially those of us young enough to feel like we’re “kicking against the goads” when we offer new ideas and practices – Our Reformed mantra may not be as “Reformed” as we think, and even if it is, in its present context in the BoO, the sentence has the following qualifier “according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit.” There remain qualifiers. And what is really a better idea than “reformed and always reforming” – particularly in light of the fact that historians and theologians alike have a hard time attributing the phrase to anyone in particular, might be the phrase “transformed and continually conforming.” We have been transformed by God in Christ. Our call as Christians, in the midst of our mission in the world is not so much “re-forming” ourselves but “conforming” our entire existence to the likeness of Christ.
just to clarify that last post: the quote in the second paragraph ends with the bold @ faith. I don’t want to assert that the BoO contains the sentence that follows – I’m not THAT into open sourcing…
Can anyone show me specifically how the Book of Order inhibits their ministry? I hear complaints a lot that our polity gets in the way of our mission (in fact a task force has recently revised the BoO on this very presumption) but don’t understand how it does. To my mind the BoO actually offers a great deal of flexibility and really doesn’t mandate all that much. (I grant you that I didn’t take Polity and passed my Ord solely on my ability to use the index).
In fact, it seems to me that the obsession with the BoO is SUCH a stereotypically Presbyterian way of dealing with our problems in the church–”What? Our denomination is declining? We’d better have fix our constitution!” Seems to me that the BoO actually allows for all kinds of creativity, as Adam points out here. Furthermore, in most cases, it is the congregational culture that exerts the major influence on how the church views itself. No one in my congregation gives a rip about the BoO.
Can anyone convince me that the BoO is really a problem? Seems to me to be just a convenient scapegoat….
Andy -
There are several things that come to mind.
1) Only the ordained pastor can serve communion (and elders) which causes a counter-missional understanding of the priesthood of all believers. It sets the ordained pastor in a role that is not seen in the New Testament of having exclusive rights to perform certain ministry for the church. Only the ordained PCUSA pastor can be in functions which rightfully to belong to all the people (godly, mature ones).
2) Only ordained MDiv people can become a “pastor”. So there are so many people who have MA’s and not even have degrees- which then are limited in their roles in the church. The title of “pastor” is not from New Testament as it was a spiritual gift and function. So it also creates a division of understanding that “pastoring” is something many people should be doing, not just the ordained PCUSA person. It also creates a uneeded sub-catagory for youth directors and those who fully are serving in “pastor” roles, but they cannot call themselves “pastor”.
3) In larger growing churches decisions need to be made at a much faster rate than what most PCUSA churches seem to be doing with the vast amount of committees etc. It does get people more involved, but instead of committees being missional minded teams, they function as guardians of areas which can cause slowness in decisions and lack of missional decision-making.
4) The BOO was written in a certain context and very needed at the time and cultural context it was developed in. I heard someone say that they like the BOO because we don’t have to “reinvent the wheel”. I agree with some of it, but it seems the BOO needs to be able to be rubber wheels not still wooden wagon wheels. We live in a different culture, communication is different, how people are being trained in seminary is different, churches are not local parishes based out of neighborhoods any longer in most places, people are not selecting churches based on denominations any longer. These are major, major differences than when the BOO was written. It needs a total revision to catch it up to the cultural context of what being a church leader in our world today is. Functionally, decision-making wise, leadership structure, leadership requirements etc.
There are reasons the PCUSA is losing people at a drastic rate and reasons why at a recent conference John Ortberg finished he message with the sobering words about PCUSA and said “it is dying”.
Andy,
Yes the people of the church “don’t give a rip” about the BOO. They care if they are being taught, cared for etc. – not what the BOO necessarily says. But it is the staff and pastor who does give a rip about it, because they live with what it says can happen or can’t happen. It effects how pastors are hired and what happens if a senior pastor leaves and who can replace him/her etc. It is bizarre that if a senior pastor leaves, it cannot be someone already on staff (unless a co-pastor is set up) to replace the person. So there are many things which certainly restrict a church especially a missional one, from being innovative and able to change as needed functionally.
Dan,
Many thanks for these thoughtful comments. You bring up some things I hadn’t thought of…here are some of my initial (half-baked) responses:
in 1 and 2, your concern seems to be with the notion of “professional” ministers. And here there is much that I am in agreement with. But it actually looks to me like your problem is not with the BoO, but with the broader structure of ordered ministry in general (at least in #1.) If this is true, then this is a problem not just with the BoO, not even with the Presbyterian Church, not just with the Western Church, but a problem with most of the visible church around the world, most of which have at least some kind of ordered ministry! Can a revision of the BoO change that? I’m all for a missional reorientation of the church (I was there to hear Ortberg’s stunning keynote) but I’m honestly thinking that tinkering (or even flat out revising) the BoO has us barking up the wrong tree.
in #3–I agree completely, but again–is this the fault of the BoO, or rather the lack of godly imagination and passion within our churches…even…gasp, among our pastors? As far as I can see, nothing in the BoO prohibits committees from becoming mission-minded teams, it’s we in the churches, we on the committees that prohibit this!
#4–I agree that there are vast cultural differences between the time of of the BoO, and the various places in which it is employed. But, is that cultural gap overly-restrictive, or benign? My inclinations are that it is benign–and frankly, I think that the fact that there are flourishing congregations all around the church (despite our general decline) proves my point–the BoO doesn’t necessarily entail stifled institutionalism. And your point brings up even more problems–what kind of constitution could possibly govern so much diversity any better?
I am in full agreement with Ortberg, but I think the problem is far more with US–leaders and members of congregations–it is WE who are not sufficiently missional, worrying overmuch about our polity puts the cart before the horse.
Finally, I take your point about the hiring policies of the BoO, but I am also aware of Associate Pastors who are deeply grateful for these policies, as they have prevented competition between colleagues (there, the BoO works against the problems of “professionalized ministry”), and also have protected AP’s from getting pressured into taking SP positions they didn’t feel called to. For what it’s worth.
This post is embarrasingly long, and I seriously want to thank you for bringing up these issues. Let me also say that if you knew me, you would find it hilarious that I am defending the BoO. In fact, I’m not really defending it, I’m just suggesting that it is not the reason the PCUSA fails to be a missional church. We could be missional with it, and I think it unlikely that we will suddenly become missional if we overhaul it. The problem Ortberg was talking about is that we have left our first love–we are not “in the life-saving business anymore.” We can’t blame the BoO for our lack of faithfulness, our inward-focus, and our fear. The blame for that lies with us.
I’ll finally stop now–but thanks, Dan!
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