PNC Meeting: A New Church and No to NFOG

          (Photo by Dwayne Bailey--hope you don't mind my copying it!)

You see above the most important thing that happened at Saturday's meeting of the Presbytery of New Covenant. Approval was given to charter our new church development, Pathways, as an official congregation for the PC(USA).

Pathways is a young congregation of mostly second and third generation Asian-Americans in the inner city area of Houston. In fact the group is so youthful that the organizing pastor, Rev. Shawn Kang, says that they don't need a youth group yet because all the children in the congregation are so young.

This is the fifth new church charter approved by our presbytery in the last six years! We're not finding the Book of Order an impediment to growing new congregations in this area.

Which brings me to the NFOG vote, which was also taken at this meeting. NFOG was resoundingly defeated, 186 to 44. 

There is a back story to this issue in our presbytery. PNC created a study group after the 2008 GA to review the NFOG. Our group found many of the same problems that have been raised by those who oppose the current NFOG that we are now voting on, and forwarded their concerns and suggestions to the NFOG Task Force. None of their issues were addressed. 

If the NFOG is not adopted, hopefully a new Task Force with new members will be created that will review the proposal and work to resolve these issues.

UPDATE: Here's the video that was shown at the Presbytery Meeting prior to the vote on approving the chartering of Pathways Church!

Diva in the News

Our own Diva was pictured in the Houston Chronicle this morning singing an aria from Dead Man Walking, the opera that will open shortly at Houston Grand Opera. Yes, this is an adaptation of the book which was also made into a movie. You can see Sister Helen Prejean in the picture looking on!

Presbytery of New Covenant's Executive Presbyter, Rev. Mike Cole, was among the group of local religious leaders gathered in opposition to the death penalty at this event.

Catherine says she is in "mezzo heaven" because she has the opportunity to work with international star Frederica von Stade  in what will be her last performance before retirement.

Amendment 10-A Fails in New Covenant

(PresbyGeek Alert! This post is about PresbyPolity in action.)

Presbytery of New Covenant voted on Amendments 10-A through O to the Constitution of the PCUSA at its meeting this morning. Amendment 10-A (to change the language of section 6.0106b relating to standards for ordination) was defeated by a vote of 156 to 144 with 4 abstentions.

There was a large turnout and the debate was respectful, "decent and in order", and pretty much covered every pro and con argument I have ever heard.

We did hear from a corresponding member from East Africa who spoke against the amendment saying that if it passed it would negatively affect relationships with Presbyterians in other parts of the world. This concern was echoed by several other African and Asian speakers.

For the record, I voted with the majority because I believe we are to be obedient to scripture, not merely guided by it.  That will come to no surprise to my faithful readers who followed the Sola Scriptura discussions with our vice moderator, Landon Whitsitt. I know if this amendment isn't approved by a majority of the presbyteries we will be doing this all over again in 2012. And if it is adopted, there will be other serious ramifications. But I also have faith that God has a plan for His church that neither side of this debate can see now.

~Aside: After all the years this issue has been argued, I can't imagine anyone abstaining. But they did.~

The only other amendment that drew debate and required a counted vote was 10-C which requires all governing bodies to adopt and implement a sexual misconduct policy. It was approved by 195 to 99. Those voting against it were concerned that there was no definition of sexual misconduct and that putting this requirement in the Constitution could expose churches that fail to follow it to litigation.

The other amendments, 10-B and D through O passed by voice votes.

New Covenant will vote on the proposed New Form of Government at its January meeting and the addition of the Belhar Confession at its June meeting. I'm glad these issues are being addressed separately because 10 A-O was quite enough polity for one day.

(End of PresbyPolity Geek Report. As you were!)

Striving To Be a Starfish Presbytery

(From Rev. Mike Cole's State of the Presbytery address last Saturday available at www.pbyofnewcovenant.org)

THIS WORLD IS:

• tired of war and needs a people committed to peace
• weary of fearfulness and needs a church which is courageous
• jaded by self-serving charlatans and needs people who hold fast to that which is good and renders no one evil for evil
• frustrated with survival of the fittest and needs those who will strengthen the fainthearted and support the weak
• fatigued from all the “isms” and needs a church which helps the afflicted and honors everyone
• tired of bad news and needs a church which loves and serves the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit

THIS WORLD NEEDS A RE-FORMED/RE-FORMING CHURCH AND PRESBYTERY WHICH IS:

• starfish-like in character
• decentralized in its power and knowledge
• able to regenerate new life even when losing part of its body
• Flexible and fluid
• where relationships and trust matter more than structure and statutes

To which I say, Amen!

Presbytery of New Covenant Report: Overture and IKE

Our presbytery had its last meeting of the year today. Attendance was the highest we have seen in a long time, perhaps because of the overture brought by First Presbyterian Church of Kingwood defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Here is the text of the overture:

The Session of First Presbyterian Church of Kingwood, Texas, requests the Presbytery of New Covenant to overture the 219th General Assembly (2010) to:

“joyfully reaffirm the historic, biblical and Christological teaching of the Church on the topic of marriage as a gift from God to bless humankind. As God created man and woman, so does God call some men and women to live together as husband and wife. God’s very order and design defines the institution of marriage.”

It passed by a written vote of 107 to 86. There was a good discussion before the vote. This overture will now be forwarded by Presbytery of New Covenant for consideration at next year's General Assembly. There is no doubt there will be other overtures on this subject on both sides of the issue that will be sent from other presbyteries.

The presbytery also showed an outstanding video about Hurricane Ike recovery (or lack of it) in southeast Texas since that storm hit just a little more than a year ago. You can view the video on the presbytery's website here. Then if you are inspired to come assist, here is more information about bringing your team down to this area to help with the rebuilding effort: Bring your mission team to Texas!

Donations for Hurricane Ike relief have been LESS THAN 1% of what was contributed for Hurricane Katrina relief. Yet Ike was the third most destructive hurricane in American history. It hit Galveston Texas with force 2 winds but a force 5 storm surge. It is estimated that it will take at least four more years to complete the recovery effort.

At lunch today I visited with a woman whose daughter and son-in-law had left Galveston and relocated to San Antonio after Ike because there was so little infrastructure left in the community. Now she is trying to establish a medical practice and he is trying to establish a law practice in a new town. There are many more stories like this one.

It was a good presbytery meeting--the music was provided by the Calabash Choir, an African group that is part of the church hosting the meeting. They had the frozen chosen moving around more than a bit!

The DCE: Last of the Mohicans?

Yesterday I had a delightful lunch with several of the gals I know around the presbytery who served their churches as Directors of Christian Education during the same time that I did--about 3 years ago.

Note the past tense. None of us are acting in that capacity today. Three of us retired for personal reasons. One was "made redundant" when the church decided to hire an associate pastor for education instead. One is now employed at the presbytery level.

Discussion revolved around plans for a DCE retreat later this month. When we talked about who was going to come, I realized that only one was currently employed as a DCE in a church and that her position was tenuous due to financial issues there.

Eight years ago when I first became a DCE there was a sizeable group of us in the presbytery. We served "program" size churches for the most part. The largest churches had associate pastors overseeing their Christian Education programs and the smaller church CE programs were covered by elders and interested lay people. Based on the discussion, it seems that DCE's are going the way of the albatross.

One of the problems, of course, is the odd position the DCE has in our polity. If you pursue the certification courses and become fully qualified as a DCE then your minimum salary in our presbytery is the same as that of a first-call pastor. Efforts to have the position of DCE become an ordained position, like that of a minister of Word and Sacrament, have been rebuffed at the last two General Assemblies and are unlikely to be successful. One of my friends pointed out that if you completed all the certification courses you only needed two additional courses to qualify as a Commissioned Lay Pastor and there is much more demand for CLP's in our presbytery than DCE's because small churches can afford them.

Although I took a couple of the courses, I made the decision not to pursue the certification because I believe my call to work in the church is not as a church professional but as an elder. I am sympathetic to the fact that without the protection afforded by being ordained under the Book of Order and having a formal call to serve as a DCE the educator can be underpaid and lack job security. But the demographics and financial realities of most PCUSA churches are not conducive to change.

Program size churches looking for DCE's find that their best (or only) candidates are found within their own congregations and will be women who can afford to work for part-time pay and no benefits. In these cases the church can't afford to cover continuing education costs for the DCE, so she either does it on her own or doesn't do it at all. Neither option is good.

The PCUSA has a surfeit of pastors seeking calls in urban and suburban areas and a decreasing number of members to support them. That doesn't augur well for the future of the DCE. And it is a shame, because when I looked around the lunch table yesterday I had to give thanks to God for the energy, intelligence, imagination and love my friends have given to the church as Christian Educators par excellence.

Presbytery Day of Service Report: MDPC

After I mentioned on QG the Presbytery of New Covenant's plans for a Day of Service in lieu of a regular presbytery meeting, I received an
email from a reporter for the Presbyterian Layman asking who he should contact to get more information on the event. I suggested he contact our General Presbyter and Moderator, and he wrote a very nice article posted on the Layman site here. I didn't realize they were following my blog, either!

So here's my report on my church's project which was called Operation Compassion. Church members spent Saturday at Spring Woods Middle School, which is a few miles from MDPC and serves an economically underprivileged area.

As we came in the school's monument sign greeted us.

We went inside to register and get our assignments.

There was already a lot of activity, plus donuts, kolaches and coffee. If you feed Presbyterians, they will come!



I was assigned to the teachers project room. Here we were given miles of laminated activity cards for math classes to cut out and clip together. I was told that since the school doesn't have many parent volunteers this was the first time the teachers had this kind of assistance. And they really went to town! Apparently they had been organizing and planning for this since last spring when they heard we were coming. I appropriated a paper cutter and got to work.

In another area of this large rooms a couple of moms and several preteen and teenage girls were putting together "goody bags" for the teachers. I spotted some nice metal thermos mugs going into the bags, which were carted away and will be a nice surprise for the teachers on their first day back to work later this month.



Here's El Jefe at his duty station: rolling lockers. That meant he was tasked with changing the combinations on the lockers. Unfortunately most of them were near the floor. "This is a good job for a short guy," he said. Which he is not. Later in the morning I found him scooting around on a rolling chair he had commandeered from someone's office.





The school had a nice courtyard that needed attention, so here's a photo of some of our gardeners. The smell of mulch filled the air--even inside the building! God bless them all for their efforts on one of the hottest days of the year.






As we left, I got this picture of church and community families eating lunch together, courtesy of Chik-Fil-A. One of the organizers told me that more people were expected for the afternoon shift than the morning shift that we worked. There was still gardening, painting, locker rolling and paper trimming to be done!


It was a great day for the church and the school and the presbytery. If your presbytery takes the challenge and schedules a day of service, let me know!

Service and Per Capita

Yesterday there was a called meeting of our presbytery (New Covenant) because instead of having a stated meeting as we usually do in August, we are having a Day of Service instead. About 60 of our churches have already committed to the project.

Each congregation chooses a service project in their community which will be done on Saturday, August 1. My church is going to do a day at a nearby middle school which serves a low-income neighborhood. We'll landscape, paint, and generally fix-up the school just before the new school year begins. At the Outreach Committee's meeting last night, I heard that we are getting a lot of sign-ups for our project!

Then on Sunday, August 2 a presbytery-wide celebration will be hosted by a Houston church and possibly by some churches in other areas of our geographically large region.

I'm excited the presbytery is encouraging the churches to get out and share the love of Christ with their neighbors through service to them.

In other news, the annual budget was approved at the called meeting (we don't use a calendar fiscal year). The budget does not make provision for "equalizing" per capita contributions by churches that do not (for whatever reason) make them. Because of revenue shortfalls the finance committee declared that funds are not available at this time for equalization because they did not want to cut back on PNC's programs--especially our extensive new church developments--in order to cover per capita. If revenues exceed projections later in the year, this may be up for reconsideration.

Interestingly my church's session sent an overture to the last meeting asking that per capita not be equalized (we are withholding per capita this year) and the overture was narrowly defeated.

PNC is the sixth largest presbytery in the denomination, so this can't be good news in Louisville.

Volunteers Needed for

Our presbytery has put out a call for volunteers to help complete the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance village in Port Neches, Texas. Thunderstorms came through the area this week, causing significant damage and there is concern the village won't be ready for the first scheduled work group. Sometimes you just can't win for losin', as we say.

You'd think there would be some provision in the Stimulus Package that would help fund the rebuilding of the Texas and Louisiana areas devastated by Hurricanes Ike, Gustav and Rita. That would certainly put people to work! I can't find any reference to that--but then, no one seems to know what is in this bill, do they?

Fantastic PW Table Scapes

This morning I attended the General Meeting of the Presbyterian Women's organization at Grace Presbyterian Church, Houston, along with a few friends from MDPC. I felt as though I had been transported back in time to the sixties and the PW luncheons at the church where I grew up.

I've never been active in PW. In fact, in the church we used to attend, PW was dissolved for lack of interest. Many churches find that the traditional format of this group just doesn't appeal to most younger women and doesn't suit their schedules.

But PW is clearly alive and well at Grace! More than 200 women were there, enjoying the singing of the Harbor Light Choir from the Salvation Army and an inspiring address from my good friend Mary Marcotte, associate general presbyter of our presbytery with a very long title that I won't try to repeat here.

But the point of this post is to share the amazing table decorations, or "Table Scapes" as the lifestyle mavens now term them. Each table was decorated--lavishly--with the theme of the hostess' choice. And there were 31 tables!

In case you need inspiration for your own Table Scapes, here are some examples: Planning a Safari Party?

Never too early to plan for New Year's...

Here's a Fourth of July Table Scape complete with placemats!

Don't you love the theme on this one: A Prissy Luncheon?

This one is for the fans of the local NBA team, the Rockets.

There's clearly lots of artistic talent and imagination in this group at Grace. The group also made a generous donation to the presbytery's Hurricane Ike Recovery Fund. Thanks, ladies!

Vote on Amendment 8-B

This post is for my PresbyPolity readers:

Presbytery of New Covenant voted on the proposed amendment to the Book of Order at yesterday's meeting. The vote on the one controversial amendment which would delete the ordination standards in 6.0106b was 119 in favor and 171 opposed. Historically, that is similar to this presbytery's vote in the past on the same issue.

Several months of careful thought and prayer by the Ecclesiastical Affairs Committee were spent in developing the format for the debate and vote on the issue. The meeting opened with worship and communion. When we got to the vote on the amendments, the less controversial amendments were presented and voted on first and then Amendment 8-B was presented separately.

Discussion of the issue began with brief presentations by an advocate and an opponent of the amendment. Then the floor was open 40 minutes for debate, each speaker being given 2 minutes. At the end of that time, a motion to extend debate to hear everyone lined up at the microphone at the time of the motion was made and passed by a close vote. At the close of discussion there was a time for silent prayer and then two pastors who hold opposite views on the issue offered a prayer that they had prepared collaboratively.

I believe this format has been used by a few other presbyteries. It seemed to work very well for us and I would recommend it to other presbyteries that may be looking for a good framework for the presentation of this vote and the debate. I heard a lot of positive comments from people on both sides about the way in which the issue was presented and the discussion. Kudos to everyone involved, especially our new Moderator, Rev. Wayne Eberly.

QG's Swan Song as Mod

Saturday's presbytery meeting marked my last time to preside as Moderator. I took the opportunity to Honorably Retire the old Moderator's stole, which displayed the Year of the Child logo. The Year of the Child morphed into the Decade of the Child. But the decade elapsed in 2000 and yet the stole kept being passed down.

My suggestion that it was time for a change was received with enthusiasm, so my gift to the presbytery is pictured here. Dear Friend Dorothy embroidered the badges on it for me which represent the logo of the presbytery and then the legend "Moderator Presbytery of New Covenant." Our inimitable Stated Clerk took H.R. Stole home with her to get dry-cleaned before displaying it at the presbytery offices.

The meeting theme was "the vitality of the presbytery." There were no controversial issues on the agenda since the proposed BOO amendments will be voted on at the February meeting.

We did hear a comprehensive report on the presbytery's IKE recovery efforts. The election and the economic crisis have pushed IKE off the front pages of the national news and there has been very little support outside our area for the recovery effort. Other denominations are reporting the same thing. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is preparing to open two worksite camps in the area soon as they open their long-term rebuilding program.

Many thanks to the thoughtful saints at First Presbyterian Church of Pasadena who did a superb job hosting the meeting. I was fighting a new cold and was delighted to see the lectern thoughtfully stocked with water bottles! That really helped to keep me from having a very unattractive and distracting coughing fit in the midst of the meeting.

Although we installed our next Moderator (Rev. Wayne Eberly, good luck and Godspeed!) , my term continues until the end of this year. I have a couple more meetings and at least one more ordination to go. Then I'll return to my local church (Memorial Drive, Houston), from whence I came.

Christmas Project Suggestion

This is about the time of year that Sunday School classes and church small groups begin to think about what to do for a group Christmas project--do I have a suggestion for you, especially if you are part of a Presbyterian congregation in the Synod of the Sun.

SCRAPCE (South Central Region of the Association of Presbyterian Christian Educators) is sponsoring the IKE Classroom Recovery Project to help congregations devastated by the storm rebuild and re-equip their Christian Education space.

Remember IKE???? We sure do.

Congregations that will be assisted by the project are First Presbyterian, Galveston; Emmanuel Presbyterian, Galveston; West Isle Presbyterian, Galveston; and Hurricane Gustav-damaged Baker Presbyterian, Baker, Louisiana.

Donors can elect to fund all or part of a classroom and will be put in touch with the recipient congregation so they can share prayers and develop relationships as well as send money. SCRAPCE will match the donors with congregations to ensure that the funds are spread equitably.

For more information about the project and how to participate, go to the Hurricane Ike Recovery page on the New Covenant Presbytery website. Scroll down to the middle of the page to the Classroom Recovery Project links.

What If?

Since I missed worship at my church last Sunday because I had committed to represent presbytery at a mission fair at another church, I downloaded the sermon on my iphone. Our pastor said that he was seriously considering having a Sunday when the church was completely closed so that the congregation would worship by engaging in service to the community.

Our presbytery is considering doing something similar next year--having an abbreviated meeting on a Saturday and then encouraging all of its congregations to go out into their communities on Sunday and engage in appropriate community service projects.

It must be some kind of movement! What if it really happened?

Presbytery Re-opens Monday

I'm cross posting this information with the PNC Hurricane Recovery Blog.

Power has been restored at the Presbyterian Center! However, downed power lines remain in the parking lot so the office will not officially re-open until Monday morning.

The server and internet are now working. If you sent an email to a staff member on September 11 or later, you will need to re-send it.

Presbyterian Disaster Relief representatives will continue to office at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church, Houston.

(The majority of the Houston metropolitan area is still without power. Officials expect 75% of the power to be restored by Monday.)

PNC Hurricane Ike Recovery Blog

At the request of our General Presbyter, Rev. Mike Cole, I have morphed the presbytery's General Assembly Newsblog into a Hurricane Ike Recovery Blog so that it can serve as a clearinghouse for information and assistance to those in our presbytery affected by Hurricane Ike.

As folks send me information or requests for information and assistance, I will post it on that blog. The blog is also linked on the presbytery's website. Please pass the word by email, blog link or word of mouth to whoever would be interested. Most of our area is still without power, but folks are getting to the internet via wifi in public areas.

They also serve who simply sit and blog!

Presbytery Meeting: Three Down, One to Go

Saturday was the third stated presbytery meeting of the year. We met at Grand Lakes Presbyterian Church in Katy, Texas. Just a few short years ago, Grand Lakes was a New Church Development. What a joy it was to see that this NCD has developed into a church with a lovely sanctuary and building large enough to host a presbytery meeting! When I was a young girl, I remember driving through the then small railroad crossing of Katy. Now it is a booming suburban area of Houston.

This year we have chosen themes for each presbytery meeting. Saturday's theme was "The Diversity of the Presbytery". The highlight of the meeting was the keynote address by Rev. Jin Kim, senior pastor of The Church of All Nations, Minneapolis MN. Rev. Kim's address at General Assembly created quite a stir as he afflicted the comfortable with his prophetic message about multicultural church. He did the same thing in our meeting. I found myself nodding in agreement some of the time and squirming uncomfortably in my seat over other points he made. Rev. Kim left us with a lot to think about!

There was a sermon for ordination given by a young woman who will be going as a missionary to a church in Northern Ireland and a candidacy service for another young woman who was a member of an NCD that serves second generation Asians. It's always a privilege to participate in the ordination process.

The meeting concluded about an hour ahead of schedule! Unless (God forbid!) there is another called meeting scheduled this year, I have only one more presbytery meeting to preside over--in November.

Installation in Angleton

Yesterday I drove down to Angleton, Texas for yet another installation. Angleton is about an hour's drive from Sugar Land, but I don't remember stopping there before.

I was surprised to see by the monument sign that the church is over 100 years old! The building looks much newer than that and the sanctuary is a lovely space with pretty medium wood pews and a couple of large stained glass windows.

My guess is that over 100 people gathered for the afternoon service and they were a healthy mix of ages. It seems like a lively congregation. As I sat in the chancel area facing them, I wondered what their stories were and what the next few years will bring. Angleton is outside of Houston exurbia and appears to be a pretty, fairly prosperous small town. The new pastor is a second career woman about my age, I would guess, who came to our presbytery from Odessa, Texas.

Being a music person myself, I always notice the choir, who were enthusiastic and have a good director. They began the service with a spirited rendition of "Down to the River To Pray" and were even swaying to the tune--no frozen chosen here!

The most remarkable thing was the handbell ringer. Yes there was just one ringer and she deftly played a set of bells that had more than three octaves! Even more remarkable to me was the fact that the pianist who accompanied her sat behind her and no one directed the two of them, yet they stayed together perfectly. Amazing!

God bless Pastor Nora Fitch and the saints at First Presbyterian Church, Angleton. Traveling around the presbytery for installations is definitely the best part of being Mom of Presbytery.

Next Steps

The "Next Steps" event at Synod drew representatives from all the presbyteries of the Synod of the Sun for a couple of days of discussing the events of General Assembly and anticipated responses from our churches. The four of us from New Covenant were guilty of coveting our neighbor's Presbytery Building: the Presbyterian Center in Dallas is a gleaming, well-equipped new building which is a far cry from our poor-but-proud center in Houston with the duct-taped carpet.

Nothing of note transpired in the discussions. Predictably, there were calls for more "listening to each other", as if listening and understanding the deeply held division of viewpoint would somehow restore unity.

Tuesday morning I met with the "Outside the Box" small group. Members of that group expressed frustration that the structure of the GA does not provide for ways to address the continuing decline of the denomination. I did have a chance to float an idea that I've been kicking around with El Jefe and it got some traction. What if we put together a group of 10 pastors with a demonstrated track record of growing churches and making disciples and asked them to put together recommendations about how the denomination could support and enable its churches to focus on making disciples--by re-allocating resources, changing denominational priorities and staffing patterns, and changing denominational structures? I don't know who should serve on such a group, but I'm sure there are ways to find out.

One of the small groups was "Separation Without Division." That group reported that they believed that separation without division describes the situation in the denomination today. That has huge implications, but it is impossible to specifically project what those implications are at this point.

I try to stay positive when I post about the PCUSA, but I'm not feeling very positive after this meeting. I don't think anyone else did either.

Off To Synod Meeting

I'm off to Dallas this morning to attend the Synod of the Sun's "Next Steps" meeting in Dallas today and tomorrow. If there's anything of interest to report, I'll do it when I return.

Have a lovely Monday and Tuesday!