My Presbyblogger friends who are interested the New Wineskins Convocation in Orlando last weekend will want to check out the contrasting reports from attendees Toby Brown :"Day Two No looking Back"and "Cliffs Not Named Kirkpatrick" by Bayou Christian.
Showing posts with label New Wineskins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Wineskins. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Mesdames Moderators
Here are the Moderator (Rev. Deborah Cooper) and Moderator Elect (yours truly) of New Covenant Presbytery after our installation at yesterday's presbytery meeting.
The meeting went extraordinarily well. The plan to repay the Million Dollar problem was overwhelmingly adopted and a second vote is now scheduled for February 27. Thank you for your prayers and comments which were a great support for me.
The meeting went extraordinarily well. The plan to repay the Million Dollar problem was overwhelmingly adopted and a second vote is now scheduled for February 27. Thank you for your prayers and comments which were a great support for me.
Dr. Craig Barnes preached an incredible sermon on the subject of "Pastor as Minor Poet." There's no way I can summarize this, but fortunately I am told that this is part of his next new book. Reverendmother, I kept thinking how much you would have loved it!
We voted on 68 pages of amendments to the Form of Government portion of the Book of Order. Wait, you say, what about the FOG Task Force and its work? That was a concern of many in the presbytery as well as a concern for moving portions of that section out of the BOO and into advisory handbooks. Results of the voting were mixed but clearly reflected reluctance to make any changes before the FOG made its report. For you Presbypolity types keeping score, New Covenant defeated amendments 06-A, 06-B.1, 06-B.2, and 06-C by large margins and approved 06-B.3, 06-D, 06-E and 06-F.
UPDATE, CORRECTION AND APOLOGY: Dear Readers, Please accept my apologies for erroneously attributing the formation of the EPC to disagreement with the ordination of women in the PCUSA in the first version of this post. Jim Loughlin has correctly pointed out in a comment that this was the reason for the PCA split not the EPC. I am embarrassed to have made this mistake and am revising the rest of this post accordingly to avoid continuing to contribute misinformation to this debate. I really do know my history better than that. Thanks, Jim, for calling me on my mistake and thanks to Will Spotts for questioning it as well.
When I got home from the meeting, news that Presbyterians assembled in Orlando this weekend at the New Wineskins meeting voted to accept the formation of a transitional NW presbytery in partnership with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and to establish a covenanted network of NW churches within the PCUSA was on the internet. Time will tell how significant this event will be in the life of the PCUSA.
Although the EPC allows local congregations to ordain women, there are congregations that will not ordain women pastors or elders in the denomination. Little wonder the EPC wants to keep departing PCUSA congregations segregated in a non - geographical presbytery while it determines whether it can absorb them without a lot of disruption to its own congregations.
About 1990, the church where our daughters was baptized split over national PCUSA issues. El Jefe and I had already transferred our membership to Suburban Presbyterian Church before this occured. There was a big debate among those who left about where to affiliate and they went with the EPC because it permitted, although it did not insist upon, the ordination of women. I just checked the website of the church that formed out of this and it does not have any ordained women on staff nor any women elders but does have women deacons.
This is why many women in the PCUSA who might otherwise be sympathetic to the theological positions of the New Wineskins and the EPC are skeptical about the position of the EPC on women and church leadership and ministry.
Although the EPC allows local congregations to ordain women, there are congregations that will not ordain women pastors or elders in the denomination. Little wonder the EPC wants to keep departing PCUSA congregations segregated in a non - geographical presbytery while it determines whether it can absorb them without a lot of disruption to its own congregations.
About 1990, the church where our daughters was baptized split over national PCUSA issues. El Jefe and I had already transferred our membership to Suburban Presbyterian Church before this occured. There was a big debate among those who left about where to affiliate and they went with the EPC because it permitted, although it did not insist upon, the ordination of women. I just checked the website of the church that formed out of this and it does not have any ordained women on staff nor any women elders but does have women deacons.
This is why many women in the PCUSA who might otherwise be sympathetic to the theological positions of the New Wineskins and the EPC are skeptical about the position of the EPC on women and church leadership and ministry.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Too Late for Blather
Things are heating up again in the Presbyland. Today's letter to the churches from the Stated Clerk and Executive Director of the PCUSA, posted under the title "Unwavering Confidence Expressed in Letter to Congregations" in fact expresses no such thing. Although Kirkpatrick and Valentine fail to name it, the letter is clearly written in response to fears that the New Wineskins Association of Churches meeting in Orlando later this week will be followed by more than "a few" congregations seeking to leave the PCUSA.
Why be so coy? The New Wineskins published a plan whereby congregations leaving the PCUSA would join a non-geographic presbytery of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church for a period of five years as a transition into that denomination. That is on the agenda. There have been a few churches leave for the EPC already, and clearly this convocation is (and ought to be) a serious concern in Louisville. Presbybloggers Toby Brown and Bayou Christian will be in attendance, so check their blogs for their reports and observations if you'd like to read a first hand account.
Why be so coy? The New Wineskins published a plan whereby congregations leaving the PCUSA would join a non-geographic presbytery of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church for a period of five years as a transition into that denomination. That is on the agenda. There have been a few churches leave for the EPC already, and clearly this convocation is (and ought to be) a serious concern in Louisville. Presbybloggers Toby Brown and Bayou Christian will be in attendance, so check their blogs for their reports and observations if you'd like to read a first hand account.
Sharing this letter will raise more questions than it answers for most people in the pews. It is past time for straight talk, not more tedious smokescreens and pious blather. The letter reveals an inability to acknowledge and deal with the very real division in the church, and further undermines whatever confidence in GA officials remains.
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