Being Presbyterian

Replace "consumer" with "parishioner" and this becomes extremely relevant…

"'Know your consumer' is a business commandment certain to be deeply ingrained at the heart of any successful company. Never, however, has that consumer morphed so quickly or become so elusive. It is important for marketers to grasp and understand the key drivers of this new empowered consumer, one who has grown up with brand new perspectives and redefined the interplay of communications, relationships, brands, technology and media. This is Consumer 2.0."

My tradition is not one of those don't-miss-a-beat-between-former-pastor-and-new-pastor denominations (like our brothers and sisters in the UMC and beyond.) We Presbyterians go for the model of having an interim pastor between called pastorates which makes some people crazy (let's just get on with it already!) and some relieved.

"In the Presbyterian Church, we have an educated clergy. That’s among the main reasons why I joined the PC(USA). I wanted a pastor who was smarter than I was, and I wasn’t finding that in the Calvary Chapel megachurch that I was attending.

We love that our pastors know Greek and Hebrew. We take great pride in our seminary and ordination requirements. In fact, we have so much pride in them that we have been fighting over ordination standards for decades…."

"How do people who sing with their eyes closed know all the words? It’s uncanny. You watch them, and even on the new songs that a music minister introduces or the choruses that a special music performer asks the congregation to join in, they don’t miss a beat.

Do they get advance warning on what the songs are going to be? Are they coming to church early each Sunday and memorizing what’s going to be performed? Are they doing the “watermelon” and just mumbling “watermelon, watermelon” in a holy-looking way so that it looks like they’re singing along with the words? How in the world does someone singing with their eyes shut know all the words to all the songs in the world?" (more…)

"Much has been made over the last few months about the decline, or potential decline, of various Protestant subgroups. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) singled out the Mainline churches, there was the op-ed piece by Michael Spencer on "The Coming Evangelical Collapse", and last week Newsweek had one of their famous, or is that infamous, C&E (Christmas and Easter) articles on "The End of Christian America." And that does not count the current debate about whether the United States is now or was a Christian nation to begin with (some say yes, others say no, and some say that it depends on the context and what you mean), a debate sparked by the President's recent comments in Turkey. There is also an NPR piece today about the secularization of Britain."

"It made me wonder how many ministries out there have gone “paperless” or who are moving toward that direction? I wonder how many more ministries haven’t even considered that this might be something looking into?

I think the Church should be an example of how to best preserve and protect the planet. I’m not sure that I can say that now, but perhaps by the time my kids grow up that’ll have changed."

"Over the past few years I have become more and more convinced that if the church hopes to reach out to folks in meaningful and effective ways, we MUST embrace the power of social media.

Shocker I know

It is pretty simple really, with more and more folks using the internet to find all of the things they need in life – doctors, pre-schools, support groups, social gatherings – shouldn't we, as the church, be there too? Of course, word of mouth and personal invitations will always have a place, but the ways in which the internet allows folks to do more research about all of life's needs, including a place of spiritual growth, must not be ignored. "