I just read a fascinating blog post by Adam Copeland and immediately wondered what my fellow PCCers would think. What did Adam do that was so thought-provoking? He live-blogged a presbytery meeting. That is, he published a play-by-play of the meeting as it was happening. A portion of the post is reproduced here:
So what do you think? How would presbyters you know react to one of their own broadcasting the meeting in real-time?
I came across a great little resource on the Presbyterians Today website called “How to Speak Presbyterian.”
Written by Rev. P.J. Southam, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), it helps explain some of the oddities of Presbyterian jargon – with a little theology thrown in. For the most part it is as applicable to The PCC as to the PC(USA) with two key differences being that our General Assemblies are annual rather than bi-annual and we have a Book of Forms rather than a Book of Order.
The resource can be found here: http://www.pcusa.org/today/archive/believe/speak.htm
The title of this blog pretty clearly sets out my perspective on communicating what the PCC is all about: the most important story about The Presbyterian Church in Canada is the illustration of what it is to BE Presbyterian in Canada today.
I came across a blog post written last year by Bruce Reyes-Chow, who is now the Moderator of the PC(USA). In it he outlines what he sees as the obstacles that are killing the Church. He does this by pushing several issues through the dichotomy of the modern and post-modern worldviews. One in particular seemed particularly relevant to the BeingPresbyterian readership:
OBSTACLE // We value the DOing of the institution over BEing in relationship:
Modernity says that community is in the methodology and ways we DO church; Postmodernity says that community is about BEing church.We Presbyterians are gooooooood at this one. Our Book of Order is "clear" and we can use polity to create community. We can structure our way into being the body of Christ. Buzzzz. Thank you for playing. Now don’t get me wrong. I love our polity, the spirit in which it was and is written, the guidance it gives, the bounds it helps to set, etc. but it will NOT create community. The ways we DO church should only be lifted up in as much as the DOing helps to sustain the BEing.
At the same time, if a church community believes that it’s ministry is worth outliving the people who are there at a particular moment and time, some kind of structure and DOing church must take place in order to create sustainability. In the end though, every time we face a choice, we should be about BEing church.
Until today I had considered doing and being to be interchangeable. Bruce has successfully challenged that part of my thinking, and I thank him for that.
For those of us who grew up in the church, Sunday school teachers hold a special and significant place in our memories. The wacky one, the serious one, the one that always wore jeans and the one that always wore a tie. There is often also one that made a difference in your life in one way or another.
Sunday school teachers are a valuable asset for the Church and we have a responsibility as a denomination to provide the resources they need to shape the young hearts they’ve been entrusted with.
Through The Vine Helpline, the PCC produces countless resources for our congregations in the areas of evangelism, congregational development, and children & youth ministry among others. One of the ways The Vine is able to this is through ecumenical partnerships through which we can pool our resources and produce quality products that would otherwise be beyond our means to create.
One of those partnerships, PREP – Presbyterian Reformed Education Partnership, came together to create an online training resource for Sunday school teachers called Opening Doors to Discipleship. The other member denominations of PREP are: The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, The Moravian Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), and The Reformed Church in America.
Opening Doors to Discipleship is designed as a series of three courses with twelve sessions each. The courses are free of charge to members of the PREP denominations. Below is a video, produced by PREP, that explains the program in detail:
For more information or to get your login information, contact The Vine at thevine@presbyterian.ca. More detailed info about Opening Doors to Discipleship is available on the website at http://openingdoorstodiscipleship.com
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