In the business world, “elevator pitch” is now almost a cliche. The basic premise is that you should be able to succinctly describe your company and its value proposition in the time it takes to ride an office-tower or hotel elevator. It’s a well-rehearsed answer to a simple question: What do you do?

Cliche or not, the ability to quickly articulate your purpose as an organization is as important to churches as it is to businesses. How do you answer the “What do you do?” question? How could you do it better?

It’s important to note that I’m not talking about a mission statement or vision that guides the work of your church. These are, primarily, inward-facing statements that capture our dreams for the future.

So let’s do some collaborating.

How would (or should) your church answer the question “What do you do?” in a way that differentiates it from every other church in town… in only three sentences.

Use the comments below to leave an elevator pitch for your church!
Be creative!

It has been a very busy few months in the Communications Office as we’ve launched several new websites to better serve and equip The PCC! If you will indulge me a little back-patting, I’d like to take you on a little tour.

Equipping For… (www.equippingfor.ca)
The EquippingFor… series of articles have long been a staple of the quarterly PC-Pak mailing. These popular articles are now available in an online magazine format at EquippingFor.ca. The website displays the articles by category and offers readers the opportunity to receive the articles by email.

The Moderator Blog (www.presbyterian.ca/moderator)
In a first for The PCC, Herb Gale, Moderator of the 136th General Assembly, will be sharing the experiences of his moderatorial year through a blog.  Herb has already garnered kudos for his blogging “gusto”. You can also subscribe to email updates of Herb’s blog posts.

The Sari Diaries (www.pccweb.ca/michelleverwey)
Follow Michelle Verwey as she chronicles her experiences as a teacher of nurses in India. Michelle is one of many serving overseas through the International Ministries office of the Life and Mission Agency.

The Amity Blog (www.pccweb.ca/amity)
Each year The PCC sends group of volunteers to China as part of the Amity Program. You can read about their experiences on the Amity Blog.

There have also been a lot of changes over at presbyterian.ca. I’ll be showcasing some of the highlights in this space over the next few weeks.

Please feel free to leave your feedback about these new websites here – we’re always looking for input from the Presbyterian community!

So what do you think? How would presbyters you know react to one of their own broadcasting the meeting in real-time?

Here’s a good one asking about the nature of the Trinity. We thought we’d post it here for the benefit of others.

Hello,

I just read on your website this quote:

“As Presbyterians, we believe in the triune God. In other words, God is
one person and yet three: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

Do you believe that God is three persons in one God or three Gods in one
person?

Also, is belief in a triune God necessary for salvation as the Nicene
Creed tells us?  I find zero scriptures that tell us that it is.

The Rev. Dr. Rick Fee, General Secretary of the Life and Mission Agency, consulted with The Reverend Dr Clyde Ervine, Minister at Central Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Ontario and former Professor at Presbyterian College, Montreal, Quebec, and came up with this answer:

Thank you so much for your e-mail concerning the reference to God on our web-site.  You have asked several critical and complicated questions. I hope what follows will help clarify.

As a Christian church, we believe in the triune God. That is what the website says and that is what is important to us.  All sorts of people say they believe in God.  But ‘god’ can be used in very generic ways.  When Christians say ‘God’, they are naming God in a particular way, namely as the God of whom we read in both the Old and New Testaments, a God who is ultimately Creator, but also the Redeemer of a creation that has gone awry.

We believe that the ultimate creator God, in order to redeem creation, actually stepped into creation in human form, in the person of Jesus.  And we believe too that Jesus, who is no longer visible, sent his Spirit to us whom we name as the Holy Spirit.  God, for us, is certainly one, yet known through the persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  As one might expect, God is a much more profound reality than the human mind might imagine.

You are quite correct in noting that the Bible doesn’t present a doctrine of God in a systematic fashion.  But, to suggest that there is zero scripture relating to the triune nature of God, is going too far.

Scripture isn’t a philosophical treatise or even a theological one; it is essentially a narrative.  But in narrative form, what unfolds is an ever-enlarging picture of God, whom we know first of all as a largely hidden, transcendent deity, but whose real and loving nature is slowly revealed through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Admittedly, any human language for God remains human, and can never do justice to the heights and depths of who God is.  But the church has not come up with a better way of describing God than by insisting that God is one and indivisible, yet within Gods-self, a perfect, eternal community of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This is the God we worship and serve, and this is the God whom we believe will save this world.  As to whether it is necessary for salvation that we understand the triune nature of God, that question is surely answered over and over again in the negative.  That is, all through the Old Testament, before the full, triune nature of God had been revealed, all sorts of people trusted in the God about whom they did know.  And that is a good way of approaching others today who are worshippers of God, but do not know God’s triune nature.  Though believing Jesus to be the fullness of God in human form, or as the Bible says, the Light of the World, we do not dismiss the presence of God’s light before the coming of Jesus, nor in other places and people who know nothing yet of Jesus.

I hope this helps to answer your thoughtful query.

And by the way, the wording on our web-site might need a slight change so that it reads: “In other words, God is one God, yet revealed in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.

“We used to spend our time trying to get people to come to church. Now, we’ve got to find ways to take church to them.”
Craig Groeschel

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If you haven’t already, you can should check out the Clay Shirky video I posted back in July.