New Wineskins churches set bar high for other renewalists By John H. Adams The Layman Online Tuesday, July 25, 2006 TULSA – During a summer and fall when renewal groups are considering how to respond to the actions of the 2006 General Assembly, the New Wineskins Association of Churches has led off with an agenda that will be hard to match in intensity and clarity. Three other groups – the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, the Presbyterian Coalition and the combination of Constitutional Presbyterians and some Confessing Churches – will meet in August and September. They will have one advantage in framing their response. By the time they meet, they will have some sense of the fallout from the New Wineskins decisions – particularly if the denomination mounts an aggressive counterattack against the New Wineskins' agenda. The delegates to the New Wineskins Convocation made their agenda clear: 1. They voted to appoint a working group that will draft a recommendation on congregations seeking dismissal from their presbyteries. 2. They called on congregations to take steps to protect their property from being taken over by the denomination. 3. They recommended that sessions "redirect or designate all General Assembly per capita and mission giving to intentionally support ministries that reflect our faith and missional priorities." 4. They called on sessions and presbyteries to begin asking pointed questions about the relationship – present and future – of evangelicals and the denomination. 5. They asked presbyteries to recognize the right of conscience to discuss these issues and refrain from taking administrative or disciplinary action against church officers. That agenda is bolder and more aggressive than anything declared publicly by the other groups, even though all of them have registered strong opposition to the two decisions by the 2006 General Assembly that the New Wineskins Association of Churches targeted. Those two issues are 1) the approval of the authoritative interpretation that allows ordaining bodies to decide that the "fidelity/chastity" clause in the Book of Order is nonessential and 2) the receiving of a paper that offers alternatives to the historic Trinitarian language of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Presbyterian Global Fellowship Next up among the evangelical respondents is Presbyterian Global Fellowship, which will meet in Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on August 17-19. With 8,413 members, including 703 who joined during 2005, Peachtree is the largest congregation in the denomination. The purpose of the meeting is to rally congregations behind a cooperative mission program both within and independent of the denomination's shrinking commitment to missions. The fellowship seeks to create a "means by which congregations might rethink their stewardship of resources in terms of our missional calling, and intentionally invest financial resources in mission endeavors in local and global Presbyterian mission, encouraging a designation of all giving by congregations toward the most effective, accountable and biblically faithful mission efforts, within the Presbyterian family and elsewhere." The fellowship, whose leaders include Vic Pentz, Peachtree's senior pastor, and Michael Walker, the executive director of Presbyterians For Renewal, has declared its opposition to leaving the denomination. It emphasizes that opposition by quoting Richard A.J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, at the top of the fellowship's Web site: "We must not go off into a corner by ourselves … we must align ourselves not by splitting but by expanding … I am excited about the new Presbyterian Global Fellowship." Online registration for the fellowship's meeting is $150 per person until August 4, when the fee will rise to $200. The fellowship is also providing telephone registration by calling 866-850-5099. Presbyterian Coalition The Presbyterian Coalition has billed its meeting on August 16-17 at North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta as "a discussion of a way forward." It scheduled the meeting at that time so that its participants could also attend the fellowship's gathering. The Coalition has made some general suggestions, but none rising to the level of directness that the New Wineskins Association of Churches adopted. Those suggestions include: 1. Acting in ways that help create a "fair, deliberative process in each of our ordaining and installing bodies." 2. Turn to Scripture and prayer. 3. "Inform your congregations and networks of the actions the General Assembly has taken." 4. Make public statements affirming the "fidelity/chastity" ordination requirement. Ask the presbytery to affirm the requirement. 5. Make commitments to be involved in presbytery work, focusing on the Committee on Ministry, the Committee on Pastoral Ministry, the Nominating Committee and the Presbytery Permanent Judicial Commission. The Coalition is a loose-knit organization that in past years sponsored "Gatherings" to muster campaigns against repealing the denomination's ordination requirements. Some of those Gatherings attracted more than 1,000 Presbyterians, but attendance in recent years has declined sharply with the absence since 2001 of national referendums on the ordination requirements. The August meeting of the Coalition is billed as a "Ya'll Come." Its registration fee is $25 through August 1 and $40 thereafter. The Coalition's Web site does not list an agenda for the meeting. Constitutional Presbyterians The Constitutional Presbyterians is the newest of the respondents. The group, which was organized shortly before the 2006 General Assembly, will meet Sept. 28-30 in Pittsburgh in partnership with some of the congregations in the Confessing Church Movement. Unknown is how many Confessing Churches will send representatives to the meeting. With more than 1,300 congregations, the Confessing Church Movement is the largest of the renewal groups. But it has no national leadership body or organizational structure. Each of the renewal groups include support from some of the Confessing Churches. Like the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, the Constitutional Presbyterians have issued statements that support remaining in the denomination. "We believe the Spirit of God will renew and reform the Presbyterian Church (USA), and we hope to be a part of that renewal and reformation," Constitutional Presbyterians say in their call to action. They also say, "Being Constitutional Presbyterians means we will be the Presbyterian Church (USA). We have long thought God is calling us to be, in this way seeking renewal and reformation in this church." The Constitutional Presbyterians have not posted an agenda on their meeting in Pittsburgh, nor have registration fees been published. Outside the renewal groups, another key meeting is scheduled in September. The General Assembly Council will meet in Louisville, Ky., the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (USA), on Sept. 27-30. The New Wineskins Association of Churches has asked General Assembly Moderator Joan Gray, a member of the council, to support a moratorium in considering disciplinary action against congregations considering leaving the denomination. If she brings that request to the table, her response and the response of the council could frame the nature and terms of the future relationship of the denomination with its evangelical constituency.

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