 Presbyterian Global Fellowship Conference showcases the 'missional church' By Parker T. Williamson The Layman Online Monday, August 20, 2007 HOUSTON – Eight hundred Presbyterians surfed a Texas heat wave into Houston's Convention Center for an upbeat, high-decibel celebration of the "missional church" sponsored by the Presbyterian Global Fellowship (PGF), a cluster of mostly "tall steeple" clerics who share a vision for the transformation of America's mainline congregations.
Anthony Evans, son of TV evangelist Tony Evans, poured passion into a gyrating crowd as he sang from the depths of his soul. "Jesus, Jesus," he sang as an electrified audience, hands uplifted, swayed before that name above all names. Flanking the singers and speakers, giant orbs revealed images of cityscapes and global cartography over which a Cross cast its unmistakable shadow. High above center stage, a massive inverted triangle beamed light to the floor below, suggesting a heavenly descent. During most of the event, the crowd sat in darkness while black-clad stagehands, their ear buds tuned to communications central, darted across the "worship set," adjusting the medium to its message. In this high-tech moment, keynote speaker David Peterson, pastor of Houston's Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church and a PGF host for the group's second conference, traversed the stage, red Bible in hand, sharing vignettes and calling God's "frozen chosen" to break out of their comfort zones.
Mainline vs. missional The traditional church took lots of hits at this conference. Scattered throughout the event were video clips of a starch-shirted, neck-tied mainline church person who, if ever he dared to dance, would be hard pressed to find a partner. "Mainline," playing the part of a fool, encountered "missional" in 30-second video jousts. Almost all references to the Presbyterian Church (USA) during this conference were negative, though none was quite so caustic as those projected in the video clips. Some speakers, in fact, showed affection for the institution and expressed sadness over its approaching extinction. John Ortberg, teaching minister of California's Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, speculated that he probably was one of the newest Presbyterians in the room, having recently left the staff of the nondenominational Willow Creek Church to take the reins at Menlo Park. He said that, as he studied the denomination's rich Reformed heritage, he had fallen in love with it. Then, choking back tears, Ortberg whispered, "And it's dying!" Near the conclusion of his address, apparently unable to find his final words, he walked off the stage. Urging the cat to 'scat' Peterson employed two metaphors in his references to the PCUSA, one from a nursing home and the other from a weed field. He told the audience of a cat named Oscar who resides in a nursing home. Oscar, he said, is an amazing cat and, "No one knows how he does what he does." The cat has an uncanny ability to know when one of the residents is about to die. Without fail, he said, Oscar enters a dying patient's room and curls up on the bed, 30 minutes before death occurs. Peterson said PGF would like to think that it is helping to keep the cat off the PCUSA's bed. Switching his metaphor, he suggested that the appropriate methodology for keeping Oscar away would not be "politics," an agenda promoted by the Presbyterian Coalition in a conference that preceded the PGF event. Instead, Patterson proposed to "over-seed" the weed-infested denomination. Peterson spelled out the metaphor by describing a treatment that was used on his lawn. The grass had been infested with a disease that was killing it. Peterson learned of a new, disease resistant seed. He aerated the existing lawn with a spiked wheel that punched thousands of holes into the surface. Then he "over-seeded" the area with a heavy dose of the disease-resistant seed. "It works," Peterson announced. The old grass is dying, he said, and the new grass is taking its place. No more blank checks "No more blank checks" is the formula that PGF suggests for dealing with a dying mainline denomination. PGF says it has no intention to invest precious energy and resources into trying to save or even reform the old structures. In fact, it sponsored a seminar at its event in which diverting per-capita contributions away from the General Assembly and designating all mission giving was recommended. During the seminar, Vic Pentz, senior minister of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Ga., the largest congregation in the denomination, informed participants that his session had cut off all per-capita contributions to the Office of the General Assembly and is sending the money to PGF instead. Scott Weimer, senior pastor of North Avenue Presbyterian Church, another prominent Atlanta church, said his session also has curtailed its giving to this funding. Shenango Presbytery Executive David Dawson told seminar participants that donor-designated giving has become an increasing trend in the denomination. Presbyterian congregations want to maintain a direct relationship between their contributions and the recipients of their gifts. They no longer accept the notion that restricting their gifts to particular denominational programs or to ministries that are outside the denominational imprimatur are acts of disloyalty. De-funding the Office of the General Assembly Referring to a General Assembly mandate that presbyteries make up the difference when local churches choose not to pay per-capita assessments, Dawson identified an exception to the rule. Presbyteries are required to make up the difference only "if they are able to do so." Dawson said his presbytery maintains a separate bank account to receive and disburse per-capita contributions. Money from churches that choose to make a General Assembly per-capita contribution is deposited in this account, and the presbytery sends a check to the Office of the General Assembly that reflects the amount that has been collected. That check reflects "all we are able to pay," he said. Dawson added that he believes it would be unethical for a presbytery to make a per-capita payment to the General Assembly on behalf of a congregation whose session, for reasons of conscience, chose not to contribute. Such payments would, in effect, take money away from funds that donors had designated for other purposes and, he said, they would undermine a session's act of conscience. In lieu of fighting with leaders of a dying denomination, PGF leaders say they intend to be the missional church that they believe God is calling them to be. They are hoping that conferences like the Houston event will spread that seed - from congregation to congregation – until they literally over-seed the dying denomination with locally controlled, new life ministries. Seeing God, church and the world differently
God is not some distant deity in heaven, calling Christians "up there," Frost said. "God comes to us." That's the nature of God from the very beginning, he said. In the act of creation, God extended Himself through the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring the Earth and all its inhabitants into being. In the life of Israel, God continually visited His people, intervening in their lives and calling them to be a light unto the nations. In Jesus Christ, God took on human flesh, became Incarnate and entered the very bones and sinews of our lives. And in the church, the Body of Christ becomes salt and light in the world, he said. Not only does the missional church see God differently, Frost said, but it sees the church differently. The church participates with Christ as He is being sent into the world. The church is called to be "incarnational," to invest itself into the life of its community, he said, adding that its call is to go to people rather than passively waiting to receive them. Finally, Frost said, the missional church sees the world differently. "Too much church thinking says, 'It's nice in here, but not out there,'" he said. "There's wheat and weeds both in and outside the church. We're all broken. Every one of us reflects the image of God that must be teased out, and we also carry the stain of sin that needs forgiveness." Marks of the missional church Frost identified the marks of the missional church as "proximity, presence, powerlessness and proclamation." "The missional church is called to proximity with those who have not yet been set free," he said. "We cannot preach from an ivory tower. We must step into the experience of those whom we are called to love. This means personal, relational, geographic proximity with people who don't know Christ. "The missional church practices the presence of Jesus, up close and personal. … Now, in proximity to people who need the Gospel, we must be the Gospel. Christians are called to study the Gospels, absorb the Gospel stories about Jesus," Frost said. It is not enough to ask "what would Jesus do" in various circumstances, he said; rather, people are to be so marinated by our immersion in the Gospel that we are Jesus in those circumstances. "The Gospel is not about Jesus; it is Jesus," he said. "Practicing the presence of Jesus in the world has huge implications for what we buy, what we eat, what we drive and how we spend our money." "The missional church practices powerlessness," Frost said. "The world thinks that we are people with power. We have buildings, assets, resources, accumulated wealth, and the world believes that we, like the world, will do anything to protect what we've got. We need to demonstrate that we hold what we have loosely." "Where is the church growing today?" Frost asked. "The fastest growth is occurring in developing countries where the church has no buildings, few clergy and no accumulated assets." Frost pointed to China. "When one of the most draconian regimes the world has ever known came to power in China, approximately 20 million Christians had to go underground," he said. "Many of them were crushed like ants. Now, government restraints are being lifted, and what do we see in China? There are more than 80 million Christians in China. … In the meantime, the American church has huge assets and expensive buildings that are used once a week … and our people worry if the church has a future. Is there any dissonance here? Losing our assets might be the best thing that ever happened to the church. … It is in our powerlessness that we experience the power of God." Frost's final mark of the missional church is proclamation: "We must talk about Jesus," he said. "If we have experienced Him, we cannot avoid talking about Him. People who see the missional church see people in proximity, who exhibit Jesus' presence and have made themselves powerless. Seeing this, they will ask you why you do what you do." If the church exhibits the marks of the missional church, Frost said, its proximity, presence and powerlessness will be an open door for proclaiming the Gospel. Scattered throughout the PGF event were interviews with missional Christians:
"We are not a program/curriculum writing agency, but you are," he said. "We are not a new denomination, but we'd like to think that we could over-seed this one." Peterson said those churches and individuals that choose to join PGF are asked to take on four tasks:
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