KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s 2015 Big Tent was held last week with over 700 Presbyterians attending the event held on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
An opening worship service heralded the start of the 2015 Big Tent on July 30 with a sermon focused on “In Christ: A New Creation,” based on 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; 14-17.
The preacher, Jana Childers, professor of Homiletics and Speech-Communication at San Francisco Theological Seminary said that “We spend a lot of time on the future of the church question in my neck of the woods … in that way my folks are not so different from the Corinthians.”
Childers said that Paul was desperate for the church to survive and no one was listening to his plan.
She said there were women prophets in that day, who were leaders in Paul’s absence. “The rhetoric they used would make Donald Trump blush,” she said, and Paul was “afraid the Corinthians would damage the credibility of the new movement, so he preached discipline — sex, eating, speaking — he had lots of rules.”
Childers said that Paul was afraid of what he saw as the human tendency to lift itself up and to usurp God. The women, she said, “did not have that problem. Pride, ego was not an issue with them. The women accused Paul of squelching the Spirit.”
She asked “Can we discipline ourselves to be the church? Can we think or market or brand ourselves into being the new creation? What do we need to do to save the church?”
Childers said that Paul, the women prophets and Presbyterians now have the same problem. “We are trying so hard not to die.”
“Is the church dying?” The answer she said is no. “The church is not dying. The fact is we have already died. For those in Christ, death is something that has already happened to us. Death has already happened to the church.”
Childers said the only kind of death that matters is “over and done. You can let it go. … It turns out that the new creation is not something we can gerry-rig or discipline …. It is something that God has done, and God is doing through us. … A new creation is where the church repents where it has been caught up in its own goodness, a church that’s able to let ago of its own agenda and accept the other.”
Open the door
The worship service on Aug. 1 was led by Lauren Chan, director of youth ministries at Cameron House in San Francisco.
The Scripture text was Acts 12:1-17. “The story from Acts we read took place the very night before Peter was to be executed,” said Chan.
It is the story of the angel freeing Peter from prison, at the same time the church was praying for him. When free, Peter went to the house where the people were gathered to pray and knocked on the door. The servant who answered the door – Rhoda – was so excited to see Peter standing there, she didn’t open the door, but ran back to the other to tell the others that “Peter is at the door.” They thought she was out of her mind, until they, themselves, went and opened the door and saw Peter.
“How ironic that church was praying fervently for Peter’s release, but when the maid says ‘It is Peter,’ they say ‘You’re out of your mind.’”
Chan then asked, “Who is your Rhoda? Who have you told that their vision, their hopes for the future is just not possible? Who have you told that they are out of their mind? So who is the one that is bound in chains? Who needs release? … Are we using others’ problems to take the spotlight off our own deepest fears?”
The preacher at the final worship service was Paul Roberts, president of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in Atlanta. Roberts’ Scripture text was Samuel 17:32-40 – the story of David and Goliath. His take-away from the text was “to be yourself.”
Bible study
On both July 30 and Aug. 1, Kang Yup Na, associate professor in Religion, History, Philosophy and Classics at Westminster College, led a Bible study on “The Lost and Found of Missional Living, focusing on Luke 15.”
During the two day Bible study, he looked closely at the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son, questioning the traditional interpretations of the text – and the titles of the parables. He wondered if a more appropriate title to the Parable of the Prodigal Son might be the Parable of the Lost Sons.
He said before each of the parables are read, one should go back and read the first two verses of Luke 15 as a reminder of who was telling the story (Jesus) and who Jesus was telling it to (the tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees and scribes). “If we don’t keep this in mind, we will miss how Luke put this together,” he said.
He spoke of how the shepherd should not be considered a “good” shepherd since he leaves 99 sheep out in the wilderness to go after one sheep. Also, the woman could not be considered very competent with her finances, if she uses oil to light the lamp and spends all that time looking for one coin. At the end, both the shepherd and the woman call their friends together to celebrate and rejoice because the lost was found.
He then turned his attention to the Father in the Prodigal Son parable. Remember “how Luke conditioned us,” he said. “A shepherd who should not have a job and a woman with no economic sense, so this father should not have good sense … this man would have been a laughing stock, or the village fool.”
“As you think of Jesus as the father figure, the point is not to be right, just or corrective,” he said. “The point is rejoicing and partying … What is the story about? At the end we get it. It is about human relationships, community, faith and family.”
“The last parable is aimed at us,” he said. “We, maybe, are the Pharisees, the scribes and the older brother. Those we hold in contempt we judge.”
He said that in the text, during the conversation between the father and the older son, the older son uses the term “your son,” instead of “my brother.”
“In the church we actually talk this way – “the conservatives of the church,” “the liberals of the church,” or those in “Louisville.”
“How many times have we not said ‘My brother?’”
Workshops and fellowship
During the event a number of workshops were held on a variety of subjects and times were set aside for fellowship including the Friday homecoming and Saturday evening picnic. Workshops included, but were not limited to:
- Ministries of Advocacy and Renewal
- Ministries for Poverty and Hunger
- Ministries Equipping Leaders for Discipleship and Evangelism
- Working While White: Working for Racial Justice as White People with White People
- Using Human Rights Based Approach to Address Human Trafficking
- Training Ruling Elders—A Conversation for Teaching Elders
- 1001 New Worshiping Communities
- Training Leaders for Community Transformation—Lessons from Egypt
- Sustaining Young Women and Women Leaders
- Earth Care Congregations: Stories and “How To’s”
- The Church’s Faithful Response in a Troubled World
- Creating abuse policies
- Building the Beloved Community of God (Antiracism Training)
- Presbyterians: Our Foundations
- Grace and Gratitude in the Worshiping Community
- Coded Messages, Dog Whistles, and Stereotype Threat: When What We Say Is Not What We Mean
- First Decolonize Your Mind: Imagination, Poverty, Food, and Eco-Justice
- The Ruling Elder: From Formation to Transformation
Big Tent is the PCUSA’s biennial national gathering held in years that the General Assembly does not meet.
4 Comments. Leave new
“Can we think or market or brand ourselves into being the new creation?”
I hope that is a rhetorical question, but I suspect it is not. One cannot “market or brand” new birth in Christ; it is a gift from above and not something human beings can achieve, nor can it be achieved by imagining that it has occurred when in fact it has not.
“Can we discipline ourselves to be the church?”
Can a denomination that has given itself over to the leadership of the unredeemed by discipline expel unredeemed leaders from office? I think not.
“What do we need to do to save the church?”
Repent and believe the Gospel. But that hasn’t been happening over the last century, ever since the General Assembly in the 1920s ruled the 1910 Doctrinal Deliverance to be of no effect in the ordination of officers to the Church, thus allowing this “Big Tent” philosophy to come in and bring the Presbyterian Church (USA) to ruin.
“We are trying so hard not to die.”
You could have fooled me.
“Is the church dying?” The answer she said is no. “The church is not dying. The fact is we have already died. For those in Christ, death is something that has already happened to us. Death has already happened to the church.”
Dying to what? That is the question. We are to die to sin, self, and the world. That is what the Church is supposed to die to, but the PC(USA) instead is continuing to live for these things while having died and continuing to die to Christ. That is the PC(USA)’s most basic, fundamental problem.
I always find it curious and bemused that for an organization or entity that internally speaks of unity, harmony, peace, we are all one in Christ, words to that effect. Externally speak in tribal, identity based theologies. Demonization of public safety. The employment and use of white guilt and victimization methodologies as the primary motivation for folks for mission. You saw the same PCUSA policy statements post Ferguson.
I am sure the overwhelming AARP eligible white females who formed the core of the 600,700 all left felling empowered to do more or less, do what they had prior, in essence nothing.
Childers, “A new creation is where the church repents where it has been caught up in its own goodness, a church that’s able to let ago of its own agenda and accept the other.”
LOL LOL LOL, Oh ye gads it hurts to laugh so hard. The only way I could have set through this is by being totally plastered.
Who were the women prophets that were leaders in Pau’s absence?
Puzzling?