Faith
About this blog
Thinking the Faith, Praying the Faith, Living the Faith is written by the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship.
Thinking, praying, and living the faith is at the core of ministry in the Office of Theology and Worship. In the following videos, learn more about what thinking, praying, and living the faith means to the leadership of the Office of Theology and Worship. Discover why it matters and what difference it makes in our lives, work, and worship.
Charles Wiley
Barry Ensign-George
David Gambrell
Christine Hong
Karen Russell
Recent posts
- Our Challenging Way: Faithfulness, Sex, Ordination, and Marriage
- Unity, Confessions, and the Book of Order
- Come and See
- Please and Thank You
- Back to Basics on Ash Wednesday
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Why Do We Need the Church Anyway?
Many people today are asking this question, if they even think about the church at all. The Rev. Tara Woodard-Lehman, Presbyterian chaplain at Princeton University, has created a stir with her article “Do You Really Need Church?” on The Huffington Post earlier this week. It received so much feedback that there was a follow-up video conversation with Tara and other religious leaders. Check it out.
Many people filling our pews grew up with church being about human community. While this is certainly one aspect of church, it is insufficient in and of itself. Church reminds us of who we are and why we’re here, as Tara says. Hopefully, it also connects us with the sense of the holy, transcendent Creator who loves us, as seen mostly clearly in Jesus the Christ.
What’s interesting about all of this is that many of the comments that Tara’s original post received were painfully negative about the church. It would be too easy to look at these comments and sneer about deplorable anthropology and theology. Instead of reacting defensively to the negativity of those posts (as though God would need US to defend the Creator of the universe!), I wonder what would happen if we could engage real people in real pain in real conversation that simply listened empathetically to how the church has fallen short. Dismissive scoffers notwithstanding, underneath all the complaints that Tara's post received, there’s a longing for Something More than what they experienced of the church, a sort of “had-hoped” wistfulness that the first followers of Jesus had after witnessing the torture that human beings can devise for one another.
Once we’ve heard the pain and helped people articulate the holy longing of their restless hearts, then, and only then, can we tell them the good news: despite the pain that good religious folks can inflict, there is resurrection hope; all that is broken, including the church and each of us, is being made new in Christ. But without the church to help us see and live in accord with this, we’ll miss out.
What would you say to those asking why we really need the church?
August 13, 2013
Ravelunravel
Explore ravelunravel.com an online interfaith multimedia tool from Project Interfaith that centralizes the first person narrative and helps us deepen the way we understand religious traditions.- Posted at 12:00 p.m.
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August 7, 2013
An Extended Ecclesial Analogy
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this. It bears repeating. Once upon a time a group of people gathered concerned about the number of lives lost due to shipwrecks off their coast. Whenever there was a storm, they gathered on the shore watching for any signs of people needing rescue. When they saw someone perishing, they formed a human chain to pull them to safety. Soon someone suggested they build a small lighthouse to warn sailors of the dangerous rocks. “At the same time,” someone else said, “let’s build a fireplace in the bottom of the lighthouse so that those …- Posted at 5:16 p.m.
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July 24, 2013
Seeing God at work in Northern Ghana
From Wednesday to Sunday I have been in the northern half of Ghana, in the newly formed Upper Presbytery (offices in Bolgatonga) and the Northern Presbytery (offices in Tamale). The two areas are closely related in many ways, but also have many differences. The area around Tamale is the historic center of Islam in Ghana. The native population is close to 99% Muslim, although a significant number of folks from southern Ghana have come north for government and university jobs lessening that number. The Northern Presbytery is the largest in land size and smallest in number of the 13 …- Posted at 1:53 p.m.
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July 22, 2013
If You're Happy and You Know It
The words and gestures of the liturgy ought to work this way. A simple phrase, such as "The Lord be with you," is intended to evoke an immediate, almost instinctive response: not only the verbal rejoinder "And also with you," but a sense of community, a shared way of faith and life, and an entry into prayerful participation. A simple gesture, such as the lifting of open, outstretched hands in prayer, ought to direct our hearts to the worship of God, alert our minds to the presence of Christ, and connect our souls in the communion of the Spirit.- Posted at 1:22 p.m.
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