2007 National Elders Conference Wrap-up

By Mike Ferguson
Presbyterian News Service

NASHVILLE – “We want to create a bunch of dangerous elders, elders who know what the ministry of being an elder is about and want to claim that ministry for their own,” Gradye Parsons told the first-ever National Elders Conference before its first plenary session.

During the conference, attended by more than 300 elders from almost every state in the nation, speaker after speaker and workshop leader after preacher worked together to bring about Parsons’ goal.

A recap of some of the conference highlights:

Together Melva Costen and Rhashell Hunter told elders how to be more effective worship leaders. “We live as we worship, and we can’t lead without realizing that,” Costen said.

Plenty of prayer should precede preaching, according to Hunter.

“Preaching is sharing God’s word, and you can’t share it if God hasn’t told it to you,” she said. “Good preaching helps people deal with their lives, which can be difficult, and to learn how to live together in community.”

Next, Corey Schlosser-Hall, speaking on elders and mission, urged the gathered church leaders to pay attention to the good work already going on in their community. He quoted the Irish rocker Bono, who once heard this message from a pastor: “Stop asking God to bless what you are doing and start doing the work that God has already blessed.”

Schlosser-Hall said it’s important for the church to “take a turn toward mission,” and he held up five examples of Seattle-area Presbyterians taking such a turn.

“I thank God for all of you, too,” Schlosser-Hall told the audience at the end of his talk. “You’re all elders in mission whether you know it or not.”

The next morning, poet Ann Weems looked at the importance of prayer and spiritual life. She defined prayer as “a yearning after the heart of God. We just open our hearts and the Holy One waits.”

We ought to offer prayers worth praying, she said.

“I am concerned,” Weems said, “that in our prayers we confess rule-breaking instead of heart-breaking.”

Weems told a painful story from her childhood about her father’s forced ouster from the pulpit at the church where conference attendees had worshipped the night before. She concluded her talk with these words: “No matter how we dilute the word of God, it’s about Jesus. No matter how we cover up the dangerous truth of the gospel, it’s about Jesus.”

Freda Gardner’s talk on the elder’s role as Bible teacher was delivered by Valerie Small. During the talk, Gardner said that good teachers “create a space where truth can be known.”

“Learning requires space to try and fail without harming the learner,” the former Princeton Theological Seminary professor said. “And you can’t stay open to God’s word, either, if you’re feeling mortified by what you don’t know.”

Former Mississippi Governor William Winter, a 54-year Presbyterian elder, delivered a rousing and passionate speech on leadership during the final plenary.

Winter remembered fondly the strong elder leadership provided in the country church where he grew up, where two of the three session members were women.

Today’s Presbyterians “have inherited a record of incredible courage and faithfulness,” Winter said, and Presbyterians have a “sacred duty” to uphold it.

He said he worries about the “ripples of discontentment spreading ominously across our denomination.”

 “If we persist in this course,” he predicted, “we will wind up in more little groups telling ourselves only what we are comfortable hearing.”

“We are not supposed to play God,” Winter asserted. “We are called simply to follow God.”

Attaining justice in its broadest sense, including social and economic justice, “is absolutely essential to the well-being of our children and grandchildren,” Winter said. “It is a matter of solidarity and hope for all of us who share love of neighbor, church and country. That may be the greatest contribution we can make to the larger society.”

Eric Hoey, director for Evangelism and Church Growth for the General Assembly Council, brought the conference to a close by offering the sermon during closing worship.

“Are you spending more time in church meetings than befriending an unchurched person?” Hoey asked the congregation. “If God gives you opportunity to open your mouth and share your faith, seize that opportunity.”

Evangelism often requires out-of-the-box thinking, he said.

Hoey said a clergy friend has discovered this evangelism tool: he plays poker for fun and invites fellow card-players to worship at his church.

“I sit with irreligious people for three hours. You bet we talk about life,” Hoey said, quoting his friend. “My church has several people from my poker-playing opportunities. What a scandal!”

One church in California that Hoey likes has no liturgy and features contemporary music and worship. Clearly young people are the target, Hoey said – and yet when he visited he spotted several seniors worshipping there. He asked one older woman what kept her at the church.

“Don’t get me wrong, sonny – I love my hymns,” she told him. “The reason I’m here is God is at work here. God is moving in this church.”

“People are willing to give up traditions,” Hoey said, “so the Good News can penetrate the culture in a new way.”

Now more than ever Presbyterians must “hear our responsibility for doing our part in God’s plan,” Hoey said. “All you have to do is go. Take it to the streets, because lost people deeply matter to God.”

Mike Ferguson, a Presbyterian elder, is a reporter for the Baker City Herald in Baker City, OR.