The work of Re-Forming
Ministry: focus on the church
We live in a time of uncertainty for the
church. The church’s place in our culture is shifting. Our cherished view
of ourselves standing in a central place in country and culture has largely run
aground.
The church
is being challenged in a world which often seems inoculated to the church and
its message. The message of the gospel needs to be spoken and embodied in new
ways — tuned to cultural resistances and able to speak through them.
The
church also struggles within, seeking ways forward.
Without significant clarity about who and whose we are, about what that means for how we walk together the way of Jesus Christ, we are unable to overcome the attraction of passing ecclesial fads and the siren call of faith in techniques and procedures. We will only be able to achieve such clarity as we think the faith together in and for this time and place.
Re-Forming Ministry groups and their members are engaged in discussion of just such matters, seeking insight from Scripture, from the tradition (and particularly the Reformed tradition), from brothers and sisters around the world and across the denomination.
The following links take you to work that will share elements of the conversation that has begun in the Re-Forming Ministry program. We invite you to read these materials and to engage them.
Seeds for an on-going conversation
Envisioning the nature of the church
We do have understandings of the nature of the church — we wouldn’t
be doing all the things we do without some understanding of what the church is
and what it is called to be. And yet often those understandings are implicit
and unexamined. New insight can lead to new understanding of who, whose and where
we are. [Read related papers and presentations]
Assessing the challenges
While we all know that the church and our denomination face significant challenges,
we are not always clear about the specific shape of those challenges. Working
toward strong diagnosis will help us in our efforts to respond well to the challenges
we face.
Presbyterianism is a specific way of being the church. It
survives and carries us forward because it has great strengths to match its weaknesses.
To probe the Presbyterian way is to weigh the tools we have closest at hand for
fashioning a faithful shared life in this moment. Sometimes we are simply failing
to live what is best in the Presbyterian way, and need to be called back. Sometimes
we need to recover tools our heritage offers which we had ignored or lost. Sometimes
we need new tools, or new forms of old tools.
"Infant baptism—it's all about grace" by Tom Walker
The baptism of a baby signals that God acts on our behalf even before we are able to respond.
"Rebuilding the Presbyterian establishment" by Beau Weston
Has the PC(USA) structured its life together in ways that help it flourish or that hinder its flourishing? Weston brings his training as a sociologist and his long study of the PC(USA) to bear in considering how to shape a life together that is healthy.
Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow and Beau Weston discuss ‘Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment’
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