A Proposal for a New Church Development in the Presbytery of the Western Reserve

To:  The Committee on Church Development and Re-Development. 

It is with a great sense of excitement and a slightly smaller sense of trepidation that I present you with this brief proposal for a New Church Development in our Presbytery.  I have tried to describe the vision with attention to both passion and pragmatism.  It is my hope that you will see it as an open-ended invitation to participate with God's creative spirit as this vision emerges and grows out of the rituals and practices of our tradition, the support and encouragement of our Presbytery, the commitment and gifts of our participants, and the guidance and leadership of myself and the unknown contributions the many others who will feel called to participate in this ministry. 

It would be impossible for me to have included everything in this brief statement and I am sure I left many things unsaid.  I am looking forward to meeting with you all on September 5th and I am excited to answer questions and initiate what I hope will be an ongoing conversation about how to turn this vision into a vibrant and life-giving Christian community.


This is what I am called to do ? A brief description of the Vision

To build a new Presbyterian church that intentionally nurtures, evokes, embodies, and responds to the presence of the Divine in the midst of post-modern culture*.  To build a church that encounters the World as a dynamic and creative manifestation of the Holy Spirit -- where God is actively working toward peace, justice, wholeness, and celebration*.    To build a church that invites people into an authentic and integrated* expression of faith and life.  To build a church that empowers the community to participate in what God is doing in the world as followers of Jesus Christ.  To build a church that finds strength and structure in the connectivity, practices, and polity of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  To build a church where, indeed, the saints are equipped for ministry and the building up of the body of Christ.

Although these goals are not unique or new, the context of post-modernism invites us to find new ways of expressing them.  Churches that are being created to minister in this context are often categorized as "emergent" or "emerging*".  The term itself refers to a variety of expressions of church.  In its most favorable interpretations, the term emergent describes churches that are growing out of the juxtaposition of tradition and contemporary experience.  Emergent churches are not a new entity, rather they are a new manifestation of the same spirit that exhorted the Israelites in exile to "seek out the shalom of the city where they've been sent...for in its shalom, they would find their own" (Jeremiah 29:7)  This call to Shalom in Jeremiah reminds us that, wherever we find ourselves, God is already present and is actively working to redeem all of creation for peace, justice, wholeness and celebration.  It reminds us that our own well being is intricately tied to the well being of our community.  This is true whether we find ourselves in Babylonian exile or in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio facing a theo-philosophical shift away from the modern era and into something new.  The emergent church seeks to connect with what God is already doing in in the world and provide the tools, resources, and support for people to respond as disciples of Christ. 

Some of the hallmarks of the emergent model that are particularly important to this proposal are collaboration and shared leadership, global awareness, creative and participatory worship, explicit commitment to ministry and mission within and beyond our local context, and intentional community as the context for discerning and responding to God's call to us as disciples.  One of the difficulties with describing an emergent church before it has come into being is that it is exactly what it claims to be -- emergent.  With each new participant and supporter, the vision of this church will grow and change as it evokes and embraces the gifts that each person has to offer.  People will come to this church from a wide variety of points in their own faith journey and the church will seek to respond appropriately to each.  Some people will come to the church as a place to connect with and participate in a reality bigger than themselves, others as a place where compassion is freely given to those who suffer, to others still it is a place where those who are strange and estranged find welcome, and for some as a safe place to ask hard questions about life and faith. 

As important as it is to recognize from whence we come; it is equally essential that we focus on where we are going.  To this end, this church will invite participants to join us in our journey.  It is a spiritual journey -- one that includes both public worship and attention to one's individual prayer life and discernment.  It is the embodiment of the exhortation to pray always and a recognition that prayer takes many forms and expressions.  It is a communal journey -- one that affirms our interconnectedness and interdependence.  As a community we celebrate and mourn, we laugh, learn, and play as together we seek to participate in God's Kingdom in our midst.  Finally, it is a missional* journey -- one that carries us beyond ourselves and into the world.  As participants in God's creation and God's creating we are called to joyful and humble service -- assured of God's presence and open to experiencing it through unlikely encounters and in unexpected places. 


*Post-modern culture -- used generically to refer to the Weltanschauung of many young adults in American culture.  Post-modern thought can include but is not limited to the following concepts: highly individualized perception of Truth informed by experience, strong global awareness, gracious consideration of opposing viewpoints, healthy skepticism of institutions and systems, acceptance of mystery and complexity, and a desire for efficiency, creativity, authenticity and quality. 

*Peace, Justice, Wholeness, and Celebration -- at Covenant Community Church (louisville, ky), these four words have become an expression of our understanding of what God intends for creation.  They represent the way the Hebrew word Shalom is used throughout the Old Testement.  It reminds us that even in the midst of violence, chaos, tragedy, and despair we can find God actively working to restore and evoke peace, justice, wholeness, and celebration for our lives and for the world.  It is to say that, this is what God is about and we can either choose to participate or not.

*Integrated -- An integrated expression of faith and life is one that sees no distinction between who we are on Sunday morning and who we are while in a traffic jam on a Thursday evening.  It is a reflection of our humility in the realization that God does not call only our 'best selves' into discipleship but in fact, God calls our 'whole selves'. 

*Emerging -- ?Emerging worship is a way of recognizing, articulating, and developing worship that seeks to be authentic to our ancient faith while being appropriate to our current context.? from the Office of Theology and Worship?s ?Emerging Worship? initiative outlined in 2003.

*Missional -- Brian McLaren, in his book a Generous Orthodoxy, describes a missional congregation as one living into God's words to Abraham that he would be 'blessed to be a blessing'.  He describes the mission of the church as to 'be and make disciples of Jesus Christ in authentic community for the good of the world'.  These two concepts remind us that the purpose of our journey as disciples is to love and serve the God and our neighbors.  As McLaren describes it -- "so I can inflict less damage and more blessing on the world...(seeking) to understand scripture not just for my own sake but so I will be better equipped to serve God and my neighbors".