Click here to listen to the 2/16/16 edition of #CarmenTalk, where you will here Carmen discuss:
1. Moderator Heath Rad is excited about the identity/purpose conversation. There will be a GA committee dedicated to the subject and they will be in Portland a day early. Currently the COGA “identity” process does not include PMA staff.
2. Presbyteries are continuing to send overtures for General Assembly consideration. Overture 050 from New York City Presbytery is particularly interesting: demanding an apology for PCUSA’s two-hundred and twenty year position of following clear Biblical teaching and aligning itself with more than 2,000 years of Christian tradition by failing to allow practicing LGBTQ/Q people to be ordained as church officers and not permitting same-sex marriages by PCUSA ministers or in PCUSA churches.
This overture now has a concurrence and the group That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS) is pushing it hard. I have pointed out to them that the overture is in stark contrast to what Rada, Charles B. “Chip” Hardwick, director of the PCUSA’s Theology, Worship and Education and Covenant Network have been saying.
Admittedly, it is consistent with TAMFS position that this is a justice issue and if its a justice issue then it is inconsistent to allow anyone to retain the unjust position.
Tony de la Rosa may use this as, along with Belhar, to promote his concern that the primary problem with the PCUSA is white supremacy. Watch for lots of language around “privilege” and a plan for churches to be forcibly diversified.
3. Rick Ufford Chase has been hired by the Presbyterian Mission Agency as a part-time associate for interfaith relations in office of theology and worship and another pt associate for interfaith relations has been hired specifically on immigration/refugee concerns.
4. The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board meet recently in Louisville. You will want to look through this page of business and download what interests you – among other things, it includes: per capita budget, 2016 adjusted PMA budget, two year mission work plan, info from Exec Dir office, World mission report, Advisory committee on Social Witness policy reports to GA,Directory for Worship revisions, etc.
Notably: MRTI recommended against Fossil Fuel divestment.
ACSWP info is also in Salt & Light newsletter
5. COGA also met recently in Lousiville. Raising the per capita rate year over year for the next three years was supported by membership projections that anticipate 500,000 net loss of members from 2015-2020. The per capita presentation
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As Carmen pointed out in her CarmenTalk, the settlement between First Pres San Antonio was not a bad deal for the church. It was, however, a bad deal for all the other churches trying to leave, as Mission Presbytery now has money to use to fight them. Mission Presbytery would not have had the money to fund the fight with First Pres all the way through the court system. I hope when small churches find themselves in a battle with the Presbytery to leave that First Pres will help them.
Looking at the PMAB page on business for Evangelism Update and under college out reach we find this: “The OCM (Office of Collegiate Ministry) continues support for the larger collegiate network, with involvement in the Presbyterian and Pluralist: Equipping Presbyterian Colleges and Universities for Interfaith Leadership, to take place in Chicago on April 6-7, 2016. Additionally, through the efforts of the ECMT (Ecumenical College Ministry Team), the OCM will help plan and execute an ecumenical campus ministry gathering in the 16/17 academic year”
This seems to fit into the narrative of Rick Ufford Chase. Not sure what to make of this under Evangelism?
First Pres SA should’ve never settled. FPCSA should’ve ignored the PCUSA after its departure. Should’ve never given a penny…