Proposed recommendations in the Racial Ethnic and New immigrant Church Growth Committee Report may reduce some of the challenges facing teaching elders and church leaders of all ethnicities within the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Rev. Warren Lesane, executive and stated clerk of the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic, spoke to the needs of those ethnically diverse individuals seeking ordination in local congregations. “We need to make disciples of all nations.”
The current overture was developed In response to the directive from the 220th General Assembly (2012) that a consultation be held for the purpose of developing strategies and policies to support racial ethnic, multicultural and new immigrant church growth in the PCUSA. The Presbyterian Mission Agency, through the office of Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries/Presbyterian Women convened a small group for the purpose of devising such a consultation.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, on behalf of the Racial Ethnic & New Immigrant Church Growth Consultation Committee, recommends that the 221st General Assembly (2014):
- Encourage local congregations to engage in relational ministries with people of all races and ethnicities in their neighborhoods.
- Direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Committee on Theological Education to consult with theological seminaries to develop culturally sensitive curriculum, theologies, language, teaching and learning styles for teaching elders and church leaders of all ethnicities.
- Direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Office of the General Assembly to collaborate with mid councils to establish regional certified ministry training programs to prepare racial ethnic and immigrant church members to serve worshiping communities.
- Direct the six agencies of PCUSA — Presbyterian Mission Agency, Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program, Inc., Presbyterian Foundation, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, and Board Of Pensions — to distribute essential documents in multiple languages, as appropriate.
- Direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency and mid councils to create a network of racial ethnic and new immigrant coaches trained to address the culturally specific needs of racial ethnic and new immigrant congregations.
- Direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency, the Office of the General Assembly, and the mid councils to consult with each other to consider expanding the criteria for accepting the ordination credentials of new immigrant leaders.
The recommendation is that all essential documents be translated into Spanish and Korean and to expand the list of languages with sensitivity to cultural barriers in the denomination’s life together.
Suzi Wiggins spoke to the need to remove gender bias to provide for gender justice in addition to ethnic justice.
The writers of the rationale behind the overture note: “As we reach out to our brothers and sisters in the racial ethnic and new immigrant communities — and indeed to all our sisters and brothers in this world — we may well risk our corporate life. As we engage those instances of fruitfulness, we need to know that doing so will surely be at the cost of our comfortable identity and familiar life as the PCUSA. For many of us that will feel like a death; so we can expect resistance — sometimes very powerful resistance.”
They conclude, “as a resurrection people, however, we have the powerful promise that God’s love has conquered death. That is why our Book of Order can acknowledge that we are called ‘to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life’ (F-1.0301). That promise frees us and empowers us to engage the risks and to embrace the new life that will surely come to us as we welcome, encourage, and join in the lives and the faith of our racial ethnic and new immigrant sisters and brothers in Christ.”