New Wineskins Initiative releases drafts on unity, confessions and networking
The Layman Online, April 17, 2006
TUCSON, Ariz. – Leaders of the New Wineskins Initiative, in preparation for their second convocation that seeks to radically restructure and re-energize the Presbyterian Church (USA), have posted a series of draft study papers on critical areas of interest affecting the denomination.
The first paper, “On the Unity of the Church,” explores our historic Reformed confessions and the Scriptures. The paper concludes that: “A unity based on anything other than Christian doctrine as given to us by Christ and the apostles is a false unity and will not further either the peace or purity of the Church.”
The second paper, “The Importance of the Reformed Confessions,” clarifies the New Wineskin Initiative’s position on the historic Reformed confessions. “As a body of Presbyterian pastors and elders, we stand firmly rooted in the Reformed tradition and on the Reformed confessions,” the paper states. “Our Essential Tenets are available in annotated form to reference the confessions, and we find the Reformed doctrines of the Christian religion to be clearly stated within the confessions and supported by the Scriptures.”
In this study paper, the New Wineskins Initiative especially commends “the following Reformed confessions as found in the present Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA): the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed, the Scots Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Shorter Catechism, the Larger Catechism, and the Theological Declaration of Barmen.”
The third paper, “On Networking,” provides a theoretical and practical basis for forming a new connectional or information system described as networking. “The PCUSA must grow beyond its present, institutional model of connectionalism. … A new means of connecting by way of networks, akin to “going wireless,” is an altogether necessary next step for churches intending to pool resources, relationships, and energy in pursuit of urgent (and specific) mission objectives,” the paper states. “Networking is … a functional – as opposed to symbolic – connectedness, one designed to serve the Kingdom of God first, and the PCUSA secondly, if at all. What is good for the Kingdom is good for the PCUSA, but not necessarily vice versa.”
This study paper includes the strategic development plan of the ministry network in Pittsburgh Presbytery. The papers are available on the New Wineskins Web site.
The convocation will take place in Tulsa, Okla., and will be hosted by Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church. Mail-in and online registration has begun. It will convene with worship at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 19, and adjourn at noon Saturday, July 22.
As with the first convocation, congregations will be invited to send voting delegates who have endorsed a New Wineskin vision statement for the Presbyterian Church (USA) and have affirmed and adopted the New Wineskin essential tenets of the Reformed faith and a document of ethical imperatives for followers of Jesus Christ.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has lost more than 26 percent of its membership since its formation in 1983. The denomination is shrinking at an unsustainable rate, while Presbyterian churches in other lands are growing.
The New Wineskins Initiative is an effort to call the PCUSA back to a more faithful and faith-filled orthodoxy, “for her to return to her first love,” as Scripture and a Christian leader from the Middle East put it to convocation delegates and guests last June in Edina, Minn.