New Wineskins Initiative drafts paper on pastors
The Layman Online, March 2, 2006
The New Wineskins Initiative, a renewal group of 95 congregations that have called for radical changes in the Presbyterian Church (USA), has begun posting draft study papers on its Web site in preparation for its second convocation July 19-22 in Tulsa, Okla.
The first “White Paper” is titled “Preparation for Pastoral Certification,” an outlined description of the processes and mentoring that New Wineskins would initiate to prepare and approve candidates for ministry. Many of the elements of the draft paper differ substantially from how candidates are now reviewed and approved under the Book of Order.
Tom Edwards, the New Wineskins coordinator, said in a press release that the renewal group will post additional draft papers over the next three months.
The pastoral certification paper was not identified by author. Edwards said the series will be prepared by New Wineskins leaders.
“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), who have affirmed and adopted the New Wineskin Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith, and a document of Ethical Imperatives for followers of Christ.” The delegates to the 2005 convocation also approved a draft constitution.
To have lay and clergy votes at the convocation, local church sessions must endorse the essential tenets and ethical imperatives.
The leaders of the New Wineskins Initiative have not declared that they are beginning a movement to separate from the Presbyterian Church (USA). During their first convocation in Edina, Minn., in June 2005, they expressed hope that their plan to transform the denomination would go before the General Assembly.
But none of the more than 100 overtures submitted received by the Office of the General Assembly specifically mention any of the major documents of the New Wineskins Initiative.
Although the New Wineskins leaders stress their commitment to reform within the denomination, Dean Weaver, co-moderator, did say that there are some denominational issues that could provide a “breaking point.” Weaver expressed concern about a “moral-theological compromise” that could lead to separation.
He identified those as 1) General Assembly repeal of the authoritative interpretation that undergirds the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard; 2) repeal by presbyteries in a national referendum of that standard; and 3) a weakening of the denomination’s Christology. “The core of this is our Christology,” Weaver told the convocation last June. “We’ve got to raise the flag. That is the line in the sand for us.”
In his press release, Edwards noted the steep membership decline of the PCUSA while Presbyterian churches in other lands are growing “like leaps and bounds. As we seek to follow Christ in the 21st century, we in the West are going to need the help and encouragement of our brothers and sisters around the world where the gospel of Jesus Christ is spreading like wildfire. Thousands are praying for us even now.”