By Jodi Craiglow, Special to The Layman, Posted Monday, February 4, 2013
When the Fellowship of Presbyterians (FOP) and ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians unveiled their structure and polity a year ago, they committed to an approach to ecclesial life resting on what they called a “three-legged stool:” a fully-incorporated mixture of theology, mission and covenanted order. While most Presbyterians have at least a passing acquaintance with the first two of these legs, the third may – and, indeed, has – been a source of some confusion. What does it mean to be in “covenanted order,” and how does it have anything to do with being Presbyterian?
Jim Singleton, assistant professor of Pastoral Leadership and Evangelism at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and president of the Fellowship of Presbyterians, sought to answer this very question in his Jan. 31 breakout session at the FOP/ECO 2013 National Gathering in Orlando, Fla.
Singleton expanded Martin Luther’s assertion that the fundamental problem with human nature is that it is curved in on itself, arguing that the same is true for congregations. The Fellowship and ECO offer a potential remedy in the formation and continued activity of Mission Affinity Groups.
Mission Affinity Groups will be composed of 2-5 (preferably 3-4) churches, brought together either by personal choice or by assignment. In the cases where assignments are made, the Fellowship and ECO are looking to characteristics like church size, demographics, geographic location and missional aims to guide them in their designations. Singleton explained that these groups can cross the ECO/Fellowship boundary; in fact, even non-affiliated churches are welcome to join in this process. Once these groups are formed, the churches within them will commit to at least one face-to-face meeting of pastors and representatives from their sessions per year, for a period of at least three years.
In preparation for this meeting, each church’s session will prepare their responses to the Fellowship’s Narrative on the Health of Mission and Ministry (adapted from the annual questions each Presbyterian USA church was required to answer prior to 1925), and will send them to the other affinity group churches. Singleton stressed that these responses need to be written, not only for the benefit of the other participating churches, but also so that the church will itself have a record of its standing and activity over the course of the previous year. The churches will then gather and work their way through each report.
Singleton admitted that first-year responses and interaction would most likely be “lame,” understanding that rapport, trust and transparency take time to develop. However, simply by virtue of remaining in these covenanted relationships over a multi-year period and answering these questions every year, these churches will hopefully begin to detect patterns in responses and behavior. It is the hope of the FOP leadership that church leaders within these groups will not be satisfied to remain complacent in accepting the same answers year after year; instead, they will spur one another to engage in deep, reflective analysis on both the opportunities and the challenges particular to each congregation.
They envision these meetings as taking approximately eight hours of time; Singleton suggested a weekend format, which would also allow affinity groups the chance to add worship, fellowship or educational elements to these gatherings.
Katie Dayton, associate pastor of Missional Strategies at First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs Colo.,, echoed Singleton’s sentiment, adding that churches participating in this process should not view the Narrative on the Health of Congregations as a test. Instead, they need to understand that “we’re not the masters of a subject; we’re broken people redeemed by grace.” By adopting a posture of humility, congregations will benefit the most from this process – by humbly and transparently revealing both their successes and their shortcomings over the previous year, these churches and their leaders will be able to understand the full context from which their fellow group members come, and will be able to offer more robust feedback that has a greater potential to make a longer-lasting impact, both on the church itself and on the community and world it serves.