New Wineskins leaders call for 2nd convocation on the heels of the 217th General Assembly
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, September 28, 2005
Leaders of the New Wineskins Initiative, which seeks to radically restructure and re-energize the Presbyterian Church (USA), have announced that they will hold the group’s second convocation one month after the denomination’s 217th General Assembly.
The assembly will be held in Birmingham on June 15-22, 2006. The convocation is scheduled July 19-22 at Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, Okla.
The New Wineskins Initiative is an effort to call the PCUSA back to a more faithful orthodoxy – “for her to return to her first love,” as Scripture and a Christian leader from the Middle East put it during the first convocation in Edina, Minn., in June. By returning to her first love, leaders of the group said it is the prayer of those working on the New Wineskins Initiative that God may yet revive one of America’s oldest mainline denominations.
During its well-attended convocation in Edina, delegates approved in principle a draft constitution that affirms the voice and vote of local church sessions. The New Wineskins Constitution recognizes that congregations – and not its higher governing bodies – are the lifeblood of the Presbyterian Church (USA) because they provide the people, the money, and the vision for the church. Since then, leaders of the New Wineskins Initiative called on Presbyterians to “begin to live out our vision right where God has us today.”
The co-moderators of the group, Rev. Dave Henderson and Rev. Dean Weaver, said Presbyterians can live out this vision “by joining with other New Wineskins congregations in upholding the faith essentials and ethical imperatives, in entering into covenant relationships of mutual encouragement and accountability, and in engaging with one another in collaborative ministry and mission.”
The organization also has established working groups in such areas as prayer, networking and training, a leadership manual, G.A. overtures and real property issues, a manual for discipline and a manual for worship.
As with the Edina gathering, the group’s leaders said that congregations will be invited to send voting delegates who have endorsed the New Wineskins vision statement for the PCUSA, who have affirmed and adopted the group’s essential tenets of the Reformed faith, and a document of ethical imperatives for followers of Jesus Christ.
“We came away from Minneapolis greatly encouraged in our work,” Henderson said. “What a meaningful time! Our worship and prayer time was rich beyond description, we experienced a wonderful spirit of unity, and God was gracious to allow us to make considerable progress in our work.
“I’m excited to see what will come of our next time together,” he said. “Not only will we have the opportunity to continue to refine our vision for a new way of doing ministry and mission as Presbyterians, but we’ll wrestle through living into the new wineskins now. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has lost more than 26 percent of its membership since 1983, and almost 50 percent of its membership in the past 40 years. The denomination is shrinking at an ever-more serious and unsustainable rate, while Presbyterian churches in other lands are growing rapidly.”
New Wineskins coordinator Rev. Tom Edwards said that, “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 from around the world where the gospel of Jesus Christ is spreading like wildfire. Thousands are praying for us even now.”
“This year, we were pleased to host Presbyterian leaders from the burgeoning Church of the ‘Global South,'” he said. “Many church leaders from around the world are asking if there might be a place where their members could participate in helping to forge a new wineskin for a dying mainline denomination in the West. They are concerned for the Church in America, and especially for Presbyterians, whose missionaries in past centuries proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ to so many in their lands, but now seem to have lost their way.”
For more information, visit the Web site of the New Wineskins Initiative or call 1-888-754-9693.