By Edward Terry, The Layman, September 29, 2010
Lloyd Lunceford
HOUSTON – The New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) came full circle this week, having its 7th convocation in the city where the organization was conceived.
Nine years ago, a group of Presbyterian pastors gathered in Houston to pray and seek God’s will for the possible positive future God might reveal. The “three D’s,” as pastors David Henderson, Dean Weaver and Doug Pratt became known, spent three days on their knees. Out of that discernment came the original vision statement for the mission-focused New Wineskins Initiative (NWI).
Over time, the NWI became the NWAC. It continued focusing on missions at its gathering Sept. 26-28 at Windwood Presbyterian Church, which attracted pastors and elders of various Reformed denominations from across the country, including participants from the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA). With numbers that were smaller than previous gatherings, the group spent part of its three-day event looking to the future of both the Church and the NWAC.
Weaver, senior pastor of Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in Allison Park, Pa., and former moderator of NWAC, asked participants to be in prayer for the organization’s future.
Although leaving the PCUSA was never the explicit agenda of NWAC, Weaver acknowledged that 100 of the organization’s 150 congregations have made the transition to the EPC. As the geographic presbyteries of the EPC are now prepared to receive PCUSA congregations without the transitional assistance that NWAC played, it is time to return to the prayer closet to discern God’s will.
“We’re going to ask the board to consider entering into a season of prayer and discernment of what God has for the future,” Weaver said, adding that the group is praying for a clear picture of what is next.
The New Wineskins movement started as a reform effort within the PCUSA with a congregational-based network concept of church polity. Its efforts to bring about change in the PCUSA’s structure were rebuffed by denominational leaders. A relationship soon development with the EPC, where many NWAC members have since become members.
Speakers for the event included:
- Mission consultant Reggie McNeal, who offered strategies and tactics for implementing a mission-centric approach to ministry.
- Brad Long, executive director of Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International, who spoke on spiritual warfare.
- Church property law expert and Presbyterian Lay Committee Board Member Lloyd Lunceford, who shared information related to church property disputes and recent developments in cases involving churches in the PCUSA. Copies of Lunceford’s new book “A Guide to Church Property Law: Second Edition,” available now from Reformation Press for $24.95, were sold at the event.
- Dan Tidwell with Overseas Council, who shared information about the nonprofit’s work to equip Biblical leaders around the world to be effective pastors, teachers, evangelists and missionaries in their own countries.
- The Rev. Simon Githioria of Presbyterian Church East Africa (PCEA), who spoke on the growth of the denomination and its work with youth in the 4.5-million member denomination. He also informed the group on the need for new pastors in the PCEA to provide pastoral leadership for the thousands of new Christians God is reaching every day.
- Presbyterian Lay Committee President and Executive Editor Carmen Fowler, who offered a report on actions by the PCUSA’s 219th General Assembly and the recently-launched Reclaim Biblical Teaching campaign by the Presbyterian Renewal Network that followed.