Dallas: Feb. 27-28
Next Church 2012 will focus on ‘reviving Presbyterian witness’
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman , January 30, 2012
A group that has promoted renewing the Presbyterian Church (USA) but has opposed the formation of a new Reformed body will hold a conference in February.
“Next: A Leadership Conference for Presbyterians” will be held Feb. 27-28 at First Presbyterian Church in Dallas.
The conference is being billed as an effort to “renew the PCUSA by engaging new generations in God’s mission through sparking imaginations, connecting congregations, and reviving a distinctively Presbyterian witness to Jesus Christ for the world today.”
In September 2011, the group released an open letter following the August meeting of the Fellowship of Presbyterians in Minneapolis. The letter opposed the formation of a new Reformed body, such as the recent launch of the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians on Jan. 19 in Orlando, saying the idea “seems to us to be the church we once were, rather than the church God is calling us to be.”
In February 2011, about 350 Presbyterians attended the first Next Church conference in Indianapolis.
Although widely attended by members of more liberal Presbyterian groups and employees of the PCUSA, some observers noted the conference lacked significant attendance of renewal ministry representatives, people from immigrant churches and those representing a conservative theological perspective.
“Those labels don’t matter in conversations about ministry,” co-organizer the Rev. John Wilkinson said during the 2011 conference. “It’s not ‘how can liberals and conservatives work together?’ It’s about how can we all work together to make this work?”
“This [2012] event is coordinated by a steering committee of congregational pastors. It is not organized by the denominational office, but denominational leaders are welcome to be a part of it,” co-organizer Elaine Gantz said in the group’s recent blog posting.
The 2011 conference concluded, among other things, that the “next church” of the PCUSA would be lay-equipping, would do mission “from the margins, not from a position of privilege and influence,” be less bureaucratic and more relational. The group has focused on ways to form new ministry networks.
According to conference organizers, the February gathering will seek to answer:
- “What’s next for the PCUSA?
- “What will God do with the unique gifts and graces we know as Presbyterians?
- “In a growingly polarized world, how can the church bear witness to our unity in Christ by forming networks among congregations with shared mission callings?”
“Together we can accomplish abundantly far more than any of us can imagine alone,” the group’s blog stated. “There will be no votes and no policy papers. There will be worship, shared experiences, joint mission and Christian fellowship.”
The group is also in the process of hiring a director and plans to obtain official non-profit status.
The program of seminars, lectures and roundtables will include:
- Urban Congregational Development,
- Preparing Leaders in the Local Church,
- A Church Vocation Team in a Local Congregation,
- Transformational Leadership,
- Building Congregationally Supported Campus Ministry
- Building YAVs (Young Adult Volunteers ministry),
- Moving from Charity to Justice,
- Ideas for Fresh Worship,
- Small Church as Sabbath Community,
- God-Complex Radio,
- Re-envisioning Presbyteries,
- Ministry with Day Laborers.
Scheduled speakers include:
- Yehiel Curry, pastor of Shekinah Chapel (Chicago);
- Jud Hendrix, director of Ecclesia Project with the Mid Kentucky Presbytery and director of the Center for Integral Spirituality;
- Theresa Cho, associate pastor at St. John’s Presbyterian Church (San Francisco) and current moderator of the Presbytery of San Francisco;
- William Stacy Johnson, Princeton Theological Seminary’s Arthur M. Adams Professor of Systematic Theology;
- Reggie Weaver, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Chicago;
- Carol Howard Merritt, pastor at Western Presbyterian Church and co-host of the God Complex Radio Podcast;
- Tim Hart-Andersen, ministry team leader at Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis).
For more information about the conference, visit the group’s website.