PresbyMEME

Neal Locke has a PresbyMEME going around and I was tagged today. My friend Rhett tagged me. Check out his answers.

Here are the Questions:

1. What is your earliest memory of being distinctly Presbyterian?
2. On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend LESS energy and time?
3. On what issue/Question should the PC(USA) spend MORE energy and time?
4. If you could have the PC(USA) focus on one passage of scripture for an entire year, what would it be?
5. If the PC(USA) were an animal what would it be and why?

Now here are my answers:

1. What is your earliest memory of being distinctly Presbyterian? My early church years were in the Lutheran church followed by the United Methodist and then Free Methodist. When I got to college I bounced around at a number of Bible churches. My last year of college though I began attending a Presbyterian Church plant that met in a movie theater. My memory of that church was going to service and then walking across the street to Dicks for burgers. I did really like the church because it wasn't like anything I'd ever been to. It was culturally hip, relevant and the pastor was great at connecting with me.

2. On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend LESS energy and time? This one for me is a difficult question. Not difficult to answer but difficult to know where to start. I have had the blessing of working at two phenomenal PC(USA) churches and have seen the great side of the church. But, even at these two churches I have seen how easy it is with our church structure to spend time spinning wheels talking, debating and thinking about the same issues at every meeting. If I had to choose one area that I think we spend too much time talking about it would be the authority of scripture. At the root of most of the theological issues in the denomination now seems to be the ongoing debate about scripture. At some point we are going to have to make a decision and I'm tired of how long it is taking.

3. On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend MORE energy and time? This one is pretty easy for me. I'd have the denomination invest time and money into figuring out how they can reach the 20-something generation. Although there are some churches that are being effective they are the anomaly in our denomination. For the most part the PC(USA) has completely lost its connection point with this age group and doesn't know how to reach them.

4. If you could have the PC(USA) focus on one passage of scripture for an entire year, what would it be?
John 14:6 "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me." Focusing on this verse would force the issues of authority of scripture to come to a head. It would allow for strong interaction between the role that Jesus' plays in all of it and would encourage dialogue.

5. If the PC(USA) were an animal what would it be and why? This makes me think of all the Americas funniest home videos clips of animals doing silly repetitive things or doing things that makes them seem vaguely human. In my mind its like a monkey riding a bike. They've put an incredible amount of energy and time into something that is really pretty silly without any purpose. Sometimes I feel like the denomination as a whole (not necessarily the churches I've been a part of) have meetings where putting a monkey on a bike would be a better use of time.

Extra Credit: Jesus shows up at General Assembly this year, what does he say to the PC(USA)? In the House of Representatives and the Senate their is a practice sometimes put into place by parties opposing things being discussed called a "Filibuster" Basically it is like a 5 year old putting their fingers in their ears and saying "LA, la, la, la la, la I can't hear you" I think that if Jesus showed up there would be a number of people who would go into crises mode and try to direct attention away from him. They'd keep talking so he couldn't.

Hope that you read this with a grain of salt. I happen to be very lucky as I have a couple great PC(USA) churches in my background. But, there is so much division and strife across the denomination as a whole that it does seem at some point that we have nothing in common with our more liberal churches. Our theology is so different that at some point we may have to jettison the name and the negative connotations that go with it.

Comments

[Bruce Reyes-Chow]

Thanks for playing this uber-dorky meme ;-) I have added your post the growing list of folks who have already played.