Ministry Options in the 21st Century

with George Bullard

Saturday, April 20th

9:00AM to 4:00PM

Registration begins at 8:30AM

Unity Presbyterian Church

130 N. Seventh Street

Cambridge, OH 43725

Our focus will be on 21^st century models for congregations.   For some of you, the desire to explore new models is born out of necessity: an aging congregation, dwindling resources, shrinking ministry capacity.  For others, the questions are more tied to missional relevance in the 21^st century. The cost to you would be $10 per person for lunch and materials. 

You must attend as a pastor and leadership team! 

Change does not come by fighting an existing reality.  Rather, God calls us to build the new while allowing the old to fall away. As our Lord reminds us: "Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit" (John 12:24).  How is God calling you to bear fruit in this season?  To what is God calling you to die, that you might rise to new life?

To RSVP for Ministry Options in the 21st Century, contact Shauna at 330-339-5515 or Shauna@MVPJourney.org.

*Last day to RSVP -- Monday, April 15th* 

Food for the Journey

Journey Questions

1. If an audit were to be done of your life-physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual-would it reflect a balance between stress and renewal?
2. Are you able to receive from others? Why or why not?
3. What is your understanding of care? What particular experiences have shaped your ability (or inability) to receive from others?

Journey Practice: Stress and Renewal

Jesus modeled with his life a balance between being and doing. He did not expect the disciples to immediately understand their need for both stress and renewal, rather he taught them through word and action how to live. He embodied a way of being that incorporated both giving of self and receiving from others. In systems language, he neither over functioned, nor under functioned. By contrast, we tend toward one extreme or the other. Often, birth order and expectations of our families of origin play a role in which extreme we take.  

This next week, draw up a list of the ways you give to others, and a second list of those from whom you receive care. Next to the list of those for whom you care, write down the ways in which you care for them. Next to the list of those who care for you, write down the ways that you receive care. What do these two lists tell you about the balance of giving and receiving in your life? If you asked three people close to you to honestly name your tendency to either over or under function, what would they tell you? Are you at risk for burn-out? Or are you failing to stretch yourself to your full potential? How does your life evidence a balance between stress and renewal? Outline a care plan in which you seek to balance care of self with care for others.

Prayer for the Journey

We give you thanks, Gentle One who has touched our soul.

You have loved us from the moment of our first awakening

and have held us in joy and in grief.

Stay with us we pray.

Grace us with your presence and with it the fullness of our own humanity.

Help us claim our strength and need,

our awesomeness and fragile beauty,

that encouraged by the truth we might work

to restore compassion to the human family.

Week 3: A History Leading to Exile 

This week, let us consider our more recent history, the Protestant Reformation.  

The story of the Reformation 500 years ago in some ways is similar to the time of Constantine.  In both times, the church held significant power and sway in the larger society. No matter how one parses the 16th century, the Church still ruled over the Western way of life--the Church was not in Exile in the same way we find ourselves to be.  The Church in fact used Kings like puppets and taxes like tithes. 

In such a context of power the terms visible and invisible church were born.  In power, therefore, the Western church continued to move from kenotic life to the slaying of those who did not meet her criteria of the invisible, true, and pure church.  Just ask Servetus. To some, a collection of the visible church was simply considered to be chaff, offered to the wind.  The followers of the Pope and the followers of Calvin both believed the other to beyond the lavish grace of God.

In this way, our most recent heritage of reformation knows not exile in the Biblical sense.  Instead, our most recent ancestors, the ones who turned the page to what we have seen in the last 500 years, mostly knew internal discord within the Body of Christ as their ultimate battle.  

As history has played out, we know all too well that these internal battles are often over secondary or tertiary issues.  For example, do the faithful followers of Jesus today honestly believe that the faith hinges on an Aristotelian understanding of the sacraments?  Is Jesus present under the sacramental elements, with them, or is he simply and powerfully present?  

I hardly think that Debbie will be rounding up the Lutherans and burning them at the stake over such issues. No, Luther, Calvin, and the Pope did not fight against Nebuchadnezzar.  In the Reformation, we fought against one another.

The very name of our ancestry teaches us our significance.  We are Protestants.  We were born in this history as protesters of other Christians.  This does not say that orthodoxy has no boundaries.  I am simply stating that our beloved heritage has unknowingly taught us to examine the heart and faith of others while we at times neglect the plank within our own eye.

Is there any wonder why the modern Western Church is filled to the brim with those who protest other Christians with such passion and fury?

So who can save us from ourselves?  

Who can change our hearts and warm love for the world?  

Who can move us from infighting and protesting to local and global kenosis?

We look to the hills, for the coming of the maker of heaven and earth.

If Jeremiah 29 is to be believed, God sends us into exile for a reason.  Exile is not simply a punishment of destruction.  Exile calls us to return our whole hearts to the Lord and exile invites us to return to the world carrying God's shalom, from a position of weakness, not power.

Full exile is therefore seen as a divine gift.  As the powers of Israel and Judah required Babylon's fist, we too may find a Godly blessing by the rivers of Babylon.

Wrestling with God

-Read Matthew 5:21-22.

Which Christians have you called a fool?  Which Christians have you murdered in your heart?

Can you name these Christians by name?  What is the relevance of a name?  How does a person's name empower you to love them?  Write a few names or unknown names below?  What is God asking you to do?

-Read Matthew 5:23-26.

How has your and our disobedience to God's word in this scripture advanced the growing exile of the PCUSA? Of MVP? Of your local church?

What hopes and prayers do you have for the church in this regard?  What are you willing to do about it?  What are you not willing to do?  Why?

Holy Habits

-Read Matthew 5:9 and Jeremiah 29:7.

With a group of leaders at your church, find pictures, logos, or other tangibles that represent to you those whom you have truly been a Protestant--those whom you have protested.

Now, take markers, paints, or other materials.  With them, mark each tangible item with a symbol or sign of shalom.

Finally, place two or three action items in your daily planner or calendar.  Carry out these actions as you seek to be a shalom-maker.  Report back to your group of leaders.

Peace,  

Matt Skolnik 

PRESBYTERIAN YOUTH TRIENNIUM 2013 

• Preliminary Triennium Information for MVP Youth Leaders and Volunteers

• 2013 Youth Triennium Information

• PYT Participant Information Form - please print and return completed form to Presbytery office

• Participant Medical and Event Release Form - please print and return completed form to Presbytery office

• PYT Participant Packing List

NEED MORE INFORMATION?