Still more thoughts on the Fellowship/ECO conference

My colleague, Ruth Hicks, has written a very insightful blog about the meeting of the Fellowship of Presbyterians/ECO in Orlando. Her post, I was there, summarizes well the thoughts I have about this event.  I particularly agree with her comment about the loss to the PCUSA:

I will truly miss the greater diversity the PCUSA has with the significant mixture of Evangelical and liberal congregations. We will be far less a denomination with the silence of their voices, with the challenges they bring to our decisions, with their yearning for a Christ-centered ministry.

Early in the meeting at Orlando, Fellowship leaders asked this question: What would your community lose if your church went away?  For an excellent answer, see above.

I’m also right there with Bruce Reyes-Chow who asks,

What will prevent ECO from becoming just another Presbyterian denomination burdened by structure and organization?

Where does relationality end and regulation begin when it comes to polity and standards?

I was deeply saddened by the applause that followed the official announcement of the ECO.  Were conditions in the PCUSA so dire that when an acceptable escape route was offered the response was to cheer?  And no one offered a prayer in the moment…

I am concerned for the future of the PCUSA and the FOP/ECO.  I am grateful that the leadership of the Fellowship have included a more stringent plan for accountability among churches and pastors.  I look forward to seeing how a narrative annual report will be utilized alongside the numerically driven annual statistical report.  However it isn’t annual statistical reports that are causing the decline in the local congregation.  The report is merely a marker for how well our churches are doing their jobs.

I argue with the assumption that all of our problems have arisen with denominational headquarters or even with the local presbytery office.  The decline of the PCUSA is more easily traced to the failure of the local congregation to take evangelism seriously.  The decisions of a General Assembly are not binding upon the denomination until the people from the local congregations have voted.  The inability of church officers to articulate a Reformed faith is not because a General Assembly moderator or the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly failing to teach it.

Based on the speeches I heard and the conversations I was a part of, the failings of the PCUSA begin at the congregational level.

Here’s are 9 values the Fellowship/ECO outlines for the relationship they are establishing:

• Jesus-shaped Identity – “the key is making disciples rather than orthodox believers.”
• Biblical Integrity – “A faith that is not just taught but shapes the life of your community.”
• Thoughtful Theology – “not papers for intellectuals but rearing followers who are able to reflect and apply their faith to their lives.”
• Accountable Community – “caring environments that allows integral faith to emerge.”
• Egalitarian Ministry – women and minorities in leadership.
• Missional Centrality – “the whole of the gospel to the whole of the world; what would you lose if your church went away?”
• Center-focused Spirituality – “calling people to the core of Christianity, not fixating on the boundaries ― we are NOT truth cops.”
• Leadership Velocity – “growing and developing leaders who are culture-changing, risk-taking innovators.”
• Kingdom Vitality – “congregational life is not about size, but trajectory.”

What the Fellowship/ECO identifies are critical values that should already be in place and practice in the PCUSA.  What they lift up for the church is exactly what the PCUSA has valued for the more than 300 years it has existed in the United States.

I am glad that I was there.  I left Orlando with a resolve that new things must happen but not as the Fellowship/ECO groups propose.  It is time to get to work within the structures of the PCUSA.

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