The Messenger - August 26, 2007

By the time you read this article, the Session will have selected one of two final proposals for church signs. I think both proposals are attractive, and I look forward to seeing the final choice installed. In this decision, as in most decisions that our leaders make, several people have expressed opinions, and several options were considered along the way. Each of these opinions shaped the final decision, and each option clarified our thinking in some way. As usual, the process took much longer than it would have with a single decision maker, but I believe that the end result will fit us better than the choice of even the most gifted individual.

In the end, we will have two external signs: one will replace our current sign on 8th Avenue, and one will be placed on 7th street between the temple and the doctor's offices there. Both will be vast improvements for us.

The current sign on 8th Avenue is over 60 years old, and it has served us very, very well. But a faithful church member must change it every single week, and the plastic letters we clip into it have not aged well. Some are missing, some are cracked, and some just do not fit as they should. Moreover, the whole design looks very dated by the standards of today. The announcements on our new sign, by contrast, will be projected electronically. We will be able to change them much more easily from a computer inside the building, and we'll look like were still open after 125 years.

The new sign on 7th street will also help our church a lot. 8th Avenue is a dead end that bears very little traffic. 7th street is a thoroughfare that bears several thousand cars each day. We've owned the land along 7th street for many years. In fact, we bought it before we built this church. But, except to build a parking lot, we've never taken advantage of this vital space. Our new sign fixes this oversight, literally putting us "on the map" for countless commuters every single day. Since our church is located 1 block off of 7th street, we'll need to design this sign carefully so visitors will not be confused. But, if we do that well, I think that our visibility in this community will be considerably improved.

As this project nears completion, I need to thank the Adult Discipleship Commission and the Mission Facilitation Team, both of whom have spent a lot of time debating this. I also need to thank Tom Cummings, a member of our choir and an executive with Signtronix Corporation, whose generosity and persistence have kept this project moving for 10 months. So, here's a "tip of the halo," folks! Thank you, and God bless.

• Sermon: When God Deliverd Us
• Scripture: Duteronomy 6:20 - 24
  
• Preacher: Rev. Neal Neuenschwander
• Special Music: New Organist Johannes Mueller-Stosch Arrives
  

• Next Sunday, September 2, Adult Sunday School resumes.  8:30 - 9:30am  Classroom at end of hall.

• September 2, Johannes Mueller-Stosch will begin as our new organist.  A reception in the MacCormick room will follow  the service.  All Are Welcome!

• Chancel Choir rehearsals begin Thursday, September 6 at 7:30pm   If you can carry a tune, we want you!

• All Church Picnic  -  Saturday 8, September,  11am - 4pm.

• September 9 is Church School Rally Day!
  

• Women's Bible Studies to start Mon., Sept. 10, 7 - 8:30pm and Wed., Sept. 12, 1 - 2:30pm   Studies are identical.  Contact: Kim Neuenschwander to sign up or for more information.
  

• September 16 - Children and Youth Sunday School begins
  

• Rehearsals for all youth choirs start soon.  Members or not, all youth are welcome!
  

• You can sign up online for the new weekly church e-newsletter... or view the archives.

PC(USA)
August 22, 2007

Form of Government Task Force approves,prepares to release ‘bold’ revision

Documents available for study and comment in September

by Toya Richards Hill
Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE – The General Assembly task force charged with reorganizing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Form of Government is ready to release denomination-wide a revision it calls “bold” and “more perfected” than what currently exists. 

Following a line-by-line review and editing of its work at a meeting here Aug. 16-18, the Form of Government Task Force (FOGTF) unanimously approved its proposed new initial section of the Book of Order,entitled “The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity,” and its changes in six chapters of the book’s Form of Government section.

The revised version “makes more sense. I think it’s bold,” said FOGTF member the Rev. James H. Y. Kim. “We’ve basically turned the polity of the church on its head,” said FOGTF co-moderator Sharon M. Davison.

The nine-person task force was created by the 217th General Assembly (2006), and charged to revise the Form of Government in light of five priorities:

• to preserve the PC(USA)’s “foundational polity,” particularly the first four chapters of the Book of Order;
• to provide leadership for congregations as “missional communities”;
• to maintain the presbytery as “the central governmental unit” of the PC(USA) and to provide presbyteries with “sufficient authority and flexibility” to assist congregations, particularly by addressing the “institutional and structural impediments” that tend to cripple them;
• to provide “flexibility at all levels,” granting authority while permitting governing bodies to develop the structures they think best to carry out their mission;
• to encourage greater dialogue and consensus decision-making as governing bodies seek to resolve conflict.

The Assembly also instructed the task force to release its report by September 2007, so the whole church can read and consider it fully before it goes to the Assembly. The FOGTF documents, including a study guide, will be posted on its Web site, and synods, presbyteries and sessions will be notified that the material is available for review and comment.

Also available on the Web, and included in what the task force was charged with creating, will be an advisory handbook, a checklist of policies and procedure that synods, presbyteries and sessions need to have in place to do their work.

Once all of that is in place, the task force will hit the road to talk about its work with various groups, including the General Assembly Council (GAC) and The Association of Executive Presbyters (AEPs), and at gatherings such as the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) Fall Polity Conference and the Moderator’s Conference in November.

Task force co-moderators Cynthia J. Bolbach and Davison also will reach out to denominational affinity groups and others such as evangelical Presbyterians in order to make sure a diverse group has seen and had an opportunity to comment on the task force’s work

“I think this is the time when you really want to blitz” in terms of communication, OGA Communications Coordinator the Rev. Sharon K. Youngs advised the task force.

Youngs is working with the FOGTF on a number of communications efforts, including producing video clips answering questions such as, “How are the first four chapters of the Book of Order being revised?” and “What is the biggest change between what we have now and what you are proposing?”

Feedback the task force receives will be reviewed to determine if more edits are needed before it finalizes what it submits to the 218th General Assembly, which meets next summer in San Jose, CA.

“I just think it’s incredible that you got this done,” the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, PC(USA)General Assembly stated clerk, told the task force during its meeting. The critical issue going forward is “getting people dealing with it enough that they know what is there.”

“I think it is very important to be out” talking about what’s been done, he said. “The next three months are important.”

The task force already received suggestions on fine-tuning its material while it was in draft form. Some of that advice, particularly from the General Assembly’s Advisory Committee on the Constitution and the PC(USA)’s Office of Theology, Worship and Education, was incorporated into what the FOGTF ultimately approved.

“The importance of the work that you are doing cannot be overstated,” the Rev. Joseph Small, director of the PC(USA)’s Office of Theology, Worship and Education, told the FOGTF.

The task force is not simply saying, lets take this book of regulations and make it leaner and meaner so that it will free people up, he said. “You are doing more than that,” Small stressed. This is an opportunity “to make some significant advances in the church’s understanding of who and what it is.”

Small said fear that the task force will “mess it all up” has people questioning why its “tinkering” with the Book of Order at all. But, he told them, “if you are able to explain clearly ... people will stand up and salute.”

Among Small’s suggestions that the task force embraced was using the term “ordered ministers” to refer to ministers of the Word and Sacrament, elders and deacons, who “are given by the church a certain order.”

These three “ministers” have a commonality, and John Calvin said these three functions are necessary in every congregation, Small said.  The task force has an opportunity to contribute to recovering “the genius of the Reformed tradition” and “the dignity and the gravity of the ministry to which they have been called.”

The task force also applied another suggestion from Small’s office, which was to eliminate the term “governing bodies.”

Instead, Small suggests returning to the word council, a term with a long tradition in the church, he said. “Governing bodies was a bad invention.”

Council is a centuries-old term and “it indicates the function that these groups have,” Small said. They are called together to consider “weighty matters of the Gospel and to help guide the church.”

“This is, again, an opportunity ... to recall the church to its better self,” he said. It says the PC(USA) is a denomination “that orders itself.”

The Mission Commission supports a wide variety of humanitarian and evangelistic work in our city and throughout the world.  Well over 10% of our budget is earmarked specifically for this purpose.  Within Southern California, these funds support ministries to drug addicts, mentally ill persons, abused women, adoptive families, foster families, and the homeless.  Outside of Southern California, these funds support several full time missionaries.

We increase awareness of Mission Opportunities through an annual Mission's Fair, an Alternative Christmas Market, a variety of missionary speakers, and the annual CROP walk for world hunger.  In partnership with the Student Ministries Commission, we also encourage short-term mission trips, including a recent project in West Virginia.  A major project of this commission is the annual Thanksgiving Basket Drive, which has distributed several thousand boxes of food and gifts to needy families in our community throughout the years.

Chairperson: Shirley Gonzalez

• A Cat.

Inductive Bible Study or "Exegeses" is to draw out or extract what is in the text the way it was written. One attempts to find the true meaning and explain the passages of scripture from their context.  It is suggested that a translation that is close to litteral be used.