New Wineskins – for old wine?
A first report from the New Wineskins Convocation
by Doug King
[6-16-05]
The convocation of the New Wineskins Initiative opened on Wednesday evening,
June 15, at Christ Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, MN. David Henderson,
moderator of the organization, welcomed the group with his thanks for their
willingness to take the risk of coming to such a gathering, when they must
be wondering, he said, "who are these yo-yos and what do they want to do
here?"
That captured the tone of the opening evening – a sense
expressed by many speakers, and apparently felt by many others, that this
might be the beginning of the separation in the Presbyterian Church that so
many have anticipated, whether with hope or with dread. And mixed with that
were the equally strong affirmations of hope, as Henderson put it, that "God
may be giving birth to something new in our midst."
The Rev. Sameh Maurice, pastor of Kasr el Dobara Church in
Cairo, Egypt, preached in the opening worship, on theme of Jesus’ call to
his followers to repent and return to their true love of him. "It’s all
about love," he said, "It’s all about love. God is love, and the
relationship with him is just loving him." That kind of love involves time
with the one we love – in prayer; it involves passion, a drive for action;
and it involves obedience, doing his will.
The sinners in our world, he said, are looking for love.
And if we love Jesus and live out that love, "they will meet him here" in
the church, the community of those who love Jesus.
Clark Cowden, executive presbyter of San Joaquin Presbytery, set forth much
of the thinking that
underlies the suggestions of the New Wineskins group.
Following the findings set out in some of the Presbyterian Presence studies
of the 1990s, he suggested that the PC(USA) has been guided in its
structural style since the 1960s by the "regulatory model" of organization.
Rising tensions in the church have been met by increasing reliance on
rule-making, but that is failing to stem the tide of dissent. For most
Presbyterians today, he said, that is the only organizational style we know,
and it’s now clear that "the denomination will have to be reinvented." Some
way out of this dysfunctional structure must be found.
Citing William Bridges’ book, Managing Transitions,
Cowden said that times of transition such as ours create "neutral zones,"
which are chaotic because the old system doesn’t work and the new one is not
yet functioning. But those times, he said, are also ripe with opportunity.
This is a time of confusion and tension, but also a time for "missional
experimentation" and creativity.
Speaking of the PC(USA) he said, "It seems to me our part
of the body [of Christ] is dying." The only way to help is to change the
structures, to "give up our lives" for the church. But, he said, "it’s
important for us to remain involved with the church. ... But one of the
worst things we can do is actively cause the death of the denomination. It’s
a terrible thing to work for a split, for schism. We must not be impatient,
or cause unnecessary pain." People who long for a split, he went on, "suffer
from loneliness and depression and lack of faith."
In such a time, he said, the best thing to do is to depend
on "the resurrection model." That means, as when we care for a dying person,
helping them get their affairs in order, celebrate the life they have lived,
and affirm that "it’s OK to die, for we are a resurrection people," and we
know that beyond death there is new birth, as a caterpillar dies and is
reborn as a butterfly.
This new form for the church should not involve
independent congregations, with no spiritual accountability. Rather we must
look for a new kind of connectionalism, new relationships shaped by the fact
that "we love one another, not because we believe the right things."
This process, he concluded, is filled with uncertainty,
just as the founding of the United States was filled with uncertainty and
"inherent messiness." We need a new wineskin, he said, for the
post-Enlightenment age where feelings are more important than ideas. That
will demand courage, he said, but "you can’t walk on water till you get out
of the boat. ... Now is the time to raise the sails. ... Now is the time.
Let’s go!"
That call to action was met with a standing round of
applause.
David Henderson then closed the evening session by laying out the planners’
hopes for the rest of the gathering. "We want these days to give some
glimpse of what a General Assembly type gathering might look like," he said.
The leaders will introduce the assembly to some of their work so far, hear
feedback, and then move to "a dedicated assembly" of delegates named by the
congregations that have voted their provisional support for the New
Wineskins ideas.
With what sounded like careful ambiguity, he explained
that "our goal is not to adopt a constitution and head off to start a
new denomination – but to begin to move toward the fulfillment" of the
vision expressed in the "Draft Constitution" that has been sent to all those
registering for the convocation.
He expressed the hope that the body will "adopt in
principle the key elements of this constitution, and begin to live out these
things now." The second hope is that the documents will be refine
until they can ultimately be approved "as a pattern for the future."
"How will this happen?" he asked. "We don’t know! We’re
making this up as we go along," seeking to be faithful to God’s leading, not
insisting on doing it "in our time" rather than in God’s time.
Finally, he said, the New Wineskins Initiative group sees
three possible paths into the future:
First is reform – working to change the denominational
structures from within. And toward that end, overtures will be presented to
the 2006 General Assembly.
The second possibility is to reinvent the church:
recognizing "the theological and ethical disparity – let’s not call it just
diversity – among us, and acknowledging that we’re called to establish an
alternative, and let people choose."
And the third possible path, he said is to replace the
present denomination with something new.
A little reflection:
As an observer I am struck by the general tone of this
gathering , which seems (so far) oddly lacking in the rancor we’ve come to
expect from those who seem to look forward to a split from the Presbyterian
Church (USA). These people clearly believe they are the ones who are being
faithful to the doctrinal and moral demands of the Presbyterian tradition.
They are clearly willing to look forward to a time of some kind of
separation. And perhaps most compelling, they show an awareness that in a
time of radical cultural change, radical structural change in the church is
also needed. New wineskins are needed, this group insists. But the new
wineskins are needed in order to hold the old wine. It may come in slightly
new flavors, but fundamentally it will still be the same wine.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about how this might
work out.
