AssociationForChurchRenewal.com

Among secular headlines heralding the demise of the church and internal Christian survey’s indicating that church decline has spread from the mainline denominations to the evangelical milieu, why do we believe in the future of the historic churches in North America? Why do we believe that it is these ‘mainline’ historic Congregational, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal/Anglican, Lutheran, Christian, Reformed and Brethren congregations are a key to God’s future work in our time? Why for instance do we believe that it is the historic church, which will lead the way in such post Christian regions as New England?

Some of our hope is rooted in the revelation of God’s word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Some is based on observable assets. The Bible reveals that God is historic in every dimension of his work. The hope for his people in the Old Testament is rooted in their memory of his provision and revelation in times before they were born. In Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of literally hundreds of specific prophecies from Psalms, Isaiah, and the other prophets that unfolded visually several hundred years after they were given. In Daniel we learn that God has empires and epic historic eras designed into his great unfolding purpose. In the opening chapters of Revelation we learn that specific churches have distinctive character, strengths and weaknesses with historic significance. We live in the promise to the church at Philippi, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”, and the affirmation that “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.”

Even while many of us as renewalists confront the most bleak evidence of decline and apostasy, we are also keenly aware that the Holy Spirit is at work in the historic church. In the very liberal United Church of Christ, for instance we have yet to find a congregation that does not have some small remnant of praying believers. Among the 100 largest and most influential congregations in North America, a large percentage are historic churches. Movements such as the Anglican Awakening are emerging from the historic setting. The growing spiritual authority and missionary movement from the church of the global south is penetrating the spiritual resistance of the west through the historic churches to whom they are related. It is no mistake that the ALPHA movement emerged from a Victorian Anglican Church called Holy Trinity Brompton.

At the corner of Main St. in villages, towns and cities across No. America, the historic church offers these opportunities.

Ø We own buildings and other facilities, often strategically located, and sometimes endowed.

Ø We have natural relationships and connections throughout the people groups in our setting, often with significant historic credibility, that offer tremendous possibilities to make disciples.

Ø Historic churches that have been the home of elected officials, youth programs, and social services for generations are more difficult to marginalize, demonize and exclude from community life.

Ø Historic churches can survive in circumstances that will close more recently planted congregations.

Ø There is DNA in the original call, covenants, and mission of the historic church that provides a blueprint for a dynamic, spirit filled future.

So whether God is calling you to pray your church to life with a small remaining remnant, or to respond to his call to ministry, or to bring renewed life to a church willing to seek God’s purpose, or to replant a new church from the roots of the old, we invite you to join with us in a great adventure of the Holy Spirit. Renewal from the roots is a call to God’s future forged from the past in order that he might “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,” (Ephesians 3:20,21)

Originally published at RenewalFromTheRoots.com

Historic Park Street Church was assaulted by homosexual activists. Their “crime”? Allowing a training event for a ministry serving those who wish to leave the Gay lifestyle. Story from Mass Resistance.

Presbyterian Lay Committee hosts Prayer Blog for National Day of Prayer

In conjunction with the National Day of Prayer event on Thursday, May 7, the Presbyterian Lay Committee will host an interactive prayer blog.

Focusing on The Great Ends of the Church (from G-1.0200 of the Presbyterian Church USA’s Book of Order), The Lay Committee will offer up prayers throughout the day on The Layman Online blog.

The National Day of Prayer, an annual observance that invites all Americans to pray for the nation, is in its 58th year. Mobilizing people of faith across the country, the event’s mission is to intercede for America and its leadership in seven centers of power: government, military, media, business, education, church and family. This year’s theme is “Prayer … America’s Hope.”

Recognizing the need to pray for the witness of Christians in the midst of a time when Biblically-based theology is under attack, The Presbyterian Lay Committee is offering an online opportunity to join others in prayer as a complement to the National Day of Prayer activities.

“Prayer is a privilege and a responsibility for all Christians,” Lay Committee President Carmen Fowler said. “Prayer is made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ whose death on the cross literally opens the way to a relationship with the living God. Prayer is Christ’s directive to His people and we are privileged to share the experience of prayer in this way.”

Through its blog, Presbyterian Lay Committee staff will open an 8-hour session of online prayer at 9 a.m.  At the top of six consecutive hours, prayer subjects will focus on the PCUSA’s The Great Ends of the Church. The prayer blog schedule will be:

• 10 a.m. - The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind
• 11 a.m. - The shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the children of God
• 12 p.m. - The maintenance of divine worship
• 1 p.m. - The preservation of the truth
• 2 p.m. - The promotion of social righteousness
• 3 p.m. - The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world

At 4 p.m., a closing prayer will be offered with posting to end at 5 p.m. Blog visitors are asked to post their own prayer concerns and praises throughout the day. The blog will be updated throughout the day and requires no registration.
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The Presbyterian Lay Committee, which was founded in 1965, publishes The Layman newspaper and The Layman Online. It also provides renewal resources through Reformation Press and PLC Publications. For more information about the ministry, visit www.layman.org.
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To learn more about the National Day of Prayer visit www.nationaldayofprayer.org. A searchable database of community events and links to other Day of Prayer activities are available.

If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 13:1-3

A statement by 130 so-called “Teaching Theologians” in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America calling the church away from it’s Biblical foundations has drawn a pointed response by Lutheran Teaching Theologian Rev. Dr. Paul Hinlicky. The article Against the 130 “Teaching Theologians” takes the statement to task for it’s departures from Scriptures, the Lutheran Confessions, and the consensus fidelium of the historic Church.

It concludes that the irresponsible work of “teaching” theologians who seem more adept at rationalizing accomodations to the spirit of the age in producing this statement must be dismissed. “Were this teaching clear, pastoral flexibility and evangelical mercy could prevail as they ought in our churches in regard to sisters and brothers who bear the cross of same-sex desire. But since it is not clear, and since veiled threats are being issued to keep matters obscure, those true to Scripture and Confessions have no choice but publicly and officially to protest.”

Fifteen faithful Bishops of the Episcopal Church issued a scholarly statement this week on the nature and history of polity within the Episcopal Church. They assert that authority in the whole church resides with the Bishops and Diocese. The Presiding Bishop is not a metropolitan with the authority to interfere or intervene in a Diocese. They affirm that the church is a fellowship of Diocese that is not and never has been hierarchical in nature. The statement presents a strong challenge to the pattern of control and legal intervention undertaken by the office of the Presiding Bishop. It also asserts that each Diocese relates through its bishop individually to the global Anglican Communion, unbound by the social/theological stance of the office of presiding Bishop. This is a new initiative by those who have remained within the Episcopal Church which will provide new ground for faithful witness!!

To read the full statement:
Anglican Communion Institute

LENOIR, N.C. – The Presbyterian Lay Committee has urged Presbyterians to stand firm in the face of another attack on Biblical ordination standards.

The statement by the directors of the Lay Committee follows the recent defeat of Amendment 08-B, which would have removed the Presbyterian Church USA’s constitutional requirement that church officers live in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and woman or chastity in singleness.

An overture that would allow the ordination of homosexuals was introduced the same day by a Michigan congregation. If approved by the Detroit Presbytery, the proposal would go the 2010 PCUSA General Assembly.

“We are grateful to the Lord that the PCUSA has upheld Biblical ordination standards of pastors, elders and deacons for a fourth time in 12 years,” the Lay Committee’s statement says. “Yet we are grieved that the peace, unity and purity of the church continues to be torn apart by those who insist upon subjecting the Body to votes
on their agenda.”

The Lay Committee says the voting gap on the issue continues to become narrower as the denomination is losing faithful members because of the assault on Biblically-based church polity.
“A constitution that can be deemed nonessential is no longer a constitution,” the board says. “We are committed to stand with those who stand with Christ.”

The Presbyterian Lay Committee, which was founded in 1965, publishes The Layman newspaper and The Layman Online. It also provides renewal resources through Reformation Press. For more information about the ministry, or resources on issues such as the fidelity-chastity standard and other issues facing the Church, visit the organization’s Web site at www.layman.org.

Photo: Brad Braxton

As Rev. Brad Braxton prepares to be installed as Pastor at the historic citadel of mainline religion, Riverside Church in New York City, this Sunday, the church faces a lawsuit over his $600,000 package. Diana Solomon-Glover, a plaintiff who sings in the choir claims it is a social justice issue in times of economic crisis. Plaintiffs point out that it is twice what his predecessor James Forbes made and almost ten times the salary of the famous William Sloane Coffin in the late 1980’s. The $600,000 on closer inspection, however, includes housing in Manhattan, pension, insurance, travel expenses to speak for Riverside and the value of tuition free education for his children at the Riverside Church school. Supreme Court Judge Lewis Bart Stone, denied the motion to stop the installation and urged both sides to work it out among themselves.

Meanwhile it has come to light that the plaintiffs in the case have a deeper dissatisfied with the direction of the church. Over the last decade, the congregation has shifted from predominantly white liberal to African American. Rev. Braxton, a Southern Baptist former Rhodes Scholar who describes himself as a progressive evangelical, appears to represent a movement toward a more Biblically rooted personal faith experience. According to Plaintiff Solomon-Glover, “he has been taking the church toward a more fundamentalist brand of religion.”

Photo: Terry Schlossberg

Forced once again to choose whether Presbyterian Clergy can have sex outside of marriage, a majority of Presbyteries upheld the standard of Fidelity in Marriage, Chastity in singleness. The vote was much closer in this fourth attempt to overturn the Biblical standard as 28 Presbyteries reversed their vote and affirmed sexual license.

Terry Schlossberg, who coordinated the national campaign by the Presbyterian Coalition in support of Fidelity and Chastity, said, ” Those who wish to change the Biblically-rooted standard have continually pressed the matter and required repeated votes that have had the same outcome each time. It is well past time to acknowledge that the Church today, as throughout her history, knows her mind on this matter, and that it is the mind of Christ.”

Terry, a board member of the Association for Church Renewal went on to say, “Now it is time to live out the decision pastorally, leading people out of our society’s sexual confusion into repentance and newness of life,” she said. “The decision gives witness to the Church’s strong conviction that the Savior came to offer redemption to those held captive by any sin, including the prevailing sexual sins of our time. We have the Savior’s promise that he will care for us, forgive us, and tenderly lead us to repentance. This is the standard.”

Presbyterian Layman

Photo:Prayer Offered for the success of Detroit's new Hybrids. Other new religious hybrids are emerging around the mainline.

For those who thought the ‘Emergent’ movement came from beyond the seeker sensitive contemporary post-evangelical frontier welcome to the “Hybrid Emergents” who are donning the vestments and liturgies of the mainline church.

The Luthermergents feature such leaders as Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber who claims on the “Praxis Podcast” to be “unashamedly orthodox” and “devoutly Lutheran”. Nadia is pastor at the House for All Sinners and Saints; a Lutheran mission church in Denver Colorado, which advertises itself as, “liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, queer inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient - future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination.” The Luthermergent website also features a link to the Emerging Leaders Network which include links (as do some other emergent sites) to folks with the ’secret behind the secret’, namely channeling non-embodied spirits.

Luthermergent
http://luthermergent.ning.com/

The Presbymergents by comparison are a bit more subdued. Meeting for the first time in February, 2009, they reflect the urge to behave “decently and in order” by creating an organization and applying for a 501c3. In fact Bruce Reyes-Chow , PCUSA Moderator is listed as one of their bloggers. One key “mission statement” put forward by their coordinator, Drew Tatusko, a Princeton Seminary Grad (2000), reads, “Presbymergent are followers of Christ who seek continual reform of existing church structures through dynamic, open, and intentionally critical systems.”

http://presbymergent.org/

The Methomergents seem less intent on the radical and more concerned with how the methodist system does and doesn’t work, what is the role of the next generation, and what it means to be a missional methodist.

http://methomergent.blogspot.com

The Reformergent’s are a bit more skeptical about their own emergence, seeing theological deficiencies in the emergent movement in their approach to evangelism and orthodoxy. Their blog site sees four primary values in ‘emerging’, namely: missional living, social justice, authenticity and unstructured ecclesiology.

http://www.reformergent.org/about/

The Anglimergent group reflects much the same diversity as their parents, stating their intent to “agree to remain friends and remain in conversation that is honest in acknowledging the differing traditions and practices in different Anglican church bodies within our communion, without falling prey to paralysis that prevents us from engaging one another and God’s mission.”

Anglimergent

The anglimergents in the U.S. have their own Bishop Protector, The Right Reverend Gregory H. Rickel, Diocese of Olympia, WA. Liberal Episcopal figures such as Bishop Bruno and Phyllis Tickle are heavily involved in supporting this movement and several of the “Emergent” churches such as the “The Crossing” which meets at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston under the sponsorship of the Diocese of Massachusetts, are committed to “building a core of new leaders, young adults, people of color and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered people.”

Episcopal Life

On the other hand a major conference entitled “Ancient Traditions, Anglican Futures An Emerging Conversation” to be held at Evangelical, Trinity School of Ministry in Ambrose, Pa, June 4 - 6, is also promoted on the Anglimergent site.

The question “Ancient Traditions, Anglican Futures” will address in June is, ” How do Anglican “insiders” welcome young evangelicals, post-evangelicals, and emergents who are attracted to the “Great Tradition”? How do inquiring “outsiders” perceive or participate in the distinctive anamnesia (memory) of Anglican worship and mission? How can the exchange between insiders and outsiders bear fruit in Anglicanism today? How will this emerging conversation stir the mind and heart of an Anglicanism in renewal?”

Trinity School of Ministry

Photo: Lutheran booth at Gay Pride Parade, Lesbian wedding, L.A. 2007

Some 130 and counting Lutheran Theologians have signed on to a statement supporting the recommended changes proposed by the ELCA Study on Sexuality to the Churchwide assembly in 2009. They support recommendations which would offer church affirmation for same gender relationships, allow those in such relationships to be leaders in the church, to be ordained and to be rostered.

Their rational is that:

“We too affirm the authority of the Scriptures, but the seven biblical texts that are frequently cited on the issue of homosexuality are not directly pertinent to the 21st century discussion.”

“While not all Lutheran church bodies are of one mind on these issues, (Notably in the global south) Scandinavian and German Lutherans have already taken similar actions to those now being proposed in the ELCA.”

“We recognize that the unity of the church is based on one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, and that within this unity, faithful members may disagree on individual items of faith and practice.”

For the full list of participating theologians and scholars:
Lutheran Theologians Statement