My response...

What a fascinating article. It points to a charge that a Franciscan Friar made about his own order at a conference my wife and I went to a few years ago. Was their order "mission" or "museum"? This article tells me we are all about the museum, and a museum in an economic environment that is tough on museums. Three things speak to me in this article and 1 makes me weep:

1. Mid-council levels, did they become the preserve of the issues in Point 1 because that is where the impetus lay, or were they dumped there because no one else, at Presbytery or G.A. level, could be bothered?

2. When was the last time our denomination stood for something? All this conversation about infrastructure and the loss of relevance in the community, and the attempts to hold onto something from the past with old wealth and old members-all those factors strike me as a body without a head. Those elements must exist to support an ideal, a vision, a purpose. For the last twenty five years, or more, anyone looking in at our denomination might presume we stand for trying to figure out the faith status of our gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual brothers and sisters-which, maybe more than metaphorically, has been an amazing example of our eating our own young.

3. I truly have no problem with Roberts Rules. They keep us polite, they force us to accept decent modes of communications, they are established steps in a representative, democratic process which is how the PCUSA has seen fit to channel the spirit of God speaking through its members. But in the absence of a clear and present reason for being, they have, like so much else, become their own reason for being. When the Rules serve the church, their place works. When the church serves them, we're up a creek.

"Racism, sexism, multi-cultural experiences, domestic violence, gender orientation issues, corporate social justice, disaster relief coordination, Self Development of People options, international justice, local and state-wide interfaith and ecumenical matters, public education..." These are the things we are losing, according to the article, with our mid-council losses. This is what makes me weep. Every one of these necessary considerations MUST flow from the grace and salvation that comes in Jesus Christ. The Great Commission carries with it the mandate to create a world like that of the Kingdom of God. Ours is a liberating religion and the Presbyterian Church has an incredible history of doing Jesus' work POWERFULLY, and I believe we can do it again. Out of Jesus, love and light and grace flow for the church. Out of Jesus, we will see revival, renewal, and resuscitation in the PCUSA.

Blessings, sisters and brothers, in He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,
Peter Hofstra