The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) embodies a Reformed understanding of the Gospel that has empowered countless Christians across 500 years to know Christ and what Christ means in this, and every, age. Our faith in a transcendent God who has chosen us and calls us by name, our belief that intellectual rigor is as necessary as emotional commitment, our zeal in following Christ in mission, whether in our front yard or across the world – these are messages that people need to hear and are waiting to hear.
But our ability as a denomination to proclaim these messages effectively as we move into the second decade of the 21st century is in peril. Our multicultural, secular society no longer has Christianity, much less the institutional church, much less the P.C. (U.S.A.), at its center. It no longer trusts implicitly in the effectiveness of institutions. Yet we continue to believe that we can do ministry the same way we did fifty years ago.
It’s a simple choice, really: if we don’t change, we’ll die.
We won’t completely disappear, of course; we’ll just continue to be diminished, year by year. The world around us will ignore our attempt to proclaim the Good News. We will increasingly find ourselves serving only as chapel and chaplain for “life long Presbyterians” – who become fewer and fewer every year.
A denomination that proudly claims the resolve and resiliency of John Calvin cannot let this happen. A denomination that takes seriously Jesus’ command to “go out and make disciples” cannot let this happen.
How do we reclaim a prophetic voice that will be listened to and taken seriously? The first step is to understand that we must proclaim our message in new and different ways. We must understand that we can no longer rely on a denominational name brand or on denominational loyalty. We must understand that the corporate organizational structure that was created in the 1950s is no longer viable. We must understand that our primary responsibility is not to impose rules but to empower and enable our congregations and their members to go out into the world and proclaim the transforming message of the Gospel.
In our Form of Government, we affirm that we are “the church ‘reformed, always reforming,’ according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit.” We may say that – but at the same time we hope and expect that the reforming will somehow happen without us actually having to change. Because change is a fearsome thing.
But if we don’t change, we’ll die.
We have the opportunity to begin to change by adopting the proposed new Form of Government – a proposal that returns the Form of Government to its proper status as a Constitutional document, rather than the regulatory manual that it has become over the past 25 years. That’s a good start. We need to go further. We need our presbyteries to focus less on administration and more on empowering their congregations to be effective wellsprings of ministry and mission. We need to stop thinking and acting like a bureaucracy and start thinking and acting like disciples.
Just one example: what if we forgot about annual membership statistics for two years, and instead asked each congregation to share what it had done over the course of those two years to make disciples?
The Moderator can’t make this, or any change, happen. But the Moderator, and all candidates for Moderator in the time leading up to the General Assembly, can challenge the church to face issues realistically and deal with those issues effectively. I’m not the first person to raise these issues; many conversations are going on across the church about transforming our denomination. Those conversations need to continue. As Moderator, and as a candidate for Moderator, I want to continue those conversations. I want to say to the church, “it’s time to make choices for our future. It’s time to change.” That is why I am standing for Moderator.
There’s one other reason why I am standing: because I believe I have the skills, temperament, and ability to help the commissioners gathered together as the Assembly to make decisions effectively, fairly, and responsibly. In this role, the Moderator does not express positions or views of her own, but instead non-obtrusively guides the Assembly as it discusses, debates, and discerns God’s will for the P.C. (U.S.A.) in this particular time and in this particular place. This role requires a strong non-anxious presence, a sense of humor, the ability to win the trust of the Assembly as fair and impartial, a capability to act decisively in making parliamentary decisions, and an instinct for knowing when the Assembly needs to pray together for guidance or to simply relax for a moment and regroup. As with a good baseball umpire, the most effective moderatorial work goes almost unnoticed as the Assembly does its work and makes its decisions.
My diverse experience over the past 30 years has given me to a wide range of experience in helping organizations make decisions: in National Capital Presbytery, serving as chair of the Committee on Ministry, Acting General Presbyter, Moderator, and Chair of Council; co-moderator of the Form of Government Task Force; and Executive Vice President, member of the Board of Directors, and Corporate Secretary of BNA, Inc., the only remaining independent publisher in the U.S. of legal and regulatory news and information, and the oldest wholly employee-owned company in the country. There is no way by which someone can “practice” moderating the General Assembly. But I believe my experience positions me to be able to do it effectively.
Installation of Cindy as Moderator of National Capital Presbytery