Some Perspective on the Impact of NWAC
While I am an all-too-typical Presbyterian in some ways, I am decidedly atypical in being mostly disinterested in, and even dismayed by, matters of polity. I'm no expert in polity, and proudly so. This puts me decidedly out of the mainstream of many active Presbyterians who, from my vantage point, are borderline obsessive about polity issues to the point where little of anything substantive gets accomplished. I offer this background as something of a disclaimer the reader should consider in evaluating the below.
The New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) is a loosely affiliated group of conservative congregations in the mainline PCUSA denomination. Depending on who's doing the counting, the number of congregations 'affiliated' with NWAC is around 150. Recently, NWAC held a convocation at which they petitioned my denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) to establish a non-geographic New Wineskins presbytery that would be designed to 'receive' NWAC churches who feel called to leave the PCUSA over theological issues. At its recent General Assembly, the EPC approved this plan, along with some other polity infrastructure mechanisms, in order to facilitate the receiving of NWAC churches that are interested in exploring or joining the EPC. So much for the background...
Ever since the EPC General Assembly, the assessment of the impact of the above has varied greatly depending on who one consults. The PCUSA regime has largely ignored these events and pretty clearly seems to be trying to downplay the importance of these things. On the other hand, folks in the EPC, along with conservative publications like the Layman, are trumpeting these events as incredibly significant. These folks talk of a fundamental realignment taking place, and characterize the movement of about two dozen churches out of the PCUSA in the last year as an 'exodus'. Who is to be believed?
Well, I think some perspective is in order. It is in the best interests of the PCUSA leadership to downplay these events and minimize the impact upon the denomination and its work. It is also in the best interests of the EPC and other sympathetic voices to loudly proclaim these events dramatize the impact. So right off the bat, neither side's spin on these events is particularly surprising, given their respective vested interests. But there is more to it than that.
From the perspective of the PCUSA, it's not hard to see why they wouldn't be very inclined to see the movement of 25 churches out of their denomination as a big huge event. The PCUSA is currently a denomination of over 11,000 churches. 25 churches is hardly an 'exodus', which Webster defines as a 'mass migration'. 25 churches out of 11,000 is no exodus. Even if certain reports are true that as many as 40 other churches might leave PCUSA in the next year, the total number of congregations bolting the PCUSA because of theological strife would still be only one half of one percent of the congregational total of the denomination. If this is a 'realignment', it ain't much of one.
So does this mean that the PCUSA's muted reaction to the NWAC movement is appropriate and that the EPC/Layman rhetoric is overblown? Not exactly. First, the EPC is a much smaller denomination than the PCUSA. An influx of 25-50 churches within a two year period is indeed a big deal from the perspective of the EPC. It has been suggested that by the time the polity stuff works itself out, the EPC might be close to double the size it was before all this began. That's a big deal, and the EPC is correct to consider it a big deal from their vantage point. In addition, it is pretty well known that a number of the NWAC churches that have left or are contemplating leaving the PCUSA are quite large. I think it's fair to say that while the NWAC numbers are small in terms of the number of congregations, many of these congregations wield more power and influence than what might be supposed because a number of them are/were flagship churches in the PCUSA. Kirk of the Hills, Signal Mountain, Montreat, Memorial, and others are all influential churches with large memberships running from 500-2,000 people. Given the presbyterian government structure of both the PCUSA and the EPC, it is inaccurate to suggest that the movement of these kinds of churches don't have a considerable impact, particularly at the presbytery level. Earlier this year, the PCUSA held a highly publicized conference on the viability of presbyteries given the ever shrinking financial resources they have to work with due to membership decline, dedicated giving, and congregational flight. This conference was held before the EPC General Assembly.
In the end, I think the truth is somewhere in between the respective spins of both sides. In my view, words like 'exodus' and 'realignment' are inappropriate to employ in measuring the impact of NWAC. We're not talking about a flood of congregation departures from the PCUSA, but a drip. But likewise, it is quite disingenuous for the PCUSA to pretend like these developments are not newsworthy and don't have broader harmful implications to a denomination that is already reeling from organic membership decline and distrust of their leadership at the pew level. Interested observers would be wise to consider the source when considering the viewpoints being expressed about the impact of NWAC.
posted by Jason Foster @ 9:47 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Being unfamiliar with this issue I was struck with what I would perceive to be a great missing of the point. Should either group, PCUSA or the EPC focus on this as opposed to reaching non-believers? The kingdom of God is not increased one way or the other by these shifts in membership. The church we used to go to was clear to say (among the positive things I took away from that experience) that increasing their membership by having believers stop attending where they were going and start attending there was not their goal, but rather to have people who didn't go to church anywhere start attending. To focus too much energy on congregations moving from one strand of Presbyterianism to another is something that smacks of man focus, not God focus.
In the abstract, I think you're clearly correct. Churches shouldn't make their livings by 'poaching' people from other good churches. My experience is similar to yours, in that every church I've been a part of has been pretty clear in not wanting to grow through church membership transfers, but through reaching the unchurched. I think this approach is decidedly more faithful to a biblical vision of Kingdom.
But the subject of my post is a bit more complex, I think. First, the EPC did not solicit any of this. The EPC has simply responded to a petition they received from NWAC to establish a non-geographic transitional presbytery to receive disaffected PCUSA churches that feel called to leave. This isn't a case of the EPC getting in a room and developing a growth strategy that's based on targeting disaffected PCUSA churches and wooing them to join the EPC. The EPC has been in a reactive mode rather than a proactive mode from the get-go.
Second, the NWAC churches have their own story to tell about Kingdom. A number of them have indicated that the PCUSA leadership has largely abandoned a Biblical vision of Kingdom, and it has made the churches situation untenable. On the one hand, these churches feel compelled to 'fight the good fight' with the denomination to try and restore solid theological morings. But often, these fights are bloody, costly, and rarely change anything. On the other hand, enough unchurched folks have a working knowledge of the theological strife within the PCUSA. This creates a real challenge for these churches. They are often reduced to having to apologize upfront for their own denominational affiliation, and have to spend no small amount of time drawing distinctions between themselves and the PCUSA leadership. This kind of effort creates a natural barrier to effective evangelism, because the newcomer often walks away from all this with the perception that the church is in the middle of a mess it can't solve. For these churches, they believe their Kingdom work is being impeded by both the internal denominational battles, and the external perceptions. And I think they're right.
NWAC petitioned the EPC because it thought the EPC was a better fit and offered the best chance for them to truly live out their missional vision of the Kingdom. The EPC responded positively to the petition because they believe their Kingdom vision will be enhanced by the missional energy these congregations might bring to the EPC. That's not to say that everyone's motives on both sides were totally pure. We should all know better than that. But in significant ways, I think both sides saw this arrangement as a good fit that would be used by God to expand the Kingdom. I don't think this is primarily about numbers or even about making statements. I do think it's primarily about both sides realizing they need help living out their Kingdom visions more fully, and believing that God brought them together for just this purpose. We'll have to see what kind of fruit is produced in order to gauge whether God really is the focus. If he is, the fruit will show it.
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