There are sins of co-mission as well as sins of omission. What is not stated, and that which is known to all, is that any proposed fix or stop-gap regarding BOP health care is just that, stop-gap.

 The real pain and crises is not now, nor next year, but in the out years 2017-2022 when the retirement bomb begins the process and by 2025 60-70% of those currently in the plan are retired for BOP purposes, which will implode any system, now or proposed. Demographically, and the state of the church in terms of employment trends, offers no relief. At that point the BOP will move to means-testing, rationing, and/or merger with other plans. This is a given and beyond debate.

 The sooner the BOP levels with its membership base on these matters the better for all. But if past behavior gives insight to current and future institutional behaviors, one should not hold their breath.

Peter Gregory

The Board of Pensions dues structure discussion continues. In a recent PNS article by Leslie Scanlon I find this statement, "There are relatively few plan members at the top end of the salary range – only 2.7 percent of teaching elders have effective annual salaries of more than $113,000. While some have suggested that the impending deficit be made up by assessing higher fees on those earning the most, Haines said there aren’t enough people earning those high salaries to produce the funds needed."

If those at the lower compensation levels will have more costly dues, why not increase the upper end upon which dues are paid? It doesn't matter if that would produce significant new revenue for the BoP. The symbolism is what is important. I seem to remember something along the line of "Those to whom much is given, much will be required."

Wayne A Yost

Prayer and more prayer. Honesty with self and others. Humility in all one does. Those are key

Peter Gregory

Seminarian Nick Ison laments the absence of service work in the curriculum at Princeton Seminary (and in other seminaries as well). He sees this as a problem caused by a lack of “unified vision” on the part of students and faculty, and notes that “most colleges and now even high schools require some service work.” But in his disenchantment over this supposed missing part of seminary, it seems Nick has missed all of the mission organizations that do exist in the area. He is right that there are plenty of needs in the local community and beyond the borough and township of Princeton, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the seminary needs to step up and create programs to address these needs – programs are already in place in the areas.
Princeton Theological Seminary is indeed part of the greater Church, but it is not a church, a particular congregation. Students are expected to be plugged in to a congregation and active in it. This is not a requirement of the seminary, but as it was pointed out to me (and my classmates) while I was at Princeton 4 years ago, I am an adult. As an adult, I can make my own responsible decisions, such as deciding to attend worship and be active in a congregation and in the community. As an adult, I do not need the seminary to tell me to attend chapel, or be active in the life of the seminary, or in the life of the greater community. The school assumes (and I believe rightly so) that a seminary student would desire to do all these things.
The opportunities for community involvement are plentiful in Princeton and the surrounding area. For me, community involvement meant serving in the local volunteer fire department. For some of my classmates it meant renting a house in Trenton and investing their lives in the community around them. People perceived a need and tried to address it, or become involved with an organization that was already addressing it.
I am not trying to deny that seminaries need to adapt in some ways to a changing world and a changing church. I, too, lamented the lack of certain programs and classes being offered in seminary (like managing a church office), but what I have since realized and come to appreciate is that what Princeton did do for me was give me the biblical, theological, and pastor skills to be able to figure these things out on my own. I was not offered a class on moderating session meetings, or on how to be a head of staff. However, I was offered classes on pastoral care, church history, systematic, theology, and biblical studies. I interned at a hospital and with a congregation. I can now take what I know in those areas and apply it to life as a pastor in a congregation.
Do I still wish Princeton (and other seminaries) would offer more classes in “practical” things such as church management, finances, and the like? Yes. But after nearly four years of post-seminary ministry, I can see how the classes I was offered prepared me to think theologically and pastorally about all of these things. Perhaps my mistake as a student, and the mistake of many in my generation (millennials), was assuming that I would be offered programs that would address every need I have or every need I perceive in a community. I wonder if my generation unfairly expects every institution we are a part of to offer us these opportunities. But as I have already mentioned, seminaries are not congregations.
Serving others is absolutely an essential part of our faith as Christians. Our faith should inform our thoughts and ideas about service. What a seminary education does for students is equip them with the academic skills to think theologically about serving. If one’s service to the community isn’t motivated by faith, then that person’s calling may very well be to a non-religious non-profit organization. Mr. Ison states that it is service itself that compels many students to apply to seminary. That’s a loaded statement. If people are simply looking to serve, I do not think that seminary is necessarily the right place for them. There are non-profit organizations out there that can use them and their talents right now. If they are looking to expand their theological support of serving, as well as biblical and historical understanding of it, then seminary may be the place to go. That does mean spending a good deal of time with books and papers, as well as spending time in lectures and discussions. Despite what future seminarians (or current ones) may think, it is time well spent.
Chris Berardi
Greenville, South Carolina
Princeton Seminary class of 2009

I'm with Hart Edmonds to a point. Simply attempting a makeover on a largely unchanged church won't get us where we need to be. That said, congregational resistance to change (which in my experience is intense) easily becomes an excuse to perpetuate the same old things the same old way hoping that one day God will deliver a better outcome. Many of our congregations would rather die than change. Let's not dismiss the innovators simply because we know real lasting congregational change will be an uphill battle.

Mike Garrett

In my first, but not last, exposure to Myers-Briggs, it was suggested that Ps endlessly seek information, mostly unable to every come to a decision, since new information is just around the corner. On the other hand, Js were those who could take in the information, and make a decision with it. In the current life of the church, then, Ps are those who are still waiting for more information, more data, more studies, whereas Js finally realize when a decision has to be made, even if questions remain.

Tom Eggebeen

Are there no values to be lauded in any of this, or does anything go? Is everything all right and good, those who leave, those who leave, or are there distinctions to be made? No one's perfect, and no congregation has it all, but I wonder if we cloud the issue and miss the point by glossing over the serious distinctions between those who left, with their property, of course, and those who remained faithful to the larger body, with a larger loyalty transcending the moment and the exigencies of the day?

Tom Eggebeen

Authority does not necessarily mean ironclad law ... I suppose some in the early church felt similarly when the frontier apostles reported the in-flow of Gentiles.

Tom Eggebeen

Reinvent the church; now that's a fascinating idea.  Repackage it, spiff it up, put some tattoos on it for a with-it feel, park it in a strip mall, drop it in a coffee shop, paint it, decorate it, update it, down-size it, right-size it, up-size it into a mega-meal, add large fries and a drink.
All striking thoughts.  But no where is there a glimmer of a thought that real-honest-to God discipleship and a deeper grasp of the gospel might be in order.   It's all about packaging.   I'll pass the super-size meal myself.  I suspect that God is at work in the humbling of the church in North America, and we're still not coming to terms with that reality.

Hart Edmonds

Really looking forward to the NEXTChurch blog.  So glad that the Outlook is helping fill this need in the movement.  Very fitting.

Also wanted to say that as a full-on Myers Briggs EXtrovert, who's age-induced wisdom is helping me learn the value of "gray" in an increasingly black & white world, I believe that the polar differences we find among each other are part the mystery of God's creation.  They are part of who God created us to be, and once we accept and value them in ourselves and others, the process of learning from and embracing them may hold the key to discerning who the NEXTChurch is supposed to be for this broken world.

Julie Lehman

As an ESTJ working in a P world one aspect of J's is their greater adaptability to ambiguity  and "messiness"  of life as opposed to the structure and order J's tend to appreciate. As I am sure we J's tend more to react more to the relative chaos and dysfunction  of the PCUSA than P's who at times embrace the chaos. Though if the Next folks tend to taylor themselves to the Gen Y crowd (born 1983-2000) the defining feature of this generation is and will remain debt. Not so much their educational debt, which is staggering, but also the societal debt as Boomers will tend to balance their medical/retirement social nets upon their backs. Gen Y's exist in world of diminished economic opportunity, even relative to their Gen X older siblings.  But if generational theory hold to be true, Gen Y will mirror the great Missionary  generation of (1870-1895) in their optimism and desire to go out there and change the world. God bless them.  They will need all the hope and energy they can muster.

Peter Gregory

Agreed! I think this new congregation (OPC) has a future waiting for it that will be equally amazing and inspiring. And the fact that both congregations (OPC and FPC) are willing and able to go forward in a way that is productive and peaceable? How great is that! It is a gift to the rest of the denomination and the larger church. God bless the mebers of OPC as they make their way into that future.

Steve Frazier

What a great story!  Some will bemoan this as a sad example of schism.  To the contrary it's a marvelous example of the type of authentic unity God desires, unity in mission.  Both First Presbyterian and Orlando Presbyterian are in total unity on their mission to exalt the Savior in Orlando.  And they're pursuing their common mission in irreconcilable but amicable, Christ-honoring ways.  Thanks be to God.  

Jim Caraher

This is insightful, if not new, information.  Sadly the last few lines perpetuate the old myth that a vital young pastor will turn things around. I have had the privilege, in the last quarter century, of working with 4 talented, committed new seminary grads who have fought the good fight as hard as anyone. And those congregations are still in decline. We need to accept that many congregations are simply too old, too tired, or too disinterested to consider transformation. In some geographical areas there are simply too many congregations- now that most of us don't arrive by horse and buggy. We need to also life up congregational hospice ministry as a valid speciality and train people  for it.

Kathleen Davis

A comment on a couple of the underlying questions, and making little comment on what seems to be a curiously narrow view of the church’s mission  in the world:

The notion of labeling advocacy for peace in Palestine as “partisan, political commentary” is far more accidental than substantive.  Military aid to Israel has flourished under both democratic and republican administrations and legislatures.   Continued military aid to Israel may at the moment be a particular interest of much of the American right wing because their religious base of support has conflated the state of Israel with Biblical Israel and a certain unorthodox view of apocalyptic scripture.  Nonetheless, elements of the tea party endorse the same withdrawal of military aid from Israel that is a primary goal of the campaign promoted by the bus ads.  And although, correctly or not, secularism is more often identified with progressives, there are many strong advocates of a religious Israeli state calling for an end to the occupation as a necessary practical step for the survival of that state, since the current state of affairs occupying territory that overall is now or will soon be minority-Jewish is untenable.   

And regarding treating this church as a tax-exempt entity:  the organization behind the campaign supported by the bus ads is itself a tax-exempt non-profit.   It is not difficult for critics to question the tax-exempt status of churches, since a very large portion of our giving pays for things that directly benefit us the contributors; salaries and benefits for employees who mostly provide us with services we want, the buildings where we meet, the music program, and so on.   I am pretty certain that is as true of Pastor Gregory’s church as it is of any other.   This particular expenditure by the Chapel Hill church does nothing of the sort.

D Carothers

Perhaps if the denomination would help the local church to go out and make disciples instead of all the other stuff, we would not have this problem?  Just a thought. 

Bill Wisneski

I wonder how Peter Gregory knows exactly who is or is not "on the right side", though I do suspect that he does come from the right.  I do not pretend to have certain knowledge of that ultimate judgement.  It is my opinion that how we treat each other is both a cause and an effect of an enlightened spiritual life.  I have no interest in dogma or judgmental rhetoric.  I am trying to learn the truth, promote justice and live peace.  That, it seems to me, is the aim of the Church of Reconciliation ad.  There is nothing, whatsoever, political about it.  There can be no peace among us without justice and there can be no justice without truth.

Jon Paul McClellan

In the great divorce of liberal and pietist streams of american protestantism since 1933, the fault lines are indeed political and ideological. But at the center is a matter of Christology or Christological. In essence WWJD.  The whole cloth the naked, feed the hungry can be read by both sides in totally different ways.  Was feeding the hungry, cloth the naked a matter of simple human compassion, a no-brainer, a biblical imperative, a political statement against the lack of a social safety net in Roman culture, was it a cry for workers rights and an index minimum wage to inflation, was it a call to work for the greater "peace and social justice" agenda which the left sort of claims as it own, as the other side does evangelism and born-again?  Good questions all.  

  Both sides assume of course they speak for Jesus in all matters, and of course Jesus agrees with them. As I am sure Mr. McCellan feels he is on the right of side of history and faith. Suffice to say I beg to differ.  There are many political parties one can join, many good and worthy organizations one can affiliate with to do good works, from the Red Cross to Girl Scouts. But there is only one church, one Body of Christ, whose core mission is bring all to the saving grace of Jesus and know him as Lord and Savior, period. The church has no mission apart from that.  The whole feeding the hungry and cloth the naked comes out of a result of that, not the other way around.

  The religious left never really got over the romanticism and sentimentality of the social gospel of the 1880-90's. A Jesus as your best friend and one who marches besides you on the picket line or protesting the latest injustice. Nice Jesus to have in your pocket,  but that God is far too small and cannot save.  No matter how much money they spend on bill-boards on buses saying Jesus is a friend of little school kids in Ramadi.  Free to do it of course, it is indeed a free country, but it makes absolutely no difference to the cause they believe in.  Much like churches putting "gun free zones" up on their property after Newtown. Makes the folks feel better, but does nothing in the greater good.

Peter Gregory

Using Peter Gregory's logic, Jesus was a partisan when he said feed the hungry and clothe the naked.  There is nothing partisan about advertising for peace and justice.  It is Peter Gregory's comments that are both naive and foolish as well as transparently disingenuous.

Jon Paul McClellan

Since the 1960s the liberal/progressive protestant  establishment has confused ideology/politics with mission/evangelism and public witness.  Thinking  the former a cheep substitute for the latter.  I am sure the church in question is wealthy enough with progressive minded folks from the research triangle to make their own informed decisions on how and where to spend their money. Its not my money. But make no mistake whatever message they chose to send out on a public bill-board, bus, the public square,  was a partisan, political commentary, meant to cut as a wedge issue in regard to the morass in the middle east. As such they make themselves no different from the JDL, ABA, or a host of other public entities that make certain comments on a variety of matters and open to public comment and feedback, both positive and negative. To claim a special privilege as a church, house of worship, that they should not be subject to such commentary, good or bad is both naive and foolish on their part.  My only question is why treat this church as a tax-exempt entity.  One wants to make statements like everybody else, pay the freight, like anybody else.

Peter Gregory