Heeding the call

From the Presbyterian News Service: Heeding the call (Your GAC mission dollars at work!)

LOUISVILLE — The Rev. Lee Hinson-Hasty recalled  a parking lot discussion he had with a young man who had become an Inquirer after exploring his call with his church’s session for five years.

“Full of a feeling of support by his church community,” Hinson-Hasty told the General Assembly Council (GAC) during its fall meeting here, “he said to me, ‘Lee, wouldn’t it be great if every single youth at our church went through a similar process?’”

Hinson-Hasty, reporting to the GAC on behalf of a Mission Work Plan team addressing “Discerning Christian Vocation: Recapturing a Culture of Call in the PC(USA),” said he smiled, and in a response that has stuck with him to this day said, “Wouldn’t it be great!”

The ultimate goal of the team, said Hinson-Hasty — who’s coordinator for theological education and seminary relations — is that every Presbyterian be invited to answer two questions:

• “Who is God calling me to be in Christ in all that I am and all that I do?”
• “How am I to use the gifts and talents that God has given me for building up the body of Christ and witness to Christ’s presence in all of life?”

.....

“But much more than a programmatic response is required,” Hinson-Hasty said. “The PC(USA) is being called to recover a culture of call that we believe is sacramentally grounded in baptism.

“No program the GAC created could fully resource a restoration of Presbyterian church culture of call in baptism.”

.....

To carry the work forward, the team presented a series of recommendations for 2007-2008, including:

• expansion of discernment and service opportunities;
• connection and coordination of those already involved in Christian vocation discernment ministries;
• incorporation of vocational discernment into all educational programming for Presbyterians of all ages;
• presentation of vocational discernment from a variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives;
• reinforcement of the idea that when Presbyterians participate in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper they are remembering and nurturing their call as Christians; and
• technological support for all these efforts.

Comments

[Quotidian Grace]

Sounds like a ploy to justify their existence by promoting this program. We've already got more ministers than churches can support. We need more congregations and members.

I must say that if I am called on to pick up a stone and put it in, or take it out, of water to remember my baptism one more time I think I will scream. What is up with all of this emphasis on "remembering your baptism"? Cradle Presbyterians were baptised as infants. If you want people to remember their baptism, baptism them as adults like the Baptists and others do.

Not that I'm feeling cynical today or anything. Sorry.

[Michael Kruse]

LOL

Actually, what this story does not articulate clearly is the idea that every person has a call in life not just pastors, elders or deacons. That call comes at baptism. That is the overarching focus. The theme is right and I think the programming is going in the right direction though it is not "punched" home in this story.

Furthermore, we still don't have outcomes by which to evaluate these programs. We can describe the most wonderful programs in the world but until there are concrete stated outcomes we still in the same muddied mess. The reorgainization and a new director have thrown things into a bit of chaos for the moment.

As to rocks and baptism, I am with you. But hey, at least we didn't use milk and honey.

[Dana Ames]

I don't mind the program so much as all the "churchspeak". Scarier still is that I understand it :p But most in my congregation wouldn't.

Dana

[Michael Kruse]

But Paul said speaking in tongues was desirable gift? :)