18 articles from 17 issues, 1998 to 2025
The PCUSA constitution added two new categories this year and a new examination requirement that's already baffling presbyteries. Andrews offers pastoral guidance for sessions and committees on what's actually changed, what hasn't, and how to act faithfully without either overreach or quiet capitulation.
If the church's calling is to be stewards of the mysteries of God, theology is the work that keeps us trustworthy with what's been entrusted. Small unfolds Paul's image and asks what theological stewardship looks like in session meetings, confirmation classes, and Sunday worship.
When Luther posted his theses, Calvin was eight. Small traces the road from a French schoolboy's eventual 'sudden conversion' through Geneva's vote to live by gospel and Word, to the day Calvin meant to spend one night in town and ended up shaping a movement instead.
The third and final part of Laverentz's series on the elder as shepherd. Drawing on the original 1788 PCUSA Constitution, he sketches what eldering as soul-care could look like in a twenty-first-century congregation, and what's at stake when the office shrinks to corporate-board duties.
Part two of the elder series opens with an 1898 Kansas City session quietly addressing one of their elders' moral failure with the kind of pastoral seriousness modern church courts have largely abandoned. Laverentz reads the case as a lost grammar of shepherding.
What does it mean to be an elder? Laverentz argues that for most of Presbyterian history, an elder was a shepherd of souls, deeply enmeshed in people's lives. Part one of his series looks at how that understanding has nearly disappeared in a single generation.
Any organization needs leaders who know what it exists to do and how well it's doing it. Patterson argues that theology is exactly that knowledge for the church, and that pastors and elders who treat it as optional are quietly steering their congregations toward irrelevance.
Why does the debate over ordaining practicing homosexuals matter so much to a congregation? W. P. Campbell, in a chapter from his book, argues that leaders shape the people who follow them, and that the church must avoid both the Sadducees’ compromise and the Pharisees’ legalism.
What would the proposed new Form of Government mean for the local congregation? Carol Shanholtzer lists changes that would limit the session’s powers and place congregations under a more centralized, top-down structure.
Who chooses the commissioners whose votes shape a General Assembly? Gabrielle Avedian argues that presbyters must examine nominees, cites Pittsburgh and Los Ranchos as models, and shows how to change a presbytery’s election rules.
How might a declining denomination be reformed from the congregation up? This plan, presented at the 2007 Coalition Gathering in Houston, follows Nehemiah and sets twelve goals, from returning to Scripture and equipping elders to reforming presbyteries and synods.
What would the proposed rewrite of Chapter 14 of the Book of Order change for ordination? This Presbyterian Coalition analysis finds substantive changes buried in a long document, from advisory handbooks to presbytery power over pastoral relationships, and recommends defeat.
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