A New Organizing Model for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness

Young adult par­tic­i­pa­tion is essen­tial for a new era of polit­i­cal advocacy

View and print as PDF

In mold­ing a model for pub­lic wit­ness min­istry that serves the whole of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.), I have been con­fronted with two sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges: first, how to show that this min­istry does, indeed, serve the whole church, not just a self-selected, affin­ity group; and sec­ond, how to bal­ance the rich­ness of our past with the promise of our future. It is clear to me that out­reach to, and ser­vice with, young adults is essen­tial to meet­ing both challenges.

Using Com­mu­nity Orga­niz­ing as a Polit­i­cal Advo­cacy Model
I assumed the posi­tion of Direc­tor of the PC(USA) Office of Pub­lic Wit­ness (OPW) in Wash­ing­ton, DC, on May 3, 2010.[i] Prior to my arrival, the “Wash­ing­ton Office,” as it was for­merly known, under­went a two-year vacancy in lead­er­ship.[ii] Dur­ing this two-year period, a denom­i­na­tional sur­vey regard­ing the OPW pro­duced two sig­nif­i­cant find­ings. First, many PC(USA) mem­bers were not aware that an OPW existed. Sec­ond, even fewer PC(USA) mem­bers had had any inter­ac­tion with the Office.

My inter­view process for the posi­tion of Direc­tor required me to offer a plan for trans­form­ing the his­tor­i­cal model uti­lized dur­ing the Office’s sixty-four year his­tory. Draw­ing on my twenty-five years of pas­toral min­istry, I pre­sented a plan that out­lined a community-organizing model. The plan focused on activism, alliance build­ing, and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment. Dur­ing my first pas­toral call in Greens­boro, North Car­olina, I used a community-organizing model in col­lab­o­ra­tion with an African Amer­i­can clergy group called the Pul­pit Forum. We advo­cated for indi­gent health­care, ten­ants’ rights, worker jus­tice, edu­ca­tion, and a host of other jus­tice issues impact­ing the poor. We orga­nized and edu­cated per­sons liv­ing in poverty so that they could serve as agents of their own lib­er­a­tion. Our model fol­lowed the basic community-organizing prin­ci­ple “don’t do any­thing for an indi­vid­ual that he/she can do for him/herself.”[iii] We believed that peo­ple of all reli­gious faiths, eth­nic back­grounds, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion, and socio-economic sta­tus had a respon­si­bil­ity to con­tribute to what Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr., referred to as the “beloved community.”

___________________________________________

In mold­ing a model for pub­lic wit­ness min­istry that serves the whole of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.), I have been con­fronted with two sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges: first, how to show that this min­istry does, indeed, serve the whole church, not just a self-selected, affin­ity group; and sec­ond, how to bal­ance the rich­ness of our past with the promise of our future.
___________________________________________

We rec­og­nized that per­sons liv­ing in poverty are often excluded from decision-making processes that deter­mine the fram­ing of their own com­mu­ni­ties.[iv] Our aim was to press for the voices of “per­sons long silenced” to be heard, by impart­ing the skills nec­es­sary (namely, speak­ing for them­selves) to par­tic­i­pate as full part­ners in their com­mu­ni­ties and the nation.[v] We grounded our train­ing in the bib­li­cal ethic that love must be at the cen­ter of advo­cacy by, and with, poor peo­ple. We believed that the move­ment of the Holy Spirit would pro­vide an out­come inspired by such a love, which would enable trans­for­ma­tion into the beloved com­mu­nity. Lib­er­a­tion could only occur if both the poor and the priv­i­leged saw them­selves anew. Speak­ing Truth in Love to Power became emblem­atic both of our ethos and our efforts to con­front the bar­ri­ers that stood in the way of cre­at­ing the beloved community.

The theme of Speak­ing Truth in Love to Power was a con­tin­ual theme in our efforts—my wife’s and mine—when we orga­nized, char­tered and founded, with God’s help, Lib­er­a­tion Com­mu­nity PC(USA) Church in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee.[vi] We orga­nized a min­istry that evan­ge­lized the poor into mem­ber­ship in the Chris­t­ian church through the PC(USA). Our min­istry at Lib­er­a­tion Com­mu­nity was designed to address the root causes of poverty while shar­ing the gospel and love of Jesus Christ with per­sons who were unchurched and liv­ing in poverty. Our work required that we learn about the con­tex­tual needs of peo­ple in poverty—and that our orga­niz­ing model be flex­i­ble enough to meet the par­tic­u­lar needs of a par­tic­u­lar community.

Refram­ing Our Focus for a New Era of Jus­tice Advo­cates
But the Advo­cate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you every­thing, and remind you of all that I have said to you. (John 14:26)

In John 14:26, the New Revised Stan­dard Ver­sion (NRSV) of the Bible uses the word “advo­cate” to describe the Holy Spirit.[vii] The Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary (OED) indi­cates that the word “advo­cate” comes from two Latin words ad and vocare mean­ing “called or sum­moned to another.” More specif­i­cally, the OED con­tin­ues, “advo­cate” means, “called or sum­moned to plead another’s cause in court.” In this text, Jesus reminds us that God sent us an Advo­cate, One called to plead our case in the court of judg­ment. The Spirit is an Advo­cate. There­fore, we, who are filled with the Spirit, are called to a sim­i­lar task as we work for the com­ing King­dom of God. In our dis­ci­ple­ship, we stand between humanity’s bro­ken­ness and the need for redemp­tion through the lives we lead for Jesus Christ in the world. It must be noted that we do not serve as redemp­tive voices because of our right­eous­ness. Instead, we serve by God’s grace.

The writer of I John writes “my lit­tle chil­dren, I am writ­ing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if any­one does sin, we have an advo­cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the right­eous” (I John 2:1b). The word advo­cate in this pas­sage comes from the Greek word  παράκλητος (parak­lētŏs – par-ak-lay-tos) mean­ing an inter­ces­sor or con­soler. The writer reminds us of Jesus’ aton­ing sac­ri­fice, which relieves us of our sin, in order to assist us in liv­ing in the light. He reminds us of the impor­tance of earnestly con­fess­ing our sins, which causes God’s jus­tice to pre­vail (I John 1:9).

___________________________________________

Young Adults are look­ing for a new par­a­digm for engag­ing their faith and pol­i­tics. Many young adults are deterred from engag­ing con­gre­ga­tional life, because many local con­gre­ga­tions fail to inter­pret and con­tex­tu­al­ize bib­li­cal scrip­ture to present day polit­i­cal real­i­ties.
___________________________________________

As we develop another gen­er­a­tion of social jus­tice advo­cates in the OPW, it is imper­a­tive that we be cre­ative and faith-focused in our approach. Cre­ativ­ity requires rec­og­niz­ing that this is a new gen­er­a­tion of young peo­ple. Young adults encounter and are shaped by dif­fer­ent issues, emerg­ing crises, and human polar­i­ties. Their pol­i­tics are often con­tex­tual. As the world changes, so do the pri­or­i­ties and views of young peo­ple regard­ing faith per­spec­tives in rela­tion­ship to jus­tice. Con­se­quently, the mark­ers of church involve­ment and soci­etal engage­ment must be different.

One exam­ple of this shift is the end of the civil rights move­ment of the 1960s. The civil rights move­ment is over, and so the strate­gies for action and vocab­u­lary for dis­cussing prob­lems must change. Our new chal­lenge is shift­ing from African Amer­i­can and Euro­pean Amer­i­can rela­tions to a mul­tira­cial global expan­sion of race issues. Today, we are engaged in a plethora of race issues that go beyond past dis­cus­sions on race. We have moved beyond equal accom­mo­da­tion to the global impact of a mul­tira­cial world, in which old cat­e­gories of race are too lim­ited. This mud­dy­ing of his­toric racial cat­e­go­riza­tion in our soci­ety skews racial labels, even while global demands for redis­trib­ut­ing power continue.

Women’s issues rep­re­sent another shift. While women break domes­tic and pro­fes­sional bound­aries world­wide, ques­tions arise around stan­dards of soci­etal and fam­ily life. Dress, rit­ual, and power, both eco­nomic and finan­cial, are ongo­ing dis­cus­sions and chal­lenges as we move toward gen­der jus­tice. Although issues of women’s lib­er­a­tion were bat­tle lines in the wom­an­ist and fem­i­nist move­ments in the United States, new ques­tions are being raised about their sig­nif­i­cance in many coun­tries around the world, includ­ing the U.S. The melt­ing pot that we claimed the United States to be in the 1960s is rather becom­ing a bou­quet of flow­ers in which var­i­ous groups try to express their cul­ture with­out assim­i­lat­ing into dom­i­nant, west­ern cul­tural mod­els of living.

Other issues are also chang­ing the face of global move­ments and human inter­ac­tions.  Con­fronting cli­mate change and other envi­ron­men­tal issues is crit­i­cal to our sus­tain­abil­ity as a peo­ple across the globe, but fifty years ago, we were not fac­ing a widely acknowl­edged inter­na­tional, eco­log­i­cal cri­sis. In addi­tion, human sex­u­al­ity, includ­ing same-sex mar­riage, is now at the fore­front of our nation’s strug­gle toward full inclu­sion in both church and soci­ety. These changes in polit­i­cal dia­logue demand that we reframe advo­cacy in our nation, the world, and in all of the pub­lic wit­ness min­istries in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Con­tinue read­ing on the next page…