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

Serv­ing the Church by Serv­ing Its Present and its Future
In the past twenty-one months, I have vis­ited over thirty Pres­by­ter­ies and two Syn­ods. My vis­its are lead­ing me to con­clude the following:

1. There are Pres­by­te­ri­ans in sig­nif­i­cant num­bers who are inter­ested in polit­i­cal advo­cacy work. They need train­ing to nav­i­gate and over­come the con­fu­sion cre­ated by the present polit­i­cal morass in Wash­ing­ton and across the country.
2. Ses­sions and pas­tors are often fear­ful of rais­ing polit­i­cal issues in con­gre­ga­tional life. They view polit­i­cal issues as divi­sive. Con­se­quently, mem­bers are left to form and express their polit­i­cal opin­ions with­out the ben­e­fit of guid­ance from their church.
3. 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.

All three of my obser­va­tions call on church lead­er­ship to become more inten­tional about uphold­ing a prophetic wit­ness for min­istry. The PC(USA) Office of Pub­lic Wit­ness is com­mit­ted to the prophetic tra­di­tion of the Old and New Tes­ta­ments. We rec­og­nize that we are not pol­icy wonks. Our role is to cap­ture the prophetic essence of our mis­sion as a church, by advo­cat­ing for the social jus­tice pol­icy approved by the Gen­eral Assem­bly of the PC(USA). We are often crit­i­cized, but the Bible reminds us that God’s truth is often dif­fi­cult for pow­ers and prin­ci­pal­i­ties to con­front.  Abid­ing faith in Jesus does not fal­ter in the face of falsehood.

Our advo­cacy for jus­tice on behalf of PC(USA) social jus­tice pol­icy is a daily reminder that God’s truth still marches on and con­fronts gov­ern­men­tal pow­ers and those who are elected to serve the peo­ple of God. I do not sym­pa­thize with pas­tors who can­not muster the courage to speak bib­li­cal truth in response to the con­tentious pol­i­tics we encounter across our coun­try today. While they remain silent and retreat in fear, the poor and mid­dle class suf­fer at the hands of reck­less polit­i­cal ide­ol­ogy. Faith­ful courage is gained by the will­ing­ness to resist fear.

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Con­gre­ga­tional lead­ers need to expand their love beyond the desire for per­sonal secu­rity. They must take a risk in the name of Jesus! This will enable the real church to arise from the ashes.
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The Bible reminds us that “there is no fear in love, but per­fect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with pun­ish­ment, and who­ever fears has not reached per­fec­tion in love” (I John 4:18).  The Book of Order, which we so dili­gently study and cite, reminds us that “the Church is called to under­take this mis­sion even at the risk of los­ing its life, trust­ing in God alone as the author and giver of life, shar­ing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond them­selves to the new real­ity in Christ.”[viii] I sug­gest that con­gre­ga­tional lead­ers need to expand their love beyond the desire for per­sonal secu­rity. They must take a risk in the name of Jesus! This will enable the real church to arise from the ashes. More impor­tantly, it will con­tribute to each person’s own quest for salvation.

My third obser­va­tion leads to a com­mit­ment that we have made in the OPW. Over the next twenty-four months, our pri­mary focus will be to recruit, engage in min­istry with, and empower youth and young adults. We will train young peo­ple to become prophetic advo­cacy lead­ers. Col­lege cam­puses, youth groups, con­fer­ences, local con­gre­ga­tions, alumni meet­ings, sem­i­nar­ies, the­ol­ogy on tap, or wher­ever youth and young adults gather: there we will be eager to join them.

Our goal is to pur­sue their inter­est in becom­ing advo­cates for jus­tice and for the PC(USA). This pur­suit will embrace both the­ol­ogy and praxis. Our intern­ship and sum­mer fel­low­ship pro­grams are pri­or­i­ties for our office. In addi­tion, pas­tors are invited to spend time with us while on sab­bat­i­cal or study leave, so that they can learn to research, artic­u­late, and advo­cate for social jus­tice issues in their com­mu­nity, nation, and world. In the Office of Pub­lic Wit­ness, we remain com­mit­ted to host­ing groups of all ages as they travel to Wash­ing­ton, DC, desir­ing to learn and to have hands-on expe­ri­ences in the city and with advo­cacy on Capi­tol Hill.

Two events—Ecu­meni­cal Advo­cacy Days on March 23–26, 2012,[ix] and the Com­pas­sion, Peace and Jus­tice Train­ing Day on March 23, 2012[x]—are great oppor­tu­ni­ties to begin a jour­ney of learn­ing more about the bib­li­cal and pol­icy work of our denom­i­na­tion and other faith organizations.

Con­clu­sion
Our work on behalf of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) is focused on assist­ing the denom­i­na­tion in mak­ing the shift toward jus­tice advo­cacy min­istry. We are imple­ment­ing a model of com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing for the pur­pose of cast­ing a net of involve­ment over the entire denom­i­na­tion. Specif­i­cally, we seek to cap­ture the atten­tion and involve­ment of young peo­ple. This will require us to spend time in the places where young peo­ple gather while fram­ing jus­tice issues in the con­text of this generation’s expe­ri­ence and inter­est. To this end, we will focus our work for the next twenty-four months on youth and young adult par­tic­i­pa­tion with the OPW.

 

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NOTES
[i]  The office was renamed in June 2010 to denote the prophetic min­istry of the office rather than its loca­tion (as denoted in the pre­vi­ous name – Wash­ing­ton Office). The­olo­gians such as Robert McAfee Brown and Robert Franklin used the term pub­lic the­olo­gian to cite the pub­lic nature of prophetic min­istry. This phrase was often asso­ci­ated with the­olo­gians, pas­tors and oth­ers who appro­pri­ate their gospel teach­ings and activ­i­ties to advo­cacy for the poor and dis­en­fran­chised.  As we rein­tro­duce the PC(USA) OPW, a more prophetic wit­ness for min­istry is lead­ing our work to com­ple­ment our pol­icy advo­cacy. Thus, the name change reflects our will­ing­ness to work with a wide range of per­sons and insi­tu­tions. These per­sons and insti­tu­tions include, but are not lim­ited to activists, jus­tice advo­cates, con­gre­ga­tions, gov­ern­ing bod­ies, and ecumenical/interfaith groups to pro­mote the jus­tice and pub­lic pol­icy work approved by the Gen­eral Assm­bly of the PC(USA). We intend to lead these efforts with bib­li­cal and the­o­log­i­cal truth while lean­ing on the his­tor­i­cal role of John Calvin’s intent to pur­sue with unre­strained vigor the trans­for­ma­tion of elected offi­cials  for the pur­pose of ren­der­ing right­eous judge­ments on behalf of God’s peo­ple and creation.

[ii] The Rev­erend Elenora Gid­dings Ivory served as Direc­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) Wash­ing­ton Office for nine­teen years before resign­ing in 2008 to work with the World Coun­cil of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, Switzer­land. A task force was formed to study the work and future of the Wash­ing­ton Office dur­ing the two year vacancy. The task force deter­mined that a new model of advo­cacy was needed in order to address the need for greater denom­i­na­tional (mem­ber­ship) par­tic­i­pa­tion with the mis­sion of the Wash­ing­ton Office.

[iii] See Jeff Kriebiel, Reflect­ing on Scrip­ture with Com­mu­nity Orga­niz­ing (Chicago: ACTA Pub­li­ca­tions, 2011)

[iv] By using the word “fram­ing” in this instance, I mean the laws, rules, and other deter­mi­nants which usu­ally result in power dis­tri­b­u­tion and the estab­lish­ment of accept­able prac­tices in a community.

[v] “Per­sons long silenced” is a phrase taken from the PC(USA) A Brief State­ment of Reformed Faith.”

[vi] I served as Orga­niz­ing Pastor/Evangelist of Lib­er­a­tion Com­mu­nity Church PC(USA). The min­istry was char­tered on April 11, 1999 by the Pres­bytery of Mem­phis (now Pres­bytery of the Mid-South). The church was the first African Amer­i­can New Church Devel­op­ment in Mem­phis Pres­bytery in forty-six years. My wife, Rev­erend Gail Porter Nel­son, served as a Pas­tor to chil­dren and their par­ents for Lib­er­a­tion Com­mu­nity PC(USA) and was the first Direc­tor of the Basics Learn­ing Cen­ter, Inc., a 501 3©  orga­ni­za­tion affil­i­ated with the min­istry. She is now Stated Sup­ply Pas­tor of North­min­ster PC(USA) in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

[vii] In pre­vi­ous Revised Stan­dard trans­la­tions, the word was trans­lated “Counselor.”

[viii] The Con­sti­tu­tion of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) Part II Book of Order 2009–2011 (Louisville, KY: Office of the Gen­eral Assem­bly, 2009)  G.0400 Called to Risk and Trust

[ix] For more infor­ma­tion and to reg­is­ter, visit http://www.advocacydays.org.

[x] For more infor­ma­tion and to reg­is­ter, visit http://www.pcusa.org/washington.

 

Photo by TC Davis

The Rev. Dr. J. Her­bert Nel­son directs the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Pub­lic Wit­ness. Dr. Nel­son founded and pas­tored Lib­er­a­tion Com­mu­nity Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee. There, he served as Asso­ciate Direc­tor of the Ben­jamin L. Hooks Insti­tute for Social Change at the Uni­ver­sity of Mem­phis. A third gen­er­a­tion grad­u­ate of John­son C. Smith Uni­ver­sity, Nel­son earned a B.A. in Polit­i­cal Science/Urban Stud­ies and a Mas­ter of Divin­ity from its sem­i­nary. While serv­ing as the Pas­tor of St. James Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Greens­boro, North Car­olina, Rev. Nel­son earned his Doc­tor of Min­istry at Louisville Pres­by­ter­ian The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary, with a dis­ser­ta­tion enti­tled “A Com­mu­nity Based Model of an African Amer­i­can New Church Devel­op­ment in the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (USA) Focused on the Edu­ca­tional Needs of Poor African Amer­i­can Children.”

 

Ban­ner Photo: Supreme Court, View from Office of Pub­lic Witness

 

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