PGF Outbox

“INSIDE-OUT” 2007 AS A MAINLINE CHURCH PHENOMENON

What does it mean that some 900 mostly mainline Presbyterians, representing churches as distant as Thailand and as local as downtown Houston, recently met for a second consecutive year to lift up a positive missional vision for the church?

"WHAT TURNED ME INSIDE-OUT AT THE PGF INSIDE-OUT CONFERENCE?"

The following is what the PGF Leadership Team had to say in answer to that question...

"Still in my mind is the elegant lilting English of our African speakers who spoke with such intellectual depth and spiritual wisdom.  Ethiopian pastor, Urgessa Biru, had such a low-key approach as he told in a matter-of-fact tone of being disowned as a boy by his Muslim family.  'I had to choose family or Jesus. I chose Jesus.'  Later when discriminated against for his faith and finally given an ultimatum at the university: 'I had to choose an education or Jesus. I chose Jesus.'  Years later having migrated to Canada where he at last received his degree and went on to earn a PhD, he chose to obey Jesus’ call to return to Ethiopia.  Finding that despite his service to the poor there had been given a fatwa calling for him to be killed, he went directly to the extremist leaders and said, 'I have come back to Ethiopia to love you and to serve you. Please know that if you kill me, you will have done so because of my love and service to you.'  Today a number of Muslim villages in Ethiopia are openly welcoming his social service ministry.  I was deeply humbled to be in the presence of such Christians!" -Vic Pentz, Pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church (Atlanta, GA)

ARE YOU MAN ENOUGH TO FOLLOW?

Many of you have requested the text of the poem, "When I Became a Christian," by Adrian Plass, which Michael Frost recited in his final plenary talk at the PGF conference.  In response to your inquiries, I've posted it here.

PRACTICING "PROXIMITY," COMPLIMENTS OF MICHAEL FROST

His name was "Ryan."  He was one of the crew whose job was to set up and dismantle the stage where missional church thinker and activist Michael Frost had stood earlier that morning, issuing a prophetic challenge.

DAVE PETERSON'S 'EGG EVANGELISM' KICKS OFF 2007 PGF CONFERENCE

What is messy but explosive and ends up all over the place?  ‘Evangelism.’  That was Dave Peterson’s definition in his opening night address to PGF’s Houston 2007 participants.  Peterson told the humorous story of his attempt to be innovative in making hard boiled eggs for a Chef salad.  The experiment had ended in an undercooked egg exploding, leaving fragments of yellow yolk all over the kitchen.

MISSIONAL IN ACTION: ONE WOMAN SINGS ‘AMAZING GRACE’ INTO SQUALOR OF REFUGEE CAMP

You might not guess from her quiet, unassuming way that Susan Tabia runs the show.  But do not be fooled.  This middle-aged woman, widowed since the age of twenty six and almost totally deaf, is the head matriarch of a growing group of widows, all refugees from south Sudan, who are now surrogate mothers to children orphaned by their country’s civil war just across the border. 

THE CHANGING FACE OF “CHURCH” IN AMERICA: Missional Opportunities Posed by Today’s New Immigrants

On one of his first days on the job as Coordinator of Immigrant Ministries for the three presbyteries of Cherokee, Greater Atlanta and Northeast Georgia, Lucas de Paiva Pina did an innovative thing: when he met for the first time with local immigrant leaders, he took out two maps, one global, the other local; then he asked his new friends first to locate their country of origin and then to identify their site of ministry in the three presbyteries. The response was one of gratitude. Why? Because, as Pina recalls, “we are putting the immigrant ministries on the map; they are not in a dark corner of our presbyteries anymore.”

For Pina, the experience shone a light on both the hopeful prospects and big challenges, (cultural, legal, financial and theological, among others), that the PC(USA) encounters in reaching out to America’s newest immigrant populations. Here Pina offers some thoughts on ways to respond missionally in this new terrain. The reflections shared here have been adapted from a larger scholarly work by Pina titled “Ministering with the New Immigrants: The Challenges that the Presbyterian Church-U.S.A. Faces.”