From Mary Naegli’s Blog, following up on the Presbytery of the Redwoods’ defiance of the PJC decision on Jane Spahr

wordtolife.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/two-degrees-of-separation

If we do not own our true situation and collaborate toward a solution in which our ministries can flourish in new pasture, here is what is going to happen:

The members of our congregations who can no longer tolerate the double-mindedness, if not overt disobedience, of the PCUSA will float away to other rows in God’s vineyard. Out of burnout or disgust, they will migrate to their local non-denominational church to heal—this in fact is already happening. They will last there about two or three years, until they get bored with the music and feel the loss of a liturgical and confessional floor beneath their feet, and they will begin looking for each other and for Reformed / Presbyterian leadership to help them reconstitute themselves under the marks of the true church: Word, Sacrament, and Discipline. What form this takes a few years from now is anybody’s guess, but unless God intervenes in some remarkable way at our next General Assembly, this is what is going to happen. If God does step in, we all should watch out, because we are going to end up on our faces before the throne of grace and truth.

The Diaspora of 2012 may well mark the turning point for Presbyterians. The unfortunate outcome of this scenario is the emptying of PCUSA church buildings, leaving a shell of our former self to stand as a monument to something that once was. The denomination may own property and be land-rich in the end, but it will be people-poor. Thus decimated of population, it will only possess a form of godliness without the power. And potentially, a flood of church properties may be put on the market, to be “repurposed” for who knows what non-Kingdom-of-God-type uses. It is inconceivable that this could be considered good for mission.

Response by Jodi

My sense, down in the trenches if you will, is that people are leaving the Church, and I mean on average all Americans are leaving the Church, because it offers no respite from the brokenness and conflict of their daily lives. Our people come from failed relationships with their husbands and wives, with their children, with their parents and brothers and sisters, with their bosses, with their schools, with their government, with their employees. It’s not what we fight about, but rather the fact that we fight. If, when they come to church, it’s all about divorce all over again, you tell me: What does the Church have to offer that they can’t get out of reading the funnies on Sunday morning.

People crave reconciliation and forgiveness and want to learn a path that gets them there.

If we want the Church to survive in America, we have to stop talking about divorce all the time and start pouring out Living Water again.

The church must provide respite – and answers for the brokenness and conflict of our daily lives.