Cliff Kirkpatrick - part 1

This afternoon's lecture was given by Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk Emeritus of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Cliff spoke about the Accra Confession, a document which came out of years of study, and which was adopted by the delegates of WARC at their 24th General Conference in Accra, Ghana (2004). The subtitle of this Confession is "Covenanting for Justice in the Economy and the Earth."

So much of what Cliff said grabbed my attention... and grabbed my heart and mind. Here are snippets of some of those things.

Two-thirds of the world's Christians live in the global south! Their experiences challenge our North American understandings of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. So, I wonder, what kinds of things do they have to teach us... what kinds of things do we need to learn from them... and how willing are we to dare to be open to learning from them, and from God, those things that we need to learn?

Being a former Stated Clerk, Cliff said that it would be unthinkable for him to deliver a lecture and not quote from the Book of Order! Here was the quote he gave us from that part of our Church Constitution:

"The Church of Jesus Christ is the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all of humanity." (G-3.0200)

So, how well are we doing in demonstrating to the world God's intentions for the world?

Cliff is firmly convinced that a church's vitality is based upon the reality of mission that reaches beyond the congregation's walls.

Another surprising fact... 60% of Presbyterian congregations have fewer than 100 members! That means that seminarians who graduate this year and go out to serve those churches, if they do everything right that they've been taught, will see those churches die probably within 10 years. That hits home for me, as the father of one of those seminarians! That hits home for me as the Stated Clerk of a Presbytery. That brings home for me the urgency that our Committees on Ministry need to begin now to help congregations have conversations about how to do things differently. This affirms for me the importance of why the Presbytery in which I serve as an officer decided to help fund my sabbatical this year, and impresses upon me anew the importance of this work for my resourcing our Committee on Ministry.