I, geekrevThe closest you want to get to looking inside the mind of Shawn Coons.

I was feeling a little feisty this morning so I twittered:

“Why are some people so afraid to let pastors have public views on politics or controversial church issues?”

And out of this a Twitter discussion has started as well as a Facebook discussion with lots of great thoughts and insight.  What is even cooler is that it is a mix of folks, Presbyterians, pastors, World of Warcraft players, people I went to high school with and a few other random folk that somehow find it worth their time to follow my twitters or friend me on Facebook.

My intial question was basically expressing a frustration I have that as a minister I am supposed to keep any controversial views to myself - at all times.  Of course, I certainly understand why people feel this way.  The basic argument is that as a minister I hold a certain sort of power and people will view what I say as more of a “word from God” then they would a non-minister.  So when I express an opinion there is the unsaid notion that “this is what a faithful Christian would believe.”

Here are my problems with this:

1) That’s a very un-Presbyterian thing to believe.  The whole notion of the Reformation was that each and every person has the same access to God and the Bible, and that the priest/minister is no more holy or in touch with God than anyone else.

2) Does this rule apply to other people with power?  Certain people in other roles have other sorts of power - police officers, soldiers, doctors, political pundits, top-level corporate executives, actors, media personalities, internet personalities, etc.  There are people who will listen more closely to any number of the above roles and believe what they say for various non-logical reasons.  So should all of these people have no public opinions either?

3) Jesus held some pretty public and unpopular views.  He was killed by the government for speaking out against the government.  I know I’m not Jesus, but like all Christians I’m called to follow him and try to do what he did.

4) What would have happened if Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (and countless other ministers at the time) had kept their views to themselves?  There are times for the church to stand up to the culture around them.  In the Presbyterian Book of Confessions we have the Barmen Declaration.  This was a statement from churches in Germany that refused to align themselves with the Hitler’s government.

I’m certainly not advocating a scenario where I preach or teach who to vote for or whether or not God wants the Congress to pass a bailout plan.  But I think it is sad if people are afraid (and it is fear we are talking about) of me revealing who I might vote for.

And have you ever noticed that it often isn’t the fact that a pastor has expressed an opinion that is the problem, but rather that the pastor expressed an opinion with which someone disagreed?

I’m leading a workshop for a Presbytery event about Online Social Networks.  Here is my oh-so-clever workshop description:

People are using social networks (like Facebook and Twitter) to connect, share, inspire, and inform. Social networks are woven into the daily lives of millions of people. Jesus went to where the people were, and so should we. In this workshop we will explore what it means to be a Christian and a church in a Web 2.0 society.

Here are links talked about in the workshop as well as a few more that are helpful.

• A Vision of Students Today
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Twitter in Plain English
• Goodreads (for book-lovers)
• Yelp (local reviews of businesses)
• last.fm (music)
• Three Ways to Stay Connected by Bruce Reyes-Chow
• Your Own Personal Gutenberg by Shawn Coons and Neal Locke

A couple pics: A tree on a house half a block from our house. A tree across the road in front of the Methodist Church a mile down the road. The line at the Home Depot this morning (they were letting five to ten people in at a time).

As far as I’ve been able to gather there was no serious loss of life.  Although given that 40% of Galveston chose not to evacuate, maybe their should have been to clear up the gene pool of all the people who don’t care about survival.  Our house came through pretty good.  We lost a bunch of tree limbs, and it remains to be seen if one of our largest trees will remain strong.  We lost a whole side of our backyard fence as well, but that’s it.  Other than being without power, we are fine.  We have food, water and each other.

Thanks to all the folks who sent me good wishes through Twitter and Facebook.  Especially to those who follow me on twitter and helped get me information about the drinking water in Houston or how to board windows.  Yet another strike against those who still want to dismiss social networks and online friends as a waste of time and not “real.”

We have power, internet and air conditioning at the church so I’ll be able to charge the IPhone (which gets no signal at home), check email and Twitter, and keep food cool.

I feel like I had a bunch more to blog, but it escapes me now.

At our church tonight the Peacemaking Committee held a showing of “For the Bible Tells Me So.“ It’s about the church and homosexuality and I recommend it to everyone.

Here’s a question that’s been nagging me since then:  Imagine there is a gay youth in your church (most churches don’t need to imagine it because it’s true whether you know it or not).  What is that youth’s perception of how their church is going to accept them if it was known that they are gay?

Many Presbyterian churches are somewhere between tolerant to unoffocially welcoming.  In many of these churches a lot of the adults know that gay people are welcome in the church, but if it’s never publicly said  then I wonder how many of the youth know?  And given that gay youth are more at risk for suicide I wonder if it is a gross sin for quietly welcoming churches to remain quiet about their welcome?

I’ve been asked to pass this interesting new site to you by a good friend of mine, Jim Moss.  He is setting up a website where people can share visions for the future of the church, and he has created a test site and would like you to help.

First, go to the following address:

http://www.reddit.com/r/churchvisions/

If you are not already a member of Reddit, you will have to create a username and password. After that, just check out the stories that are listed. Click the “up” arrow for stories you like and the “down” arrow for ones you don’t. If you’re feeling bold, add a story or two of your own that offers some sort of vision for the future of the church - whether it’s something that is already happening or that is a distant dream.

If this test is successful, a more expanded version will be created!

We recorded a podcast yesterday for Decently and in Order about the recent actions of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship and Presbyterians for Renewal. I haven’t had a chance to upload that podcast yet, but I share with you some further thoughts I’ve had.

Here is some of what Vic Pentz wrote on the PGF blog:

“The options now remaining seem to be: 1) to live with the new ascendant ideology; 2) to enter into the legal complexities of trying to get permission for one’s congregation to be dismissed to another denomination; or 3) to find a way to be “in the denomination but not of the denomination.” This third option is the one Presbyterian Global Fellowship affirms.”

“…The Presbyterian Global Fellowship seeks to be a parallel society living a new vision for the church within the PC(USA).”

and from the PFR website:

“It is clear that the PC(USA)’s confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and commitment to our Reformed confessions has weakened to the point that we can no longer assume a common framework of conversation….For the sake of our witness to the Gospel, we believe it is necessary for the different visions of Christian faith and life in the PC(USA) to be expressed in formally distinct bodies without a formal split in the denomination. Such possibilities have been discussed hypothetically under the rubrics of non-geographical or “missional” presbyteries and synods.”

Did I read that right? Are they proposing a system that would officially create the dreaded “local option” they have been up in arms about ever since the PUP report supposedly instituted it? Now that the larger denomination’s discernment of God’s will is not their own, is it OK to have local option on such a scale as we’ve never seen it before?

This is a disastrous proposal.

I wonder what Vic Pentz would think if a group of folks walked into his office at Peachtree and said,

“Pastor, we are very displeased with your leadership and the recent decisions of the Session. We think you have led Peachtree into a state of unfaithfulness to our Lord and that you have abandoned Biblical principles. So we declare that Peachtree is in a state of apostasy.

But we love this church and we are committed to transforming it from within. To that end we will be in Peachtree Presbyterian Church, but not of it. We will be forming a parallell society of certain members within this church.

We will shortly be requesting the Session to reorganize the existing worship services so they are no longer organized around time or style, but by membership - one service for those who are faithful to Jesus, and one service for you and the rest of the Session. We will also be directing our financial giving away from the annual operating budget and specifically towards funds and ministries that we deem faithful to the Gospel.

Thank you for understanding, Pastor. We will be actively working to replace you and the members of Session, and we will be actively seeking to overturn all your decisions. We will also be separating ourselves from the larger body of Peachtree members throughout the entire life of the church. I am sure that you can see how we are being faithful members of this church and living up to our membership vows.”

Last week I was at General Assembly.  There we had the election of a new moderator with feet firmly planted in the PC(USA) and the postmodern world, as well as a move forward in following Jesus and being true to the whole witness of Scripture in regards to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.  This week I am at the Church Unbound conference.  Hearing from the likes of Shane Claiborne about being people who follow Jesus in fascninating, sacrifical, joyful and foolish ways.

In some small ways it feels like our denomination might be at the beginning of a turning point.  It feels like there are enough people with voice and power who are beginning to have conversations about the fact that church as we do it is not working.  Sure, it’s working for a good portion of the people sitting in the pews to some degree (arguably), but the church does not exist for its members.

I have a million and five thoughts swimming in my head about what the church should be.  And I am brought back to a question I have had before.  Can the typical PC(USA) church change enough to be church for the younger generations?  Let me rephrase that.  Can the typical PC(USA) church change enough to be church for the younger generations while they are still young?  Or is the primary way to reach people who aren’t in church today with New Church Developments?

What do you think?  If our churches today can change enough to reach people not in church then why haven’t we done it already and why do you think we can do it now?  If we can’t do it with existing churches then how are we going to do it?

Two amazing things happened tonight.

1) The live blog for GA came alive.  I think there were only two or three of us when it started but by the end we had over 20 potential bloggers and who knows how many were reading it.  Most of us were at the Assembly or watching it streaming, so it became less of a play-by-play and more commentary.  At times the commentary was insightful, funny, sarcastic, and maybe even uncalled for.  But it was real, honest, and brought a group together that had never been together before.  I look forward to using it the rest of this week and if you haven’t checked it out give it a try. It’ll probably be most active towards the Thursday and Friday sessions.

2) Bruce Reyes-Chow was elected moderator of the General Assembly.  I think it all started with a Facebook group started by Jon Phillips that sought to find a young adult candidate for moderator.  Shortly after that I got an email from Bruce asking me if I would be on board if he hypothetically ran for moderator.  So I said hypothetically, you bet!  Bruce made me his Social Network Coordinator - which meant I was supposed to create and maintain the Facebook page.  This was something Bruce was more than capable of doing himself, but that’s just how Bruce is.

I don’t know if I really believed that it would happen.  I dearly wanted it to happen, but I figured that too many commissioners wouldn’t be able to see past his age, his hipster-ness, or his leadership style.

I was wrong.

Bruce almost won on the first vote.

Now, I’m about to head to Bruce’s post-election party.

I set up a Live Blog for GA at shiftedit.com, but they have since changed their website. The blog still exists though!

If you want to help Live Blog GA either in person or watching it online, then the the Writers’ link is: http://www.scribblelive.com/Event/PCUSA_General_Assembly_218?Invite=7A58EA2E-E3B3-4387-9B63-81D8564F675B

If you just want to read it then the Watchers’ link is: http://www.scribblelive.com/Event/PCUSA_General_Assembly_218