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Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

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Deacons… It’s About Ministry

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Recently, I was asked to serve on a committee for my presbytery dealing with the role of deacon and to explain the Book of Church Order’s position on the topic. Since I helped to write the Book of Church Order, I was a good source to explain our original intent. On making the presentation to the presbytery, I realized that some of my brothers present were not even born at the time the book was written. In our officer training at CEP, we are often asked this same kind of question. Here is a very brief summary of what I said.

What does the BCO say on the topic?

In order to understand what the present BCO says, it has to be understood historically and in keeping with our identity as “the Continuing Church.” The PCA polity agreed with historical Calvinism, the Scottish Presbyterian Church, historic American Presbyterianism, and the Presbyterian Church in the united states. From that perspective there are three offices in the church: teaching elder, ruling elder, and deacon. Though often debated in the 1800’s, such was the southern Presbyterian Church’s position reflected in the 1933 BCO and adopted in the PCA BCO. There was also the inclusion of the involvement of others working with the officers in the areas of diaconal ministries without ordination.

Keeping the deacon as one of the three official offices in the PCA requiring ordination, we included a statement in 9-2 of the BCO that makes the BCO appear to contradict itself and has caused confusion today. The issue revolves around the question of the authority of the offices. In 9-2 and the entire book, including the ordination questions, we were attempting to distinguish between the ruling authority of the church session and that of the deacon based on the premise that as an ordained office, there was some authority, though not ruling authority, posited in the office of deacon. According to the BCO, while the office of deacon obviously carries some level of ordained authority, in this case ministerial (of service) and not ruling authority, it was viewed as a key office in the church that enabled the church to carry out various ministries under their leadership and with the session’s final authority.

Because the PCA claimed to be a grassroots movement within the framework of Presbyterian polity, the Book of Church Order committee’s approach was to leave as many details as possible to the local churches to develop. Many details, especially implementation, were left to local churches and presbyteries, including the role of women and other unordained persons, though the details and implementation would have to agree with the general principles spelled out in the BCO.

Declaring and Demonstrating the Love of God

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As members of PCA churches we have been given a doctrinal foundation that leads us to live out the Gospel in practical and merciful ways. We love this example of a local church serving with truth and compassion. We at CEP pray that the Word and deed ministry of the women from Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville will encourage your ministry team to think outside the box and look for creative ways to extend His kingdom.

In August of 2005, the Mississippi Gulf Coast was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Homes, possessions, and jobs were swept away through the devastating winds and waves. But rising from the loss is a church, Lagniappe PCA, who is committed to participating in the restoration of its community both physically and spiritually.

Speaking at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville one Sunday morning, Jean Larroux, pastor of Lagniappe Church in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, was asked about the volunteers who come to Lagniappe, where they regularly host teams helping with rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. “People always ask me, ‘What do you need people to do?’ and I’ve learned to ask them, ‘Well, what do you do?'” Larroux noted that he was often surprised with the unique skill sets potential volunteers have that exactly meet Lagniappe’s needs.

A couple of weeks later, Nancy Guthrie, a member at Christ Presbyterian, sent Larroux an email reminding him of his comments saying, “I love to teach the Bible to women. Is that something you could ever use?” This email began a conversation that birthed a unique combination work project/women’s conference held at Lagniappe church in February 2008.

Since Lagniappe wasn’t even an official church at the time and had very few members, a team of 15 women from Christ Pres took on the responsibility of planning and promoting the conference/work project in partnership with Barbara Warner of Lagniappe Church. Barbara previously served several terms as PresWIC President for North Florida.

About 130 women from Bay St. Louis and all around the Southeast came, staying in the bunkhouses at the church and pitching in to work in the kitchen and clean up the church facility throughout the weekend. On Friday evening and Saturday morning Guthrie taught on Job, a man who experienced devastating loss when a storm flattened his home. Worship leader Teresa Sugar sang a few sets at the Mockingbird Caf

CEP’s Philosophy of Youth Ministries

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Ministry to and with Youth Leaders (as well as 6th – 12th grade students)

The Youth Ministry Department of CEP exists to be used by the Lord to help, in a wide variety of ways, those who work with youth and youth themselves: all to the honor and glory of Jesus Christ. (I Cor. 10:31)

Helping those who work with Youth-

  • Offering resources and materials that those who work with youth (including parents) can use to help youth and themselves.

  • Putting on conferences, retreats, and seminars that minister to Youth Workers, their spouses, volunteer youth leaders and at times youth themselves (see below).

  • To provide, in essence, a Pastor to Youth Pastors, Youth Directors and Youth Leaders.

  • Available to consult with churches, through correspondence, personal interaction or via seminars, regarding Youth Ministry at whatever level they are at.

  • Work with various colleges, seminaries, and churches, keeping current on Youth Workers and potential Youth Workers looking for Churches to serve Christ at and Churches looking for Youth Workers to do ministry in their Churches.

  • Offer Regional Youth Trainers to give in-person help to those who work with youth on topics strongly related to Youth Ministry.

  • Offering a Youth Ministry web site that is informative, edifying and helpful.

Helping Youth themselves-

  • Overseeing YXL Conferences (formerly PYA)- These conferences stress the development of Christian leadership in the students, embracing Reformed theology that is taught throughout the week, and a Biblical worldview that the students are encouraged to learn and apply to their daily lives.

  • Available to teach students/youth groups from the Word of God, in a variety of settings (retreats, camps, conferences, seminars, youth meetings, etc.).

  • Organizing YOWAW (Youth World Awareness Weekend). This weekend encourages greater growth in Christ, knowing what the good news of Jesus Christ really is and making sure that Missions (home and aboard) is a part of our worldview.

  • Development of material that youth can use in private, in small groups and even with the rest of their family to know Jesus Christ and grow deeper in Him.

Discoveries of a Youth Pastor

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Equip1Qcover.jpgThere are certain lessons I have learned over the last decade and a half in youth ministry. I learned early on that taking students to play paintball really means open season on the youth pastor, and I learned that something always gets broken during a lock-in. I figured out that playing dodge ball allows me the opportunity to get back at “that” student, and I realized that the back seat of the church van provides students with way too much privacy. I have observed that youth group couples rarely last and that most parents judge a youth program by whether their child is having a good time at youth group. I found out that playing youth group games in the sanctuary never ends well and that students seldom bring Bibles to church. I also realized that the most effective way to help students connect the dots between faith and life is having a youth group that worships together, prays for each other, and participates in missions experiences.

taking students to play paintball really means open season on the youth pastor…

At YXL this past summer (CEP’s denominational leadership conference for high school students), the Lord blessed us with great times of worship and prayer. It seemed to the leadership of the conference that the next step would be to take on a mission trip as many of these students who would like to go. Though we attempt each summer to incorporate some type of ministry experience into the conference, like street evangelism or a service project, this would be our first attempt at a full blown mission trip. Because as a conference YXL hopes to help students better understand how to be leaders in both the church and the kingdom, it was important that our mission trip be connected with a local church and allow students to engage with people who are not involved in a church.

On December 27th, students and adults from seven states and one foreign country gathered at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, GA for a day of training, team building, and corporate Sabbath worship before heading to our final destination, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Our host church, New City Fellowship Chattanooga (www.newcityfellowship.com), allowed us to join with their new church plant in the East Lake neighborhood of Chattanooga to lead a Christmas VBS program and do work projects in the community. Hope for the Inner City (www.hope4.org) provided our lodging and Brian McKeon, director of 3RInternational mission agency, served as our coordinator for the trip. During the course of the week, we painted rooms, cleaned church basements, raked leaves, went door to door visiting folks from the neighborhood, picked up kids in the church van and put on a one of a kind YXL Christmas VBS program. But of all the things that happened during the week, it was the times I saw the light bulb switch on in students’ minds about the relevancy of their faith to all of life that made the late nights, early mornings, and sleeping on the floor worth it.

In certain circles it is currently en vogue to question the effectiveness of what has been happening in youth ministry over the last three decades. As a result, many of us are rethinking our youth ministry paradigms and methodologies. However, I left my week in Chattanooga reminded again of the many lessons I have learned in youth ministry. Foremost on my mind was the connection between faith and life for students that happens when they worship together, pray for each other, and participate in missions experiences. Perhaps the answer to all our questions about effective youth ministry can be found by allowing students to do those three things.

For more information about YXL, check out our website – www.pcacep.org/yxl – or the website about our sister conference in Glorieta, New Mexico – www.yxlglorieta.org.

How We Teach and How They Learn, Part 1

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Over the years I have gone to MANY teacher training workshops. What I found interesting is that most of them simply focused on expanding a teacher’s arsenal of methods. After many years of studying the subject of how we learn and process new information, I have discovered that when you lay out all these teaching methods, people will pick those that best fit with their own learning style. This means that we will pick those methods we are comfortable using, but these will not reach as many as three-fourths of our students whose learning style is different from ours.

Learning styles is not a new subject, nor is it a fad. It was first defined in the 1950s. Christians were introduced to it in the early ’70s when Larry Richards taught us to develop our lessons using “Hook, Book, Look, Took.” I’m not sure how much Larry understood the science of learning styles at that time, but he got it just right.

Today it is recognized that the old “IQ” test is grossly inadequate for measuring intelligence. It is accepted that there are at least nine different intelligences that need to be measured.

How we process new information can be comfortably broken down into four categories. Cynthia Tobias calls them by more technical terms: concrete sequential, abstract sequential, abstract random, and concrete random. These can also be called concrete experience, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation, and reflective observation. Marleen LaFever and Bernice McCarthy refer to them more creatively as imaginative, analytic, common sense, and dynamic. Each describes a different way that learners take in new information and decide what to do with it.

If you have more than one child, you know how different they are. One might prefer to do homework while sitting on the floor with the radio blaring, while the other has to sit at a well lit table in complete silence. If you have more than two children there is a good chance that you are already aware of several different learning styles. For example, if you have a child or student who is very imaginative, he or she might like to talk in generalities rather than specifics and prefer to learn while talking. These children are empathetic, and might go so far as to let their grades drop so they can be part of a group. They work best in a noisy setting, and they don’t like to work alone. They also do not like lectures, which is true of three out of the four styles. Even the color scheme of the room can make a difference for them. While each of the learning styles has a list of characteristics, it must be clearly understood that almost no one fits tightly into any one category. Most of us will overlap into at least one other category.

A question I am often asked is: can our learning style change? The answer is no. We learn to adapt ourselves to the learning situation we are in if we want to survive or fit in.

One last point. Learning styles are often confused with modalities. There are three modalities: hearing, seeing, and motion. Each learning style will have those learners who are strong auditory learners, visual, and/or tactile/kinesthetic. These are subcategories of learning styles.