Aggregation or Congregation: What Will Come Out of Minneapolis?
Written by Paul Detterman, PFR Executive Director   
Saturday, 23 January 2010 20:03
smaller text tool iconmedium text tool iconlarger text tool icon
p_detterman.jpgWelcome to another General Assembly year!  In just a few short months, the 219th GA will convene in Minneapolis, MN.  The full compliment of PC(USA) agencies and organizations will be there, staffing booths, handing out resources, explaining their mission and ministry.  The press will be there too, reporting any precedent-breaking votes and trying to get the back story.  Curious local Presbyterians will be there, taking advantage of the rare opportunity to see first hand what a denomination-wide gathering is like.  What will they see?

We are still half a year out but already the landscape is taking shape.  Many self-identified liberals are positioning themselves to take another run at ordination standards and the definition of Christian marriage.  Many self-identified conservatives are coming to the Twin Cities ready to take yet another stand on these issues, but also with the proposed new Form of Government in the cross-hairs.  A typical GA, right?

But the overwhelming majority of the commissioners who are coming to GA 219 are doing so in good faith, trying their best to navigate both information and information systems to accomplish the work they have been commissioned to do.  What happens when everyone gets to Minneapolis?  What will this Assembly be or become?

Aggregation or Congregation?

Even suggesting that the highest political gathering of the PC(USA) constitutes an aggregation may be offensive to some.  An aggregation, after all, is a collection of many distinct things that are massed together into a whole.  Think of a jar of marbles.  What’s the purpose?  For one thing, the kid with the most marbles usually “wins.”  But even then what do you win?  More pretty marbles.  You add them to your jar and celebrate their diversity—admiring all the different colors and patterns, thinking how cool it is that you have more marbles than the neighbor kid.  End of story.  

In many ways that sounds like the Assembly many Presbyterians are preparing for.  There will be opportunities for commissioners to mingle and meld; committee deliberation, group meals, plenary debates; gatherings for worship; but let the wrong issue be named in the sermon, the wrong special interest group feel slighted, or the wrong outcome be reported from a major committee vote, and de facto aggregation will ensue, if not protests, demonstrations, and worse.  

A congregation is something quite different.  Literally understood, a con-gregation comes together in mutual submission under foundational theological agreement; people drawn together for a purpose beyond themselves.  They come in trust to participate in a purpose that is far greater than the sum of those participating, and they are bound together more tightly when all is said and done.  Instead of a jar of marbles, think of a cluster of grapes.  Grapes not only exist together they grow together drawing energy, life, nutrition, and substance from the vine—(John 15:5).  And seriously, who ever grew grapes just to have more grapes.  Grapes, as Alton Brown regularly reminds us, are self-sacrificing, power packed nutrient bombs—specifically grown for the health, strengthening, and enjoyment of others.  The Great Ends of the Church tell us that is what the PC(USA) is designed to be.

Reality Check

So what can we expect to see in the Twin Cities this coming July?  Marbles or grapes?  Aggregation or congregation?  Forming an aggregation is easy.  People come, deliberate, vote, and leave.  Building a congregation will take astonishing effort on everyone’s part, liberal and conservative, gay and straight, pastor, elder, educator, and staffer.  Are we willing to bring our treasured ideology and impassioned dreams to Minneapolis only to lay them at the foot of the Cross and leave them there?  Is any one of us capable of surrendering our plans and schemes to the will and work of our Savior no matter what the outcome may be?  Do we trust the Holy Spirit to lead us through our current dis-understandings and division to a place that will bring glory to God and enjoyment to his gathered people?  Can God make grapes out of marbles?

A Transitional Solution

Helping move the PC(USA) beyond persistent biennial aggregation is the intent, purpose, and vision behind the New Synod proposal from PFR.  Some have voiced their suspicions that this is a covert action toward an eventual mass departure from the PC(USA).  That makes no sense as there are far easier ways to walk away from the denomination than a restructuring at the synod level.  PFR is comprised of individuals and congregations who are committed to staying where God has called us, proclaiming what God has revealed to us, and doing the hard work of transformational mission for which God has equipped us.  Others persist in mislabeling this proposal a “cocoon,” suspecting it is a strategic retrenchment, an attempt to ghettoize the conservatives into a bureaucratic safety zone, with the unintended consequence of weakening the voice of orthodoxy in the denomination as a whole.  This too makes no sense.  If anything, many congregations with the means and the opportunity have self-ghettoized already, detaching themselves from every possible participation in PC(USA) connectional structures.  

The New Synod proposal has at its heart re-connection for strength, mission, and witness, but through congregation; finding vision for mission, energy, and spiritual traction by celebrating our unity in Christ and loving God’s people, rather than “celebrating our diversity,” (whatever that means) and hoping to be hip enough that some part of the secular world still likes us.  

Both of these objections to the New Synod proposal are based on conspiracy theories and both of them are missing the point.  The New Synod proposal seeks to create “congregation” within the “aggregation” that is our current reality in the PC(USA).  Short of epic revival, no one is going to surrender in our current ideological gridlock.  There is far too much at stake.  But if we persist without altering our current patterns, we are doomed to suffer increasingly irrelevant episodes of biennial déjà vu.

The New Synod proposal, if it is given the opportunity, will provide us all relief from our deepening denominational rut, re-congregate and actually encourage radical expressions of God’s justice, mercy, truth, and love, moving ahead into the far more important mission to which God is calling us.




Back to Top