As many of you know, I have been a Presbyterian all of my life. My father is an honorably retired minister, his brother is also a retired minister, and when she was a little kid my mother’s family became Presbyterian after her father built the church and fired the Baptist minister because he kissed his girlfriend in public. Next minister was Presbyterian, so that’s what they became.

When I was a child, it was very cool to be Presbyterian. In fact, it was very cool to be anything. Everyone I knew went to church or temple, and for the most part, at least where I lived in the South, it was unusual for someone not to be in some sort of organized religion.

In the fifties, well before I was born, the Presbyterian Church was in high growth, establishing churches everywhere and looking forward to a future of great influence in the world. The sixties were the beginning of the decline. For whatever reason, the growth slowed, stopped, and then began to reverse, and each year at the General Assembly meeting the Stated Clerk would report the losses. They were small at first, but then year after year they began to accelerate. First it was only a thousand, then three thousand, then ten thousand, last year it was 44,000, and this year the projected loss is over 80,000 members! We could all spend our time looking for reasons for the decline. Maybe it’s because the attitude of people toward church in general has changed, maybe it’s our church involvement in controversial issues, or maybe it’s the sometimes very public questions and arguments about government and discipline within the church that turns people off.

When I was a kid, everyone knew what the word Presbyterian meant. Fast forward to 2007 – if you tell someone that you are Presbyterian, do you think they understand all of what that means? Or do they think that we’re the church that’s sometimes in the newspaper, arguing and indecisive about a few hot-button issues? Could that be part of our problem?

At our conference in Las Vegas, the presenters began with a startling review of our decline. Without going into any more gory details, the church as we know it will not be here in 25 years. Will not be in existence. Gone. Not here. Just a history book or two to tell our children and grandchildren what we were about. Hopefully, the books will get it right.

Understandably, there is a lot of grieving going on in the church right now, because what once was is no more. There is much confusion, because we have been educated and trained for an old world that no longer exists, and not the new world we currently live in. So what do we do?

Well, there is some good news. First a joke. A man falls off a cliff. At about one hundred feet down he grasps a single, small branch, and as he hangs there he cries desperately for help. All of a sudden a voice comes over the side of the hill, saying, "Yes, my son." The man says, "Who are you?" The voice answers, "I am God." "Please, God, help me!" So God says, "Certainly." "So what do I have to do?" God tells him, "Let go of the branch." The man looks down, looks up and says: "Is there anyone else up there?"

Somewhere along the way, some of us in the church have forgotten who we really are, why we are here and what God wants us to be. The changes we have no choice but to make to save our church don’t have to be as desperate and drastic as some people think. When you hear the term "emerging church" or "church transformation", do you think contemporary worship? According to the PCUSA, transformation means disrupting the current cycle of a congregation’s life in order to intentionally bring about change.

Disruption doesn’t mean destruction. Our church, our Presbytery, our denomination, shouldn’t change our core beliefs to increase membership– I don’t think anyone would be happy with that. In this case, disruption means identifying and focusing on our church’s strengths instead of finding and trying to fix weaknesses. It is a very positive thing. A strong congregation provides a sense of community, educates worshipers about God and how to have faith in God, and maybe most importantly, teaches worshipers how to share their faith with others. We do a good job right now, but can we as a group do better at these things? I think that we can. That’s transformation! Remembering and including the old and the new, acknowledging both but not compromising either – that’s not contemporary, that’s emerging!

The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert, trying to get 400 years of Egypt out of their system. They had old habits, old ways of thinking, old customs that simply would not work in the new world. They lived in between two worlds. When Judah was carried off in exile into Babylon, they spent 70 years as a minority in a foreign culture, getting the old religious world out of their system. They lived in between two worlds. Today in North America, we live in between two worlds. The old world has definitely passed away, but we don't know exactly what the new world will look like yet. We are trying to see, as best we can, but our vision is still blurry, and the fog has not yet lifted.

Let’s burn some of the fog off. While we are still a dynamic congregation and denomination, let’s explore ways to improve and expand. In the Sunday School class today and hopefully in future events, we’ll go into specifics concerning ideas that may help us begin the changes that we have to make to continue God’s work in the world as Presbyterians. Jesus promised Peter that his church will survive, no matter what, and that He would hang with us every step of the way. Blessed are we because we trust in God, so let’s do it, let’s trust in Him, stop being afraid and get out there with smiles on our faces and God in our hearts. Thanks be to the everlasting God, who gave us this incredible opportunity, and thank you for sending us to the Las Vegas conference, which allowed the six of us to imagine what the future could be here in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.