New Worshiping Communities by Vera White & Charles Wiley

Author:Vera White & Charles Wiley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611648461
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

ADMINISTERED ACCORDING TO CHRIST’S INSTITUTION:

THE ROLE OF PASTORS

We also see in this vignette the importance of the pastor. One of the biggest hurdles for new worshiping communities around Word and sacrament is leadership, particularly around sacraments. Like many denominations, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has rules concerning who can celebrate sacraments within a congregation. That is, only a minister of the Word and Sacrament or a commissioned ruling elder (CRE) can celebrate at the Lord’s Table or baptize. Other denominations may use different terminology, but most have similar practices. In the case of the PC(USA), a CRE needs to have been elected as a ruling elder in a constituted congregation before serving as a CRE for another community. We have traditionally lifted up the role of teaching elder all the while affirming the possibility that any believer can proclaim the Word of God to a gathered community—but not so much with the sacraments. The language in the new Directory for Worship reads, “The Lord’s Supper shall be authorized by the session and administered by a minister of Word and Sacrament,” but with the caveat that “the functions described as belonging to teaching elders may be, in particular circumstances, also performed by ruling elders.”13

One of the questions before us in this project is how we continue to hold to this classic understanding of Word and sacrament in new worshiping communities. How do we propose that Word and sacrament be practiced in communities that do not have a theologically educated pastor who has been installed in the community?

But we are far from sixteenth-century France in time, distance, and culture. New worshiping communities are not growing on an isolated frontier but rather in the midst of a vast network of churches seeking to be faithful. The 1001 initiative emphasizes the connectional nature of the church in a relationship of “care and accountability.” When new worshiping communities are unable to offer sacramental celebration due to the lack of ordained leadership, the wider church steps in to offer help. The nurturing relationship with a partner congregation or a midcouncil provides the oversight needed for the administration of baptisms and the Lord’s Supper. This is a relationship of mutuality in which the organized congregation absorbs some of the new life and energy of the new worshiping community while the new worshiping community leans on the rich history and tradition of its partner congregation.

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