By Maureen Wright
Last Monday and Tuesday, I attended the Synod of the Trinity’s Executive Presbyter Forum, usually referred to as the EP Forum. It gathers three times each year, offering those serving the Presbyteries of the Synod in an executive role a space of support and a setting for discussion and for exchanging ideas, frustrations, and best practices. Forrest Claassen, Executive of the Synod of the Trinity, shared about a new grant for Presbyteries. While Presbytery of West Virginia Leadership Team members heard about the grant late in 2023, and our commissioner to the Synod, Jim Wilson, shared it with the Presbytery in his report to the November Stated Meeting, Rev. Claassen offered more details. The grants will be known as Fit for the Future Grants. Each of the 16 Presbyteries of the Synod will be able to apply for a $30,000 grant between now and the end of 2026. The grants will require that the Presbytery think about their identity and how the Presbytery can adapt structurally to be resilient and vital in the future. However, it is more than just “the Presbytery” as this grant opportunity challenges presbyteries to reflect on how they support their churches for resiliency and vitality. Rev. Claassen suggested that the grants are designed to allow Presbyteries to answer the questions, “What is this new, weird world?” and “What does it mean to bring the Gospel to this new, weird world?” How do we need to adapt and change our Presbytery and churches to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
As I listened to the discussion, I was struck by the parallels between the Fit for the Future Grants and the Presbytery’s Season of Discernment. Rev. Claassen’s words about a new, weird world and what it means to bring the Gospel to it echo the words that I have been preaching, writing about, and speaking with you – we are moving from a place that we have known to a place that we do not know. I have asked what God is calling us to be and do. This is identity work. We cannot follow God without resiliency. We cannot do kingdom/kindom work without vitality.
One of the worship times at EP Forum was led by Erin Cox Holmes, Executive Presbyter of the Presbytery of Donegal, who continued the theme of discernment and change with a reflection on John 21: 1-19. This text provides a post resurrection story of Jesus showing himself to the disciples; it is a story rich in images of Jesus’ bounty and the examples of leadership that he provides for the Presbytery and Church today.
This may be a familiar story – one you have heard many times – or it may be new to you. The resurrected Jesus shows himself to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples have decided to go finishing but have caught nothing. At daybreak, Jesus calls to them, telling them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. The result is a net full of fish. Jesus calls them to breakfast. After they eat, Jesus and Simon Peter go back and forth three times with Jesus asking each time if Simon Peter loves him. Simon Peter answers each time that he does. The scene closes with Jesus saying, “Follow me.”
I am struck by this image of fishing. It is not the commercial fishing of today with huge boats and mechanized nets, but a simple boat with a basic net that is cast manually. I wonder how the Presbytery and our churches answer the question, “Where are our nets full?” How about where are our nets empty? How do we interpret our full and empty nets? Jesus provides a needed meal to the disciples. In what ways is Jesus setting a table for us, to sustain us as we are fishers of people? In what other ways is Jesus providing for us? In this story from John, Jesus calls the disciples to follow even when their nets are empty, even when their nets are full, even when they are tired, even when he has to ask us more than once.
I invite you to spend time dwelling in this passage. How do you believe the Presbytery and our churches are being led to cast our nets on the “right side of the boat”? Do you believe that if we do so, we too will have so many fish that we cannot haul in our nets? What meal has Jesus prepared for us? Are we prepared to respond to Jesus’ post resurrection question, “Follow me”? How does this passage inform the challenge from the Synod to think in new ways, to think about how we define the new world – the emerging world – in which God is calling us and in what does it mean to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to this new world?