Many of us are asking this question today, as we prepare to meet with our congregations after our General Assembly’s decision to shift our ordination policies. Immediately after the Assembly, I asked another pastor friend of mine what he would say to his congregation on Sunday. Below is his response, and beneath his response I give some practical points as well:

“In some sense that’s a peculiar question, because I’m an evangelical. What I will do Sunday is what I do every Sunday: preach the Gospel. The Gospel’s central themes are well known, its details being spelled out in Holy Scripture, the text from which we read and preach week after week. It’s about a creation gone awry, a God whose capacity to love and forgive exceeds our capacity to sin and rebel, and a hope for a glorious future where there is no more crying and no more dying – all revealed to us in the work and person of Jesus Christ. In one sense, yesterday’s events have very little impact on what I’ll preach on Sunday. Misguided decisions of ecclesial assemblies don’t do anything to diminish or obscure God’s victory over sin, death and the devil.

But from another perspective, in all honesty, I suppose recent events will have something to do with how I approach things on Sunday. It’s not as if the Gospel has undergone any fundamental change. Jesus doesn’t change. We know this because of the constancy of God’s Word and the presence of God’s Spirit. But the context into which we speak these great truths has changed and is always changing. So what’s the word for this time and place?

The church is sinful but God is faithful. In the midst of corruption, deception, and confusion in the Church, which at times like this seems as Babylonian as the world, the Gospel lifts high the cross. The cross judges all human sin and subterfuge, whether in the Church or in the world. It is God’s word to our confused and broken church. But it is not the last word. There is another word, equally abiding but much more hopeful. There is the word of the resurrection. Many of us are as confused, afraid and despairing as that original band of disciples first faced with the loss of the Master. The risen Christ speaks the same word to us as to them. He shares his peace and bids us not to fear. He is with us now and to the end of the age.

We live in a world of sound bites and reductionisms. If we conform to its norms we will offer our churches a truncated Gospel that will elicit cynical despair or naïve optimism. The Gospel of Jesus Christ offers another way. It gives us and those we’re called to lead a true picture of the harsh and stark realities of our sin, exponentially more severe when we coalesce in community. But the Gospel doesn’t end there. The proclamation of the cross is meaningless without the hope of the resurrection. In the words of the Task Force: “It’s a package deal.” And this is the package evangelicals will preach on Sunday. The package that comes to us in the incarnation of the one who is both fully God and fully human, also a package deal. We evangelicals must neglect neither side of the package. We do our church a disservice if we proclaim to the church the stark reality of our sin without the boundless hope of the resurrection. Likewise, we offer nothing the world doesn’t offer if we preach the power of positive thinking, ignoring the profound brokenness, sin and corruption that was manifested in the Assembly’s recent actions.

In an age where the church is filled with negative naysayers and manipulative spin-doctors, evangelicals must preach the Gospel of the whole package. This holistic Gospel is made clear on every page of Holy Scripture. What will we say to our congregations on Sunday? That will be dictated by the passages of Scripture we are led to and the context into which we speak it. Wherever these realities lead us, the center is still the same: Jesus Christ, fully God, fully human, the One whose life, death and resurrection gives us a completely accurate picture of ourselves and our church. God has given us the gift of the Gospel, and with it gives us himself in and as Christ and through the Spirit. In doing so God offers us real, true and deep healing and opens up the possibility for the transformation of our church, our world, and first and foremost ourselves.

What will we say to our congregations on Sunday? The details will differ from place to place but the center must remain the same: not a center devised by calculating political strategists or polity experts but the center who reconciles all things to himself…Jesus Christ. His is the glory, the honor, the power, now and forever. Nothing that happened this week changes that. Thanks be to God.”

We would do well to heed this exhortation. Many at the Assembly felt like its decision on the PUP Report changes everything. And in one sense there’s some truth to this. But in light God’s enduring faithfulness and the victory promised to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, very little has changed at all. We are called to press on, assured of the hope of glory which no Assembly can render a non-essential.

Still, people will want some practical guidance and basic information. There are several things pastors might want to share in an adult education class or at a congregational meeting:

1. Our constitutional standards have not changed. They all remain in place, including G-6.0106b, which requires that candidates for ordination live in fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness. This essential biblical teaching is one candidates for ordained office in our church must abide by, according to our Book of Order. This standard is still in place.
2. The way our standards are applied may have changed. Exactly how they may have changed is not clear. Every ordained officer vows to uphold the essentials of Reformed faith and polity as spelled out in our constitution. But what those essentials are may now be left up to local governing bodies (presbyteries and sessions) to determine for themselves. We may find ourselves in a situation where a Presbytery or Session ordains someone in clear violation of our biblically rooted constitutional standards, and we may not be able to do anything about it. We will live in a time where everyone will be forced to do what is right in their own eyes.
3. It is clear that the intention of the Task Force was to allow for those disregarding the seventh commandment to be able to be ordained and installed as church leaders. What isn’t clear is whether or not the Assembly’s action will be able to make good on the Task Force’s intentions. The constitutional experts are not in agreement. Pray that our constitutional standards will be lifted up and vindicated despite the erroneous judgment rendered by the Assembly.
4. The renewal groups are united. We are committed to
   upholding the constitution. Truth is on our side, and we are trusting
   that God will vindicate the truth of His Word. At the same time, we are
   seeking God’s will for the future and entertaining a range of faithful,
   biblical, evangelical responses to our current crisis. If basic biblical faithfulness has no future in the PC(USA), we
   will see to it that God’s people are equipped to sing a new song in a
   new land. As we discern the mind of Christ together, we are free to be faithful, and we must
   remain united as evangelical Presbyterians. I encourage you to attend
   the summer events, especially that of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship.
5. Your
   session and presbytery could take certain steps to help ensure that
   biblical and faithful standards for ordination are upheld locally. Click here for further analysis of the Assembly’s actions and for a practical suggestion.