{"id":39,"date":"2008-06-27T13:27:28","date_gmt":"2008-06-27T13:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/churchbasementroadshow\/2008\/06\/are-presbyterians-emerging.html"},"modified":"2008-06-27T13:27:28","modified_gmt":"2008-06-27T13:27:28","slug":"are-presbyterians-emerging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/churchbasementroadshow\/2008\/06\/are-presbyterians-emerging.html","title":{"rendered":"Are Presbyterians Emerging?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Find Tour Dates and Info on the Right Sidebar<\/em><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"2599009141_157bcb5487_o-1.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/196\/import\/2599009141_157bcb5487_o-1.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"370\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center;margin: 0 auto 20px\" \/><\/span><br \/>\nEarlier this week, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pres-outlook.com\/blog\/Bruce-Reyes-Chow-Elected-Moderator-.html\">Bruce Reyes-Chow was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church<\/a> (USA).  This is great news, for various reasons. First of all, Bruce is a great guy and I count him as a friend (even a real friend, not just a Facebook friend!). There&#8217;s been a lot made (at least in Presby circles) that Bruce was unique among the four candidates for several reasons: he was the only non-white, the only one not to wear a tie, and the youngest.<br \/>\nAnd, the word &#8220;emergent&#8221; has been thrown around a lot, too.<br \/>\nBruce is, indeed, emergent. He pastors a church that he planted in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, a church that he planted. He&#8217;s a part of the Emergent Village cohort there, and he affiliates with Presbymergent. I had the pleasure of speaking at an emergent event with him at his church last year.<br \/>\nBruce offers great promise to the PC(USA) in his two-year term &#8211; and, let it be said, the PC(SUA) has been about the most interested in emergent ideas of any denomination. Bruce will push the organization in a missional direction, he&#8217;ll open doors for younger people, and he&#8217;s just got a great, warm, and inviting personality. On our West Coast leg of the Roadshow, younger Presbyterians repeatedly told us how excited they are about Bruce&#8217;s election. Bruce is to the PC(USA) what Tiger Woods was to golf and Barack Obama is to politics.<br \/>\nBut here&#8217;s my big caveat: the PC(USA) is a huge, hegemonic, and possibly intractable bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are really excellent at only one thing: self-sustenance. They mitigate against significant change and they chew up and spit out entrepreneurs. Bruce may be able to provoke a two percent change, or even a five percent change, in his two year term, but will that be enough? And who will succeed him? Will the next moderator continue Bruce&#8217;s agenda?<br \/>\nAll this, of course, remains to be seen. Regardless, I&#8217;m looking forward with great anticipation to see what Bruce can accomplish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Find Tour Dates and Info on the Right Sidebar Earlier this week, Bruce Reyes-Chow was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is great news, for various reasons. First of all, Bruce is a great guy and I count him as a friend (even a real friend, not just a Facebook friend!). There&#8217;s been&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are Presbyterians Emerging? - The Church Basement Roadshow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/churchbasementroadshow\/2008\/06\/are-presbyterians-emerging.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are Presbyterians Emerging? - The Church Basement Roadshow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Find Tour Dates and Info on the Right Sidebar Earlier this week, Bruce Reyes-Chow was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is great news, for various reasons. First of all, Bruce is a great guy and I count him as a friend (even a real friend, not just a Facebook friend!). There&#8217;s been&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/churchbasementroadshow\/2008\/06\/are-presbyterians-emerging.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Church Basement Roadshow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-27T13:27:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/churchbasementroadshow\/files\/import\/2599009141_157bcb5487_o-1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are Presbyterians Emerging? - The Church Basement Roadshow","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/churchbasementroadshow\/2008\/06\/are-presbyterians-emerging.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are Presbyterians Emerging? - The Church Basement Roadshow","og_description":"Find Tour Dates and Info on the Right Sidebar Earlier this week, Bruce Reyes-Chow was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is great news, for various reasons. First of all, Bruce is a great guy and I count him as a friend (even a real friend, not just a Facebook friend!). 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