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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Tag, I'm It! (PresbyMEME5)

Have you ever heard of a meme?

According to Bruce Reyes-Chow, one of the candidates for Moderator of the General Assembly, a meme is
"a list of questions that is passed along from blogger to blogger in order to learn things about people, increase traffic and be annoying to those who never do memes. Think chain letter for blogs, but without any horrible ramifications if you stop it."

Bruce recently started a Presbyterian Church (USA)-specific meme. John of Shuck and Jive tagged me; he was tagged by Drew of Notes from Off-Center.

Here are the rules, as set forth by Bruce:
- In about 25 words each, answer the following five questions;
- Tag five presbyterian bloggers and send them a note to let them know they were tagged;
- Be sure to link or send a trackback to this post.

So here we go. PresbyMEME 5:
What is your earliest memory of being distinctly Presbyterian?

I was baptized in the Ukranian Orthodox Church, received first communion and got confirmed in the Lutheran Church (ELCA), spent ten years in a non-denominational church, went to seminary at Princeton, and then married a PC(USA) minister and joined a PC(USA) congregation. I don't know that I am "distinctly" Presbyterian. Should I be?

On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend LESS energy and time?

I think we need to spend less time focusing on all of those things of which we're so afraid (losing members, scarcity, "the other," etc.) and focus instead on casting out our fear.

On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend MORE energy and time?

Young adults. Need I say more?

If you could have the PC(USA) focus on one passage of scripture for a entire year, what would it be?

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all our mind and with all your strength.... Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31)

If the PC(USA) were an animal what would it be and why?

A sheep. Maybe a stray one.

Extra Credit: Jesus shows up at General Assembly this year, what does he say to the Presbyterian Church (USA)?

So this is what you all have been doing for the last 2,000 years!


I tagged Mark Koenig and Amanda Craft (Swords into Plowshares), Lee Hinson-Hasty (A More Expansive View), Irene Pak (Me, Myself and Irene), Andrew Kang Bartlett (Food and Faith), and Jud Hendrix. (IWonder).
posted by Noelle at 9:43 PM

5 Comments:

Great play, Noelle!

"Young adults. Need I say more?"

And thanks for tagging all of those other great blogs that I didn't know about!
Blogger John Shuck, at 12:39 AM  
Hi Noelle,

Nice to find you among the pages o' the web. Interesting that you were baptied in the Ukranian (Carpatho-Russian?) Orthodox Church. My last name is Tatusko and most of my genes hail from the Ukraine! I don't see a lot of Ukrainian Presbyterians so Budmo or Na zdorov'ya...

Definitely more research needs to be done with the young adult crowd in order to reach them more effectively. That is the group with the lowest persistence rate statistically (sorry, I use college admin. words to describe just about everything). A nice study by Regnerus et. al. at U of Texas gives a nice set of reasons why.
Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:11 PM  
Thanks for playing this uber-dorky Presbymeme ;-) Look forward to reading more. I also added your to the lost of folks who have already played. http://www.mod.reyes-chow.com/2008/03/i-presbtyerian.html
Blogger Reyes-Chow, at 2:27 PM  
Bruce, thanks for starting this meme--it was really fun to play, and it's been fun getting to know other Presbyterian bloggers.

John, thanks again for inviting me to play.

And Drew, thanks for being Ukrainian. :) There are so few of us in the Presbyterian Church... Sylchak is our Ukrainian family name. I don't know if the church in which I was baptized is Carpatho-Russian. It's St. Vladimir's in Hollywood, CA.

In regard to young adults, I think we get caught up in thinking that we need to do research (which we do, don't get me wrong), and in so doing hesitate to act and learn in the doing. So I definately hear what you're saying, but in the meantime we're losing a LOT of young adults simply because our churches aren't offering them anything. The national level of the church is continuing to cut programs for young adults.

Bruce, your church is primarily young adults, right? What are you all doing that seems to be working?
Blogger Noelle, at 6:03 PM  
Noelle - Huge question. Being real is the key. I know seems a little trite, but it really is true.
Blogger Reyes-Chow, at 11:57 PM  

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