Eric Hoey

Facing the Decline of the PCUSA Head-On!

I often receive letters of concern about what the Evangelism and Church Growth ministry area going to do about the decline of the denomination. There are some things we can do, but in reality, the bulk of the responsibility of growing our denomination falls upon the faithful work of each of our congregations. If every Presbyterian could share their faith with one person within the next 4 years, I believe we could easily stop the decline of our church. Here in the offices of Evangelism and Church Growth, we are committed to providing resources to our congregations and presbyteries in the following ways:

1. INSPIRE our denomination to share their faith. We are committed to telling the stories throughout our denomination of faithful evangelism and church growth efforts. We plan to offer models of evangelism and church growth that are working well to inspire our churches to grow.
2. INSTRUCT our denomination with tools on particular church growth issues. Many of our offices offer seminars to help congregations ultimately grow in a variety of ways. (See our website www.pcusa.org/churchgrowth)
3. INTERCONNECT our denomination through collaborative networks, funding sources, and others who are addressing the same issues of growing our churches across the country.

God is at work in the national offices of the Presbyterian Church. We are deeply committed to offering the world a visible witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is God at work in your church? I would love to hear about it.

The Power of the Gospel

Last year, I was in a conversation about evangelism with some people who represented different perspectives of our church. A phrase was mentioned that stopped us in our tracks. “It seems like Presbyterians no longer believe in the power of the Gospel.” The more we pondered the profound significance of the idea, the more we all realized that this is absolutely true within our denomination. Evangelism had become a weakness in our church when we refused to believe the power of the gospel to transform lives.

As the director for Evangelism and Church Growth, I want to use this blog to talk about how we can “reclaim the power of the gospel” for our denomination. I hope this can become one way to resource our denomination to become equipped to share our powerful stories of transformation. We really do have a story to tell about God’s grace in our lives. It is moving, transformative and worth telling. I dream of seeding a “perfect storm” in our church where God is raining down blessing and growth upon the PC(USA), and seeing evangelism become a natural response of our churches by telling the world the transforming power of the Good News of Jesus Christ. I welcome your thoughts and comments.