The Church is ALIVE in Young Adult Volunteers!

Our reporter-on-the-ground at General Assembly, Ms. Tina Deyoe, grabbed a few interviews from Young Adult Volunteers while on the floor of GA last week. Young Adult Volunteers (a.k.a. "YAVs") are a fantastic part of the PC(USA), and two of them - Kate and Jim - had this to say:

Stay tuned for Tina's all-encompassing reflection on General Assembly, coming later this week!

Your Responses, Round 4 (Woah!)

These videos of super excited and passionate people exclaiming their wishes for what they want church to be energize me. Just sayin'.  Here are some (MORE) video responses from Presbyterian (USA) General Assembly attendees Alex, Benjamin, and Lindy. Feel inspired? Record yourself and submit it to us!







Send us your response! What do you want the church to be?

Your Responses, Round 3 (video round!)

Here are some video responses from the Presbyterian (USA) General Assembly about what young people in the denomination feel the church is called to be. Check them out and send in your own responses!







Send us your response! What do you want the church to be?

Your Responses, Round 2

We have a BUNCH more responses from people about what they want church to be! We figured we'd share a few of them below:

I want it to be something that helps develop our relationship with God and Christ. Although I don’t think that something has to be a place or an organization, nor does it necessarily have to have walls or even a name. I want the church to be that entity that connects us to each other so we can worship and minister and grow in our relationship with God and Christ together. I want the church to be about love, with no place for judgment or hatred. I want the church to be that thing that teaches us that the best way to teach others about God and Christ is through our actions. I think the church can be in a building with an organization that has a name, but it can also be everywhere…just like God.

- Sue

A community that welcomes people for who they are and loves them like the children of God they are, but might not know yet.

- Anonymous

A place for open spirituality and serious engagement with people, God, text, spirit, and self.

- Anonymous

If it were my church, I'd have an answer. Actually, I don't give a rip about what I want the Church to be. I'm wrestling with the question: What does Christ want the Church to be? Striving to answer this question is much more important in my opinion.

- Jim Truesdell

Keep 'em coming, folks! What do YOU want church to be?

We've been thinking...

Some of you might have noticed we've been a little lax in posting lately, but while we haven't been writing we have been doing quite a bit of thinking! Two topics have been on our minds this summer: 1) the 219th PCUSA General Assembly and 2) the question of what we - and you - want the church to be.

But what does this mean, you ask? Well, here's the rundown on how these topics will impact The Church is Alive:

Firstly: The 219th General Assembly - a.k.a. "GA" - of the Presbyterian Church (USA) - a.k.a. the PC(USA) - kicked off 2 days ago in Minneapolis. This is a big deal for us at CiA (that's our fun acronym - use it :D) as many of us call this denomination home, but it is also a real-world example of a group of people deciding what they want "church" to be. To clarify: GA is a gathering of people who want to keep the PC(USA) alive and well by deciding on its future endeavors. This, of course, affects all of us, including other denominations - we all pay attention to and learn from each other!

Naturally, we here at the CiA wanted to be at the center of this actions. As such, we placed a few friends of the CiA on the ground at GA who will be sending us updates and reflections from the GA floor for the next couple weeks. (Hopefully we'll get a few of those up soon! Check back!)

Secondly: We don't want to just hear from the PC(USA) General Assembly - we want to hear from YOU! We'll be posting a whole slew of blog posts on this topic all summer (and, if you want to submit a blog post yourself, click here and let us know!), but we encourage all of you to check out the right side of the Church is Alive homepage. Just click on the question mark and send us a few words on what you want church to be. We really hope this will generate some great discussion about different aspects of the church and the ways in which 'church' can be experienced. You can put your name on your submission or respond anonymously, and we'll periodically post responses here on the blog. In fact, we've already received a few awesome responses. Have a look see:

"A community of faith that embraces, emulates, and empowers others to live as disciples of Christ."

- Dan W. Boles

"Home. For all.

A place of peace love, and justice, personally as well as communally and globally."

- Anonymous

"A place where difference is valued and isn't used to divide or oppress one another."

- Anonymous

"Church: Anyplace Christ's Body gathers to
Worship Him
Fellowship together with Him
Serve others with Him
Grow together in Him
Tell others about Him
In the power of the Holy Spirit"

- Laurie

"Church should be home. It should be an atmosphere in which you are welcomed home like the prodigal son (whether or not you ever left the church in the first place). It should be a place and atmosphere that you can pour out your heart and soul in. Finally, it should reach out in christian love into the community. This can be applied to local congregation, the Presbyterian (U.S.A.) denomination, or the entire Christian Church."

- Anonymous

So, what do you think? Do you agree with these folks? Disagree? What do YOU want the church to be??

Stay tuned - there's more to come!

Questions...

(click the image above)

Please Stand By...

Never fear: we haven't disappeared!

We're busy working on some fun new stuff, but the Church is ALIVE will be back in a jiffy!