New Member Class – Day 1

October 22, 2006 by
Filed under: Church New Member Process, Religion 

Yesterday was also the first day of New Member Classes at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, NJ.  Classes are 9am to 10:30am and will continue on October 28 and November 4.  These classes are run about 3 times a year.

The classes are actually intended to explore membership and prepare you should you choose to join.  It looks like most of the group is headed towards joining.

There are about 20 people in this group.  Yesterday, 14 of them were there (several spouses were off handling soccer duty).  This was a very diverse group in terms of age and some other factors, though not racially.

The format was remarkably similar to the Johnsonburg Reconnecting with Faith retreat.  We all sat in a bit circle (well, oval – it was a big group) with the pastor and the Interim Associate for Pastoral Ministry (in this case Jill Cifelli) mixed in the group.  Each of us were asked to introduce ourselves and talk about what we do during the day.  Jill started, and because her daytime work is church-related we ended up with each person describing briefly their church search as well as their day job.  Carolyn came with me and explained that she is a practicing Catholic (seems she’d get good at it at some point!) and was there to support me.

After that, we watched the video Who Are We Presbyterians?.  This is a 20-minute video that does a good job of presenting the high points of Presbyterian faith and organization, though it does tend to concentrate a little too hard on diversity.

Then we were asked to talk about what we saw in the video.  A few people who are new to Presbyterianism stated that they really liked Salvation by Grace as compared to their prior church.  A few group members brought up the liberal/conservative divide (it wasn’t me, honest!) and we batted that around for a while.  The jist of that discussion is that this church favors the open discussion of issues while staunchly defending freedom of conscience.  The phrase used was “generous orthodoxy”.  In short – we have people all over the spectrum and we LIKE that, and encourage people to speak their mind.  Rigid control of belief within narrow confines is not required.  Having said that, the church averages out to someplace between the middle and liberal end of the spectrum.  Not quite far enough to be a More Light church, but certainly not at the conservative end.

The one thing that people said over and over is that this church cares more for each person as a PERSON than they do about their particular ideology.  People are not representatives of a theological or political position – they are PEOPLE who happen to have a personal theology and political opinion.  At least 1/2 of the group said that this was an important factor in their choice of Lawrenceville as a church home (and I’m in that list).

One last similarity to the Johnsonburg retreat appeared.  Carolyn put it best on the way home – “There are some hurt and angry people here.”  This makes complete sense to me.  You come to a church as a new adult member for one or more of a short list of reasons:

  • You left the church at some point because you were not spiritually at home, unhappy or even hurt by the church.
  • You drifted away from the church because of disinterest.
  • You have children, and need to find a church home for baptism, sunday school, etc.  Or maybe you want to get married in a church.
  • You’ve recently moved and need to find a new church.
  • You’ve never been involved in a church, but you’ve found the redeeming power of Christ.

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Based on the stories that were told, the latter reason may have been a part of one or two people’s reasons out of 14.  The rest of the reasons covered everybody.

I was amazed at the distances that people travel to join this church.  One new member is driving from upper Bucks County, PA.  A few others are coming from Princeton.  I’m coming from Hamilton.  We had one couple where one of the two people cited “it’s the closest church” as the reason for joining.  These folks either came back to the church that they grew up in or had a deliberate search path (not as regimented as mine, but just as comprehensive).  (Side note – just by listening I’ve learned a lot to incorporate in the next retreat.)

At the end of the session, we had a moment to fill out some paperwork.  We have to write a brief biography that will be published in the church bulletin and newsletter after we join – I’m still working on that.  We also had our pictures taken to be put in the bulletin and newsletter.

Next week we have a session on stewardship.  At some point, we’re going to participate in a session of Lectio Divina but I’m not sure which week.  In mid-November on a Wednesday we meet with the session, and then are introduced (and in some cases baptized?) on November 19.

I’ll write up the remaining classes as well.  Keep watching this blog!

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