'A Change in What Is Seen'
Both the hope and the challenge of the transfiguration is that we no longer can settle for the status quo and the exhausting oppression of low expectations. Transfiguration is the moment that compels disciples to expect transformative, overpowering God-presence in the community we inhabit, in the lives of those around us. To believe that we will be present for it. Indeed, that God will make it happen through us.
As 2016 Ends: Seeking Justice and Hope in 2017
Executive Director Brian Ellison’s year-end message: reflecting on the accomplishments and challenges of the past year, and seeking your support as our mission continues.
CovNet Celebrates the Work of GA222: Real Progress Toward a More Just and Generous Church
The Covenant Network of Presbyterians celebrates the accomplishments of the 222nd General Assembly! Over and over, this Assembly advanced the cause of inclusion and unity, affirming LGBTQ people and moving us in concrete ways toward being a church as generous and just as God’s grace.
Joy in the Year Ending; Hope in the Year to Come
We have emerged with a clear calling to keep working toward a church that is truly inclusive, whose generosity and justice reflect our Savior’s. You have told us how much work there is left to do—at General Assembly, in denominational structures, in congregations and presbyteries, in hearts and minds. And we have heard that our resources, our history, our relationships are still crucial to seeing that vision accomplished in the life of the church. It is the church that has told us how much this work still matters.
The Covenant Network: The Work Ahead
Executive Director Brian Ellison addressed the 2015 Covenant Conference on Saturday, November 7, lifting up our vision for the organization’s mission and ministry now and in the future, in a talk entitled “The Work Ahead.”
What's next for the Covenant Network?
A lot of people have been asking us over the last few months what’s next for us. Now that the presbyteries have voted to approve Amendment 14-F, affirming that ministers may officiate, and sessions may host, same-gender weddings, and now that LGBTQ people are being ordained in congregations and presbyteries around the country, what will the Covenant Network do? What does our mission look like going forward?Executive Director Brian Ellison addresses the question in this video.
"Of Truth and Love"
A sermon by the Rev. Brian D. Ellison at the NEXT Church Conference, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago:"Speaking the truth in love. This is the change on which the church depends. Our growing up, by speaking the truth in love."
Risk and Reality
A Sermon on Matthew 25:14-30 by the Rev. Brian D. Ellison at the Covenant Network of Presbyterians Regional Conference, College Hill Presbyterian Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, November 15, 2014: "The reality is that we all have been entrusted with much. It is as if we have been given a talent, and knowing our master as we do, knowing the way the master reaps where he hasn’t sown, and harvests where he hasn’t scattered, having done so much already, we bury it. We cling to that hard-earned achievement, preserve that wealth of good will and justice abounding around us, ensure a comfortable if not extravagant future. Or we find a way of differentiation, of sheltering in place, of keeping the faith when surrounded by adversity through isolation and fear."
Divided Votes, United People
CovNet Executive Director Brian Ellison reflects on the experience of the 221st General Assembly and how that gracious spirit can be mirrored when presbyteries consider amendments to the Book of Order and other potentially controversial issues.
Why Marriage Matters Now: Thoughts as the Church Talks About Same-Sex Marriage
Brian Ellison reflects on what's at stake in the approval of Amendment 14-F: fundamental Christian values, the quality and content of the Church's mission, the lives of people.
Why an Authoritative Interpretation Matters
Clergy confidentiality. The uses of church property. Voting by email or on a conference call by presbyteries or sessions. How candidates for ordination are to be examined. The meaning of marriage.They’re all more or less important pieces of church life and governance. They’re all matters where contemporary practice outpaced what was anticipated when the church’s constitutional documents were written. And they are all areas where General Assemblies have made statements—known as authoritative interpretations—about how the Book of Order is to be understood in light of new situations and changing realities.This summer, we at the Covenant Network are encouraging the 221st General Assembly to make decisions that will deepen and enhance the church’s understanding of marriage—clarifying that its blessings are available to all people, including couples of the same gender. One way we hope the assembly does this is through an authoritative interpretation—a binding ruling by the church’s highest council about what the constitution does and doesn’t say. There’s a fair amount of confusion in the church about what an AI is… but there doesn’t need to be.
“Marriage Matters … Why?” - Brian D. Ellison
A Sermon on 1 Corinthians 7:1-11, 25-38 preached at the Covenant Network Conference, November 2, 2013: "It’s not that the text suggests something simple in the sense of something sentimental, that 'all you need is love.' No mention of love here in this chapter about marriage at all, in fact, not even from the man behind 1 Corinthians 13. No, the simple summary of Paul’s response to the swirling questions about marriage here, about celibacy and abstinence, about mutuality and submission, about complementarity and about sex, we might actually say, is: 'All you need … is God.'”
"Whose Body Is It, Anyway?"
A sermon by the Rev. Brian D. Ellison at the ordination and installation of the Rev. Daniel Vigilante as Pastor, Grace Trinity Community Church, Minneapolis, and Associate Pastor, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, by the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area at Westminster Presbyterian Church, August 25, 2013.
Congratulations to More Light Presbyterians and Alex McNeill!
The Covenant Network celebrates with our friends at More Light Presbyterians the appointment of their new executive director, Alex McNeill. It is a historic moment in the life of their organization, and we congratulate them. Read the statement by Covenant Network executive director Brian Ellison.
"Crossing Over"
A Sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14, by the Rev. Brian D. Ellison, The First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, Sunday, June 30, 2013: "You see, the dividing line—the Jordan River we all must cross—is not running on this Pride Sunday between LGBTQ on one side and straight on the other. Or between one group with problems and another. And it certainly isn’t between sinner and saint, for all would surely be on the same bank of the river then. The crossing over we are called to do—all of us—is from in here together to out there together. The Jordan of our lives is the threshold that so persistently separates us from Fifth Avenue and from the world. It is a line of demarcation between celebration and action, between faithful gratitude and trusting obedience. We carry with us all that happens in here, but then we cross over into the out there."
Covenant Network Celebrates Supreme Court Decisions
The Covenant Network celebrates—together with justice-minded Presbyterians across America—today’s decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. We rejoice in today’s rulings striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and ensuring that same-gender couples in California are now able to enjoy the legal rights and privileges of marriage. With state and federal benefits now available to couples in a total of 13 states (and the District of Columbia), the country has taken a significant step toward marriage equality. We also eagerly await guarantees that teaching elders and congregations can, without fear of discipline, provide the same pastoral care to same-gender and opposite-gender couples by extending the opportunity to have their marriages celebrated and recognized in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
2013 Covenant Conference - October 31-November 2
Keynote speakers will be Macky Alston, Stacy Johnson, and Amy Plantinga Pauw. Preachers will be Brian Ellison, Frank Yamada, and Sharon Youngs. Kimberly Bracken Long will lead the pre-conference workshop. October 31-November 2 at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago.
"The Reign of God We Get"
A Sermon on Luke 7:1-10 by Brian Ellison, at Southminster Presbyterian Church, Boise, ID, June 2, 2013: "But this is the world. And this is where God is. When Jesus shows up we might like every story to be like a magic wand being waved. The leper is touched and the healing occurs. The mud is put on the eyes and sight is restored. But the world we live in is a Luke Chapter 7 world, and healing rarely happens that way. Justice is rarely a matter of a single spoken word. Every problem is not healed by each just action. The day you or I offer a cold cup of water to an overheated stranger, he will be better and a thousand more will still thirst. But the witness of the scriptures and the promise of the gospel is that it still matters. That, in fact, it couldn’t possibly matter any more. That this is the kingdom of God."
Supplemental Resources for the Marriage Study
In response to the mandate of the 220th General Assembly (2012), the Office of Theology and Worship has published a study of "Christian Marriage in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)." The Covenant Network offers some additional resources and discussion questions for those who wish to explore what embodies the essence of marriage in scripture and the confessions, asking how same-gender marriage—the presenting issue in today’s church and society—may (or may not) express the truth of God.