Class notes - Princeton Theological Seminary

our to be the man's daughfall
1997
day. On August 3, in from of Old First
Church in San Francisco, thirty-five
Presbyterians donned running shoes to
carry-relay-fashion-a
small, nine-inch
wooden cross across the Golden Gate Bridge.
That began a journey that took the cross to
Presbyterian churches in Sausalito, Tibiron,
San Rafael, San Anselmo,
Terra Linda,
Novato, Sama Rosa, and Windsor, from
California's oldest Presbyterian congregation
to ItS newest.
People from three-year-olds
carried the cross. When
it arrived in
to retirees
Windsor for the chartering service, the
church's oldest member
Irene Neil) and its youngest
(three-monthold
Spencer Brady) escorted
the sanctuary.
(ninety-two-year-old
the cross into
Roger Hull, astride his bicycle, was also
one of the cross-carriers.
church
Hull had helped found rhe Windsor
seven years ago when the presbytery
asked him to take a try at new church
development.
The pastor of Old First Church in
San Francisco for ten years, he left in 1988,
at what he terms his "dark night of the sou!."
After traveling across the United
spending
States
time in retreat centers and praying
about where God was calling him, he returned
to California, where Staten offered
him time to think while working
winery. He never left.
Now, in addition
at the
to his work at Field
Stone (where Staten refers to him as the
"director of hospitality"), Hull is Windsor's
parish associate pastor. Shaw welcomes
help. She believes new church
needs the gifts and commitment
people as the church
can muster.
his
development
of as many
"Last year there were only forty-one
new churches in the 181 presbyteries of
the Presbyterian Church USA," says Shaw.
"Yet the only way we can reach people who
need the hope of Jesus Christ is through
new church development."
Shaw has definite
to begin a church.
ideas about how
Like ralking to people
in grocery stores and gas stations
and diners
about Jesus Christ. "I remember being in
a laundromat and beginning a conversation
with an older man about
God while we were
waiting for our clothes to be done," she says.
"He told me God had let him down. He
was very bitter and wasn't interested
church, and I listened to him."
in the
A few months later she got a phone call
from a woman in Denver whom she didn't
know. It turned
rer, asking if Shaw were the woman
minister
in a laundromat.
diagnosed
who had met her father
The man had been
with lung cancer and had
mentioned his conversation with
Shaw to his daughter.
to visit him the next day.
Shaw went
"I feel like I have the responsibility
to share my faith," she says. "As
a new church development pastor, I'm
accountable
presbytery
to the Gospel and to my
to tell the story of Christ,
to bring people into the community
of the church."
Shaw has wanted
to do new
church development since seminary.
She took several positions
in Sacramento
Presbytery
before Redwoods
in churches
called her to the Windsor
church in September of 1996.
"I look at Windsor as part of
a whole unbroken
chain of churches,"
she explains, "a chain that includes
Thessalonica, Philippi, Corinth, Pine
Srreet Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia,
Old First in San Francisco,
Windsor.
and now
The hope of our world is in Jesus
Christ. The hope for our church
is in beginning
new churches."
Windsor
is a success story in a denomination
that is closing more churches than
it is opening.
at our three chartering
"We had a total of 675 people
services [one for the
congregation, Shaw's installation service, and
the ordination and installation of officers]
and have an average worship attendance of
140," Shaw reports. In January twenty people
will join the church
first new member
already baptized
as part of Windsor's
class, and Shaw has
two children.
All of this is happening
in a building
that was a Methodist church 100 years
ago (old by California standards), then
a community center, an antique shop,
and a private home.
Shaw likes having a community
in the church's family tree.
center
"Community, connection is what the
church is about," she says, "connecting people
to Jesus Christ and to each other."
Roger Hull agrees. He sees his work at
Field Stone as a kind of ministry
of evangelism.
"I'm closer to being an evangelist in
the tasting room than I was in the parish,"
he muses. "People talk with me about their
problems,
their hopes and fears, their desire
for community and connection. It's not typical
evangelism,
but it's sharing with people
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The Windsor Presbyterian Church on its chartering
day. The background graphics are from the label of
Field Stone Winery's new communion wine, Convivio.
who often have no relationship
church
with the
as a place to find food and sustenance."
A few wine-tasters
the Windsor
church.
have even joined
Staten is happy about Field Stone's connection
with the church. He was a professor
of religion and a college chaplain
for almost
fifteen years before he took over Field Stone's
vineyards after his father-in-law's
death in
1979. With his PTS M.Div. and a Ph.D.
in theology and philosophy
of religion from
rhe University of Chicago, he has always
pondered theological questions, including
how to integrate
belief with experience.
He also believes that one's faith should
inform one's action and has committed to
giving a percemage
sale of Convivio to non-profit
of the receipts from the
organizations,
including the Alliance Medical Cemer in
Sonoma County. Alliance primarily serves
members of the Hispanic community, who
make up most of the area's vineyard workers.
Staten's experience as a vintner has also given
him an opportunity
to offer the church
something concrete to symbolize the sacredness
he finds in the love of the land and the
grapes. "It took me twenty years to come up
with a communion
wine," he laughs, "and
that doesn't include all the years I thought
about the theological meaning of communion.
That's pretty fast for a Presbyterian."
Staten is also sure that if Jeanie Shaw
had been given the task, she would have
done it in a year! I
inSpire. 15