“The PCUSA, if we are to move from a model of success to significance, must step back and look at who we are,” Nelson said. The PCUSA must “look at our assets instead of looking at our liabilities, look at our way forward instead of behind, look at our mission instead of our mess.”

The Rev. J. Herbert Nelson II, director of public witness for the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Washington Office gave the message “Moving from success to significance” at the Big Tent’s closing worship on Saturday evening.

“As we conclude this portion of Big Tent, truly this has been a blessed event, a moment in time when we have been able to seek renewal and understanding,” Nelson began…

“Let us share a good word about the way God has moved this assembly in such a way that we can rejoice again — for hope and health is on the way,” he said. Scripture readings included Isaiah 43:14-21 and John 15:18-26.

“Let’s consider moving from success to significance,” Nelson said, then he quoted from Isaiah, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things old, Behold I [God] am doing a new thing, not it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”

“In our Reformed faith tradition, suffering is part of the human experience,” he said. “If we live we will one day die. If we live long enough we may get sick, for suffering is part of the human experience.”

In Isaiah, God in His own redemptive kindness released the Israelites from captivity. “Isaiah’s message is total confidence in God even through the struggle,” Nelson said. “God is God all by God’s self … God can do everything but fail.”

Nelson then spoke of the present conflicts in the PCUSA: entire congregations leaving the denomination after a majority of presbyteries voted to change the ordination standards and approved a new Form of Government.

“We are at an in-between time,” he said. “We have a choice. We can live into the mystery of God’s desire for us and what we ought to become. … We used to have numbers. We used to have clout. We used to have collection baskets overflowing. … We used to be successful, but like the exilic people in the text today, God is calling ourselves back.”

“God wants the PCUSA to be significant in this world order,” Nelson said “preaching a Gospel of power and sharing the love of Jesus Christ wherever we go.”

“We must understand that identity and imagination must lead our transformation,” he said. “At the core of our challenge is making a new identity … our identity is discovering who we are, not who we used to be.”

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