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Encore Issues | PW | PC(USA) |
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The Gift of Changeby Kikanza Nuri Robins |
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One comfortably predictable thing about meetings of Presbyterian Women is that most of them follow the same format. No matter where I am in the country, whether at a small parish or a large regional meeting, I can be sure that the agenda will include a reading from the Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, some business and participation by a number of the members. Even on retreats that I have been asked to prepare and lead, I can trust that the time I have been allotted will be reduced by as much as a third while the PWs take care of PW business. I think it is important that groups honor their traditions and conduct their meetings in a similar fashion. This is a wonderful gesture of hospitality for women who are traveling or who have moved to a new city. They can attend a meeting of PW and feel at home. As Presbyterians, we work on and through committees, and we seek to err on the side of having too much participation rather than take the chance of being accused of noninclusivity. There are times though, when change is a good thing. For example, if your PW group is having a retreat, you might want to retreat from routine and set aside all business in order to refresh, renew and reflect in the sabbath time that you have given to yourselves. What if your PW group held a retreat and everyone had a chance to breathe deeply, talk reflectively and enjoy the sabbath time with one another? What if at your next PW program, rather than having eleven people on the program, you only have three who provide a simple, well-coordinated program during which each segment is integrated with the next? What if you tried something new? Kikanza Nuri Robins is a consulting pastor in the Presbytery of the Pacific. She lives in Los Angeles where she is the caregiver of two Chartreux cats—Manifest Justice and Munificent Concordance.
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