Mission Yearbook: Rev. Jihyun Oh speaks on changing and courage

Speaking on “Changes, Curiosity and Councils,” the Rev. Jihyun Oh told mid council leaders she suspects they’ve been addressing those realities as much as she has over the past year or so.

Image

The Rev. Jihyun Oh

“You are stewarding and midwifing change too, as the church seeks to be faithful to the changes we are experiencing almost daily,” the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Executive Director of the Unified Agency told those gathered online and at the Presbyterian Center for the recent Mid Council Leaders Gathering. Oh named a few changes: society undergoing deep polarization, the rise of white Christian nationalism, the worsening climate crisis and increasing marginalization.

“We need to shift because … things can no longer be assumed,” she said, and the PC(USA), through its unification process, must “get to a place where we are structured for the 1-million-member denomination we are and not the 3.5-million-member denomination we once were.”

In a world that’s rapidly changing, one characteristic that’s been lifted up is curiosity, and that was the focus of most of Oh’s talk. “There is a need for innovation and for people with a growth mindset,” she said. “We sometimes don’t recognize new models are needed, and we need to develop them while dealing with reality now. We have to develop the models while we’re doing the changes.”

But what folks need is more certainty, she said. “They want to know where we’re headed and what the topography is like, and that’s not something we have the luxury to do right now,” Oh said. “I trust you are inviting your faith leaders to do the same.”

She said she’s been drawn to the work of Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist. Piaget has written extensively on curiosity being an innate characteristic in babies and children. “Children develop a hypothesis, conduct experiments without knowing it, test it out, and then shift their hypothesis depending on what they experienced,” Oh said. “Curiosity helps in the developmental function of human beings.”

It's not just about “innovation and openness to change and having a growth mindset and achieving your goals,” she said. “Curiosity is critical to human well-being. It helps us make sense of reality, helps us find meaning in our lives, develop our minds and cultivate care for what’s beyond ourselves.” It’s “an innate characteristic of all people that needs to be nurtured.”

As colleagues, “we might ask, ‘what am I seeing and what are the assumptions I have that keep me from seeing new possibilities?’” she said. “What happens if we shift those assumptions?” Asking questions about our foundational assumptions “might help us find new ways if we don’t take it as disrupting or threatening, but an exercise in curiosity, like children do.”

We need answers to important questions, including “whose lens is missing?” she said. “Asking who is not at the table isn’t just about diversity. It is the difference between seeing the whole picture versus not seeing it.”

That discussion elicited one of Oh’s favorite jokes: Some muffins are cooking in an oven. One muffin says it its neighbor, “it’s really getting hot in here.” The other muffin replies, “Wow! A talking muffin.”

“Are there ways we miss the rising heat?” Oh asked. “How might we open ourselves to see what God is doing in the world? What happens when we take seriously God saying, ‘behold, I am doing a new thing.’”

She asked: How will joining God require us to change the way we’ve always done things or things that have given us joy in the past but are not the way to go forward anymore?

Oh finds herself turning again and again to one of her favorite verses in the Bible, Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

“Curiosity is one of the ways our minds get renewed,” she said. “It helps us deepen learning, it rewires our minds for caring and compassion, it helps develop our brains and it’s a way to participate with the Holy Spirit’s invitation to renew our minds.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Andrea McNicol, Assistant Controller & Budget Manager, Budgets & Forecasting, Administrative Services Group
Brianne Merten, Operations Associate, Operations, The Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

Lord of all Creation, we pray for an end to hostilities, prejudices and hatred everywhere, especially in the land we call Holy. Gather all your children in your loving arms and shield them from the terrors of war and violence. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Young Adult Advocacy Conference participants are urged by Stated Clerk to act with compassion and love

The Rev. Jihyun Oh gave a message on the second day of the Young Adult Advocacy Conference that served as a reminder that justice was a central part of Jesus’ ministry and should be a guiding force for Christians today.

There is a “whole movement of people who call themselves Christian” who say that God’s justice and the good things of life are only for a particular segment of people, said Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). To counter that, “we must talk about and act on and advocate for justice where there is injustice and negate that message as being something that comes from Jesus because it doesn't.”

Image

The Rev. Jihyun Oh addresses the Young Adult Advocacy Conference Saturday at First Presbyterian Church of Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Alex Simon)

Oh, who also serves as executive director of the Interim Unified Agency of the PC(USA), spoke those words during a morning worship service in Michigan at the “Jesus and Justice” conference, which has been held by the PC(USA)’s advocacy offices for the past three years to teach young adults to do social justice advocacy.

“I think it’s of vital importance that you continue to remind us in your local congregations, but also on the national level, that the voices of young people need to be heard,” PC(USA)’s advocacy director, the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, told attendees gathered at First Presbyterian Church of Lansing for a day of worship, workshops and networking. “We are a church that, right now, is seeking new ways that we can engage with young people.”

 Oh read from Luke 4:16–30, a passage that harkens to a time when Jesus was at the beginning of his ministry and ready to declare that a new day had come.

In that passage, Jesus visits a synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and stands up to read a scroll containing words from the prophet Isaiah.

Jesus “unrolled the scroll and found the place where it’s written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Image

Lawrence Robertson of Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries sings at the Young Adult Advocacy Conference in Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Alex Simon)

After rolling up the scroll as all eyes were on him, Jesus declared, “Today, the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” and the people were amazed at his gracious words, though they eventually became offended and drove him away.

Jesus’ goal had been to share a particular vision of his ministry that was directed not just for the people he’d grown up around but “anyone who has been bound and pressed down and treated as less than,” Oh said.

That includes “anyone who has felt powerless in the face of the rich and powerful, in the face of unjust economic and social systems, in the face of unjust health care systems” as well as “anyone who has been made to bow down, made to feel crazy, made to feel like they don't matter in society and to God,” Oh said.

Jesus’ reading of the words from Isaiah was a message of justice is everlasting. “It’s a reminder that God has always been about justice, and that the vision of the reign of God is a vision of justice yesterday, today and tomorrow,” Oh said. “God has been and God is, and God always will be about justice.”

And what does that kind of justice look like? It means “all needs are met,” Oh said. “Nobody is hungry, nobody is suffering because they can’t pay for care and healing. Nobody is jailed because they can’t pay a debt or pay a fine. There are fair scales and fair wages and ways for people to dig out from enormous economic hardship.”

Oh also explained what God’s justice is not. For example, in Jesus’ ministry, “religion isn’t used to keep people from wholeness.”

Jesus knew that “justice only for us and not for anyone else is perhaps vengeance, but not God’s justice,” Oh said. “Justice for us at the expense of ‘them’ is not God’s justice.”

Oh went on to encourage conference participants to “act with humility and compassion,” remembering that “God’s justice, God’s love, is for everyone.”

Darla Carter, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Jon Baxter, Chief Engineer, Building Services, Administrative Services Group, A Corporation
Serrita Bell, Directory of Communications and Marketing, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

God of justice and mercy, you proclaim good news to the poor, freedom to the oppressed and hope to all who feel forgotten. Shape our hearts to reflect our compassion and guide us to seek justice for others. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘If I showed up at your church, somebody other than Jesus would be happy to see me’

Co-Moderators, Stated Clerk team up to share their insights during worship at the Presbyterian Center Chapel

October 13, 2024

From left, the Rev. Jihyun Oh, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong and 

the Rev. Tony Larson sing a hymn during worship Wednesday 

in the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky. 

(photo by Rich Copley)

With Ephesians 2:10 as their scriptural basis, the co-moderators of the 226th General Assembly, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong and the Rev. Tony Larson, joined the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Rev. Jihyun Oh, to lead a recent hybrid worship service in the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville. One by one, the three recently elected denominational leaders spoke on “Created,” “Called” and “Commissioned.”

Created

Put your hand in front of your face, Armstrong suggested. Inhale and then exhale, blowing air at the hand. “Do you feel anything? That means you have breath in you, and breath means you’ve been created by God,” she said.

Genesis 1 tells us that everything God created is good. “When we consider being created by God, it’s all right if we declare, ‘That’s good!’” Armstrong said. “Friends, I want you to acknowledge that you have been fearfully and wonderfully made and to acknowledge that you have been made good. That ought to make you walk different.”

“I encourage you to be a good creation of God and wear the smile that proves that’s so,” she said. “To God be the glory for the great things God is doing.”

Called

Larson spoke about a recent time and an unlikely place to which he and his wife, Heather, were called: a dive bar in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where a trivia night had been organized.

During the two hours of the trivia contest, people would walk in and out of the bar, Larson said. Some hadn’t had particularly good days. One person told him, “I’m Catholic. I go to Mass every Sunday. People fuss at me all the time. They say, ‘but we see what you’re doing on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.’”

“I go every Sunday, and I get forgiven, but the only person happy to see me there is Jesus.” Then he asked Larson, “Would I be welcome in your church?”

“I said, ‘Of course you’d be welcomed at our church,’” Larson said, telling the man about the ministry of Trinity Presbyterian Church of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, including “our ministry for those in recovery, our ministry to children and families, and our fundamental ministry to people who pick up from some place on the map at this stage of their life and come here and generally have no connections, no roots. They have left their roots behind, and we help those rootless people find roots in the church.”

“I just really get the sense talking to the two of you,” the man replied, “that if I showed up at your church, somebody other than Jesus would be happy to see me.”

“We don’t know,” Larson said of why we are called. “We are called to be in spaces where we are, and to be the very presence of Christ to whoever might be there. Thanks be to God.”

Commissioned

For many people in the worship, the term “commission” has a specific meaning, said Oh, who started her duties as Stated Clerk on Aug. 5. There are commissions, both judicial and administrative, and commissioners to assemblies “who have been given power and authority to speak on and act on behalf of a particular body of people.”

We can think of “commissioned” as “being given the power and authority to speak on and act on behalf of Christ Jesus our Lord, who has called us to be salt and light in the world,” the Stated Clerk said.

Being commissioned can also mean “being taken off of standby, being taken off the sidelines to places where God is calling us.” Ephesians 2:10 calls us “God’s handiwork,” which got Oh to thinking about “what it means to be commissioned to that work. The person creating that handiwork is thinking about a particular context or purpose when the work is commissioned. There is a particular thing we are to be doing in the world.” There can be “a sense of joy that emerges from that commission.”

“We are created, called and commissioned. Thanks be to God. Amen.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Co-Moderators, Stated Clerk team up to share their insights during worship at the Presbyterian Center Chapel

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Larry, and Inge Sthreshley, Mission Co-workers serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency 
Mindi Stivers, Financial Assistant, Presbyterian Women 

Let us pray

Mighty God, we bless you for the rich soil in which your church is nourishing the seed of your gospel. Continue to transform our lives, congregations and communities so that all will know us by the fruit we bear. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - The PC(USA)’s Mid Council Ministries director looks at how a connectional church works

The Rev. Jihyun Oh is the guest on the recent ‘A Matter of Faith’ podcast

November 14, 2023

The Rev. Jihyun Oh

If you want to know how and why the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is known as a connectional church, ask the Rev. Jihyun Oh.

That’s precisely the connection Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe, the hosts of A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast, made last week. Listen to their conversation with Oh, an assistant stated clerk and the director of Mid Council Ministries in the Office of the General Assembly, here.

Noting some people’s perceived disconnect between the national church and local congregations, Catoe and Doong asked Oh, “How can we be better connected, especially in today’s society?”

“We are now in an age of relationship,” Oh said. “There is high value on authenticity and relating,” and the nation is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness, Oh noted.

There are things Presbyterians can do as congregations and as individuals “to participate in God’s mission and ministry in the world,” Oh said. “We think doing that together is better than doing it ourselves. … Being interdependent in order to be more faithful in life and in ministry are the fundamental ways in which we talk about the connectional church.”

“As a denomination we have said, ‘We can have more impact in the world if we can make those decisions together and discern the will of Christ together,’” Oh said. While other faith communities are designed in a more hierarchical structure, “our power is in those mid councils, in presbyteries,” Oh said, citing as an example the way that overtures are introduced by mid councils during General Assembly. “It’s folks saying, ‘This is a really big deal for our community. We want the entire denomination to think about this particular issue and discern what God is telling us to do about it.”

“A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” with the Rev. Lee 

Catoe and Simon Doong drops each Thursday.

“Participation is really important in our denomination as part of being that connectional church,” Oh said. “Anybody in a congregation who says, ‘Hey, we really should be thinking about this’ — bring it before your session and then send it on to your presbytery.” That act could lead to a redetermination of “how we’re resourcing certain communities that are being under-resourced” or for the PC(USA) “to give more thought about how we’re engaging with particular communities that have been under-supported or whose voices are not prominent or have been silenced for too long. … People are discerning the movement of the Spirit and saying, ‘I think the whole denomination should think about that.’”

Studies show that “the church [in the U.S.] continues to move to the margins of society,” Oh said. However, “if we can think about the margins having the possibility of being a place where we can look to the center and critique the center, we can meet people and imagine new possibilities that are not possible in the center. Is there a way to embrace the margins?”

But the church is growing in the Southern Hemisphere, Oh said. “They are bringing fresh eyes and some critique to the way we are living the gospel in the U.S. and the ways we think about connection and how we think about the sharing of resources.” A critique from church partners in Eastern Europe “asks us to think about our ties to capitalism and how we think about money and resources. Those critiques can be hard to hear, but some of those values can get in the way of us connecting and listening to people who are part of the communion themselves.”

Oh put in a plug for OGA’s Along the Road podcast series, which features new episodes each Wednesday. “We were thinking about how can we be a connectional church together where more leaders feel empowered and equipped to live out their calling as leaders in the church,” Oh explained. “How do they understand their responsibilities? How are they tending to their spiritual life?” The longer editions, 30 minutes or more, focus on polity, Oh said, while the shorter versions, which are 10-20 minutes each, are devoted to spiritual practices. The creators “took a breather in the summer,” Oh said, but are once again relaunching the series.

New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop every Thursday. Watch previous editions here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Rev. Jihyun Oh, guest on ‘A Matter of Faith’ podcast

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
James Rissler, President & CEO, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program
Leslie Rizzo, Production Clerk, Hubbard Press, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

We pray that these and other efforts throughout our denomination will raise up new disciples of Jesus Christ. May they help to spread the good news of the gospel both near and far. In his holy name we pray. Amen.