If this question intrigues you, you might be Presbyterian!  Congratulations, and blessings.  Truth be told, the congregation I serve includes folks from many church backgrounds, and none.  It's safe to say that fewer than half of them came from another Presbyterian church when they joined us, and fewer still found us because they were specifically looking for a PCUSA (our brand of Presbyterian) congregation when they arrived.  We imagine church in many ways, and I think that's part of our character.  I hope that's also a part of our strength. 

My own experience reflects this:  I was baptized Methodist, spent preschool years a Presbyterian, childhood an Episcopalian, youth and college a Methodist, ordained into ministry a Presbyterian, and have spent nearly half of my ministry in non-Presbyterian settings.  My family has included Eastern Orthodox, Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran Christians. 

And you and yours? 

There's nothing magical about a Presbyterian approach to church.  Nor is there anything necessarily superior.  We’re blessed to be part of a tradition among traditions, one slice of the broad catholic church. We’ve been given a few ideas to care for, that have made a small contribution to God's work.  We do well to cherish and learn from other traditions as we go, even as we live out our own.  We're blessed by what others bring to the table. 

The challenge in this variety is, of course, occasional confusion over why we do what we do—even among the long-term committed, and even among the professionals.  But rather than just explain some of the traditions that make us Presbyterian, I'd like to occasionally write to you about some of the principles behind those traditions.  Thinking together about the principles gives us a chance to vary our practice—to think about how to revise what we do, in a new day, without losing those core principles.

So here's one:  our tradition puts a high premium on trust, which is lived out in different ways of sharing governance.  Some have said that the principle is the opposite of that, and that we actually put a premium on suspicion, and so we disperse power.  But I want to claim trust over suspicion.  I want to say we share power in order to magnify impact and allow for change, rather than to prevent change and soften impact.  

So how do we trust?  We're not a "congregational" church, in that we don't "govern" our congregations from the bottom up—with congregational votes on everything, a church council hiring pastors, and increasingly limited decision making the higher you go in the structure.  Nor are we an "episcopal" church, with decision making collected in individuals higher in the structure and disseminated downward.  We're smack in the middle:  episcopal (referencing bishops) in that presbyteries (elected folks in a region) and pastors (representing presbyteries in their ministries) have authority and responsibilities independent of the congregations they serve; and congregational (referencing members of a congregation) enough to say that leadership is spread widely into congregations and congregations elect their own leadership through appointed nominators.  It's a balance.  Congregations trust sessions and pastors and presbyteries and higher bodies to make decisions within their responsibilities.  Higher bodies, presbyteries, pastors and sessions trust members to take key roles, participate in governance, and fulfill ministry.   Members, in turn, ask sessions and pastors and others to fulfill certain responsibilities and take certain authority on their behalf.  And so trust moves up and down and down and up.  If this is all built on suspicion of each other, we have endless power struggles.  If this is built from trust in God and in each other, we enable an active church and a empower broad engagement in ministry.  As Presbyterians, we've made a wager that as imperfect as we are, trust works—and trust makes us a better church.