Dear Presbyterians,
Our Camp Krislund 2009 summer camp has been a remarkable success. We are grateful for the leadership of our new Program Director Art DeVos. One evening while our JCCC (Joint Camp and Conference Committee) was at the camp we appreciated the joyful enthusiasm of all the campers when Joel, a huge stuffed bear, was marched around the dining hall to uproarious applause. The girls’ wagons had just won the daily award for being the cleanest and best decorated unit. They won the opportunity to keep Joel for the day! Joel the Bear is a small sign of our success in bringing a new culture of clean to our Camp. Several other successful changes have been initiated this summer:
We have revitalized the chaplains program. The chaplains are now responsible for the daily “Nightfest” worship service talks, for daily staff devotions, and for preaching at the Saturday morning worship with all the parents in attendance. This intentional and high profile inclusion of our pastors in the summer camp program will reap an abundant spiritual harvest for years to come and create a closer relationship with our churches.
In the dining hall we have seen wonderful improvements. Under Pam DeVos’ leadership we have changed to family style dining. We overcame the overwhelming stress on kitchen volunteers by rotating all the campers and summer camp staff through dining hall set-up and clean up responsibilities. Importantly, because we have a large percentage of campers on scholarships, we applied for and were approved to receive food supplies from the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank system which has created extraordinary cost savings.
With expertise and volunteers from our State College and Derry Churches, we now have two new longhouses at Camp. These new housing units replaced the old, canvas tents which had been a mainstay at Krislund. The longhouses and the newly renovated Conestoga wagons improved the camping experience at Krislund this summer.
We remember well the cold, dark days in January and February when we sat at our JCCC Board meetings agonizing over a massively out of balance budget and wondering if summer camp was possible. God is good; All the time. We have a much better grasp of our financial management on a day to day basis. We have successfully concluded what many parents have told us is the best Krislund Summer Camp ever.
We need your support as we build on the success of summer camp 2009 and bring Camp Krislund up to its potential and our vision. Our financial viability is still tenuous. There is still an enormous amount of infrastructure repair and maintenance work to do. Looking ahead, we have gathered a remarkable, professional team to guide our plans for the construction of the new adult lodge through your Funding the Future capital campaign. This construction and the careful management of our new lodge are still before us.
Camp Krislund belongs to the Presbyterian congregations of our three presbyteries. It is your camp! We are grateful for the abundant support and encouragement so many of you have provided through this difficult year of transition. We believe we have turned the corner; our Camp Krislund is poised to move into a bright new future in service to our churches and our Lord.
In Christ;
Chuck Curley, Pastor State College Church, Huntington Presbytery JCCC chairperson
Joy Kaufmann, General Presbyter, Huntington Presbytery
Charlie Winkelman, Pastor Jersey Shore Church, Northumberland Presbytery JCCC chairperson
Bill Knudsen, Executive Presbyter, Northumberland Presbytery
Harold Nightwine, Elder Derry Church, Carlisle Presbytery JCCC chairperson
Mark Englund-Krieger, Executive Presbyter, Carlisle Presbytery
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Report to the Presbytery June 23, 2009
Loyalty to Presbyterian World Mission
According to my dictionary, the word “loyal” means “giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution”. Is there any loyalty left in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)? What does it mean to be loyal to an institution? Is loyalty a value or a spiritual gift which we even seek today in our church? I want to ask for and encourage loyalty to the work of Presbyterian world mission.
If there is one great, abiding legacy of American Presbyterianism it is our heritage of world mission. We are a church tradition which participated in the invention of world mission. In the great age of world mission, from the end of the Civil War to the first World War we are the church which sent missionaries around the world, building hospitals, building schools, building agricultural and farm infrastructure, building churches. Our heritage of world mission is stellar and profound. I believe it may be the most important bequest of American Presbyterianism.
I believe with this heritage of mission work the Presbyterians, and our partner mainline Protestant denominations, planted very fruitful seeds in our own culture and society. These seeds have grown up in today’s younger generations as a deep commitment to mission work and community service. These spiritual seeds, which were planted generations ago in the great era of world wide mission work, have grown up into one of the most, remarkable expressions of church work we have today, mission trips. I believe that these seeds planted during the great era of world mission have sprouted into the remarkable plethora of para-church, mission organizations that are now spanning the globe: Group Work Camps, Reach Work Camps, World Vision, Compassion International, Save the Children, Habitat for Humanity. I mention these organizations specifically because I have personal experience with them all. In many ways these organizations, and many others like them, offer important and worthy mission opportunities. For example, through their popular program called the 40 hour famine, World Vision has moved many teenagers to think deep and pray about the abundance and material blessing we have in this country. What does it mean to be a first world Christian living in such an affluent society? After a group of teenagers spend a 40 hours famine together, deep spiritual reflection about consumerism and abundance flow very easy and very deep. For example, Group Work Camps have created an infrastructure and procedure for doing short term mission trips which is easily available for even our smallest congregations. For many churches, their first mission trip with teenagers is a Group work camp, and these experiences often change lives and transform churches. Our son Michael, now a senior in high school, still has a Group work camp ball cap hanging on his bedroom wall from his first mission trip when he was in sixth grade. For example, Habitat for Humanity, as we all know, has given countless people the remarkable opportunity of hands on mission involvement. When I went to a Habitat for Humanity Global Village training class several years ago, I was by far the oldest person among the more than 50 people in our class. Most of the students were college kids preparing to go around the world on short term Habitat mission trips. I believe that the great era of Protestant world mission, during which the Presbyterians were a driving force, is the historical and spiritual antecedent for these exciting, modern and popular para-church mission organizations today.
If you look around the churches of this Presbytery, almost every vital and healthy church in this presbytery does mission trips. I believe that mission trips are as vital today in the life of the church as Sunday school. For many young people and, indeed, for many adults, mission trips are transforming experiences in Christian faith formation. I believe mission trips are vital in the church today. I am leaving on a mission trip this Sunday. But I also believe that there is a huge difference between mission trips and Presbyterian world mission.
Presbyterian world mission is a very different thing than short term mission trips. For many, many complex reasons we have as a church lost our focus on Presbyterian world mission. One of the reasons is that we have shifted enormous energy and resources to doing mission trips. I am asking us to rekindle our commitment and our loyalty to Presbyterian world mission.
At its core, Presbyterian world mission is a commitment to full time, long term, professional missionaries serving at the invitation of our partner churches all around the world. The difference between mission trips and Presbyterian world mission is the difference between kindergarten and the university. Certainly we need excellent kindergartens; we need mission trips. But we also need universities, we need Presbyterian world mission.
I ask for loyalty and commitment. I ask that we proudly proclaim that we are the Presbyterians; we are the ones with a 200 year old heritage of world mission commitment. I ask that we support Presbyterian world mission.
According to my dictionary, the word “loyal” means “giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution”. Is there any loyalty left in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)? What does it mean to be loyal to an institution? Is loyalty a value or a spiritual gift which we even seek today in our church? I want to ask for and encourage loyalty to the work of Presbyterian world mission.
If there is one great, abiding legacy of American Presbyterianism it is our heritage of world mission. We are a church tradition which participated in the invention of world mission. In the great age of world mission, from the end of the Civil War to the first World War we are the church which sent missionaries around the world, building hospitals, building schools, building agricultural and farm infrastructure, building churches. Our heritage of world mission is stellar and profound. I believe it may be the most important bequest of American Presbyterianism.
I believe with this heritage of mission work the Presbyterians, and our partner mainline Protestant denominations, planted very fruitful seeds in our own culture and society. These seeds have grown up in today’s younger generations as a deep commitment to mission work and community service. These spiritual seeds, which were planted generations ago in the great era of world wide mission work, have grown up into one of the most, remarkable expressions of church work we have today, mission trips. I believe that these seeds planted during the great era of world mission have sprouted into the remarkable plethora of para-church, mission organizations that are now spanning the globe: Group Work Camps, Reach Work Camps, World Vision, Compassion International, Save the Children, Habitat for Humanity. I mention these organizations specifically because I have personal experience with them all. In many ways these organizations, and many others like them, offer important and worthy mission opportunities. For example, through their popular program called the 40 hour famine, World Vision has moved many teenagers to think deep and pray about the abundance and material blessing we have in this country. What does it mean to be a first world Christian living in such an affluent society? After a group of teenagers spend a 40 hours famine together, deep spiritual reflection about consumerism and abundance flow very easy and very deep. For example, Group Work Camps have created an infrastructure and procedure for doing short term mission trips which is easily available for even our smallest congregations. For many churches, their first mission trip with teenagers is a Group work camp, and these experiences often change lives and transform churches. Our son Michael, now a senior in high school, still has a Group work camp ball cap hanging on his bedroom wall from his first mission trip when he was in sixth grade. For example, Habitat for Humanity, as we all know, has given countless people the remarkable opportunity of hands on mission involvement. When I went to a Habitat for Humanity Global Village training class several years ago, I was by far the oldest person among the more than 50 people in our class. Most of the students were college kids preparing to go around the world on short term Habitat mission trips. I believe that the great era of Protestant world mission, during which the Presbyterians were a driving force, is the historical and spiritual antecedent for these exciting, modern and popular para-church mission organizations today.
If you look around the churches of this Presbytery, almost every vital and healthy church in this presbytery does mission trips. I believe that mission trips are as vital today in the life of the church as Sunday school. For many young people and, indeed, for many adults, mission trips are transforming experiences in Christian faith formation. I believe mission trips are vital in the church today. I am leaving on a mission trip this Sunday. But I also believe that there is a huge difference between mission trips and Presbyterian world mission.
Presbyterian world mission is a very different thing than short term mission trips. For many, many complex reasons we have as a church lost our focus on Presbyterian world mission. One of the reasons is that we have shifted enormous energy and resources to doing mission trips. I am asking us to rekindle our commitment and our loyalty to Presbyterian world mission.
At its core, Presbyterian world mission is a commitment to full time, long term, professional missionaries serving at the invitation of our partner churches all around the world. The difference between mission trips and Presbyterian world mission is the difference between kindergarten and the university. Certainly we need excellent kindergartens; we need mission trips. But we also need universities, we need Presbyterian world mission.
I ask for loyalty and commitment. I ask that we proudly proclaim that we are the Presbyterians; we are the ones with a 200 year old heritage of world mission commitment. I ask that we support Presbyterian world mission.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
First Presbyterian Church of Carlisle
Meeting House Springs Cemetery
Dear Mrs. Thomson,
I prayed for you today. I know that some people may consider praying for a dead person strange. But I find comfort and blessing in praying for the dead. I know you died in faith, since we know your husband was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Carlisle. Did you refer to your home as “Carlisle” when you died in 1744? I know you died too young, and I wonder if you still had young children to care for when you passed away. If so, that must have caused a terrible hardship for your husband. I trust his congregation supported him through that difficult time. I pray for your husband also, Rev. Thomson, but I am afraid that we do not know where his grave is located, and where he went after leaving our church.
I wanted to write so that you may know you have been a wonderful encouragement and blessing to the people in our church. We believe that your grave in our church cemetery may be the oldest marked grave in our Cumberland County. (I am sure it was not called Cumberland County when you lived here.) Your gravesite has become a sort of holy place for our people. I am sure you would be surprised to learn that your life has become such a cherished memory for us.
You would be pleased to know that your husband created a beautiful gravesite for you after your death. Now after all these years, some of our people have carefully cleaned and restored your grave so that we may now see the inscription your husband had carved there on the stone grave top, and the family coat of arms that is carved there also. I wish we knew today all that these symbols meant to your family.
Because of you, our people have decided to clean and restore the cemetery where you are buried. It has been more than 275 years since your death, and now many of the people you probably knew – McFarlands, Dennys, Blacks, Clarks – are buried all around you. We have soldiers buried there from our Revolutionary War, but you died long before that brutal conflict which gave birth to our new nation. I wonder if your husband ever talked about freedom. Many Presbyterians were involved in that war. They wanted to be free. Your husband picked a beautiful spot for your burial. It is a holy place, on a little bluff, not far from the spring which you must have visited daily for your water, and only a few yards from your church building.
Some of our people learned that your husband came here from Scotland before you. He moved onto the frontier of Penn’s land and gathered some other Presbyterian folk into a new congregation. There were many Scots Irish folks pushing into that wilderness and many new churches were born in those days. I am sure those were difficult years for you, being separated from your husband without knowing where he was or what he was doing. Can you remember the day you received his letter beckoning you to come and join him? That journey across the ocean alone must have been difficult? Did you land in Boston or New York? How did you travel out to your husband’s new church? That is long journey.
I prayed for you today. I hope you know that the church you and your husband started is a strong and vital congregation, in this year of our Lord 2009. I wanted you to know that your great, great, great, great, great grandson visited us today. He is a fine man with a charming wife, but they have moved south into Virginia. But your husband would be glad to know that his family is still Presbyterian.
May God bless you and keep in your eternal life.
Sincerely,
Mark
Dear Mrs. Thomson,
I prayed for you today. I know that some people may consider praying for a dead person strange. But I find comfort and blessing in praying for the dead. I know you died in faith, since we know your husband was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Carlisle. Did you refer to your home as “Carlisle” when you died in 1744? I know you died too young, and I wonder if you still had young children to care for when you passed away. If so, that must have caused a terrible hardship for your husband. I trust his congregation supported him through that difficult time. I pray for your husband also, Rev. Thomson, but I am afraid that we do not know where his grave is located, and where he went after leaving our church.
I wanted to write so that you may know you have been a wonderful encouragement and blessing to the people in our church. We believe that your grave in our church cemetery may be the oldest marked grave in our Cumberland County. (I am sure it was not called Cumberland County when you lived here.) Your gravesite has become a sort of holy place for our people. I am sure you would be surprised to learn that your life has become such a cherished memory for us.
You would be pleased to know that your husband created a beautiful gravesite for you after your death. Now after all these years, some of our people have carefully cleaned and restored your grave so that we may now see the inscription your husband had carved there on the stone grave top, and the family coat of arms that is carved there also. I wish we knew today all that these symbols meant to your family.
Because of you, our people have decided to clean and restore the cemetery where you are buried. It has been more than 275 years since your death, and now many of the people you probably knew – McFarlands, Dennys, Blacks, Clarks – are buried all around you. We have soldiers buried there from our Revolutionary War, but you died long before that brutal conflict which gave birth to our new nation. I wonder if your husband ever talked about freedom. Many Presbyterians were involved in that war. They wanted to be free. Your husband picked a beautiful spot for your burial. It is a holy place, on a little bluff, not far from the spring which you must have visited daily for your water, and only a few yards from your church building.
Some of our people learned that your husband came here from Scotland before you. He moved onto the frontier of Penn’s land and gathered some other Presbyterian folk into a new congregation. There were many Scots Irish folks pushing into that wilderness and many new churches were born in those days. I am sure those were difficult years for you, being separated from your husband without knowing where he was or what he was doing. Can you remember the day you received his letter beckoning you to come and join him? That journey across the ocean alone must have been difficult? Did you land in Boston or New York? How did you travel out to your husband’s new church? That is long journey.
I prayed for you today. I hope you know that the church you and your husband started is a strong and vital congregation, in this year of our Lord 2009. I wanted you to know that your great, great, great, great, great grandson visited us today. He is a fine man with a charming wife, but they have moved south into Virginia. But your husband would be glad to know that his family is still Presbyterian.
May God bless you and keep in your eternal life.
Sincerely,
Mark
Friday, May 29, 2009
Waynesboro Presbyterian Church
Healing in the name of Jesus.
Can you list all the Bible stories of Jesus which involve healing? Of course, we know healing is a powerful and common dimension of the ministry of Jesus.
Despite all the changes and transformations in the church today, one constant remains true about the work of pastors. Pastors today are expected to make hospital calls. This is an aspect of ministry which simply cannot be neglected or abandoned in the church today. Indeed, most pastors understand the vital, spiritual importance of hospital calls. We understand that our pastoral presence is a powerful source of healing and encouragement when our people are living through the trauma of modern medical care.
I was richly blessed by the opportunity to worship with our Waynesboro Presbyterian Church on a Sunday when they included a Service of Healing in their worship. Given the centrality of healing in the ministry of Jesus and in our professional ministries today, it may be appropriate to consider more ways we may include a Service of Healing in our regular worship services.
The Waynesboro example is very meaningful and beautiful. This Service of Healing was expressed during the regular Sunday morning worship. Pastor Brian introduced the Service of Healing by explaining it as an extended time of prayer. The members of the session were invited forward to join him at the front of the church. A chair was brought out and the pastor and session formed a loving semi circle around the chair, facing out toward and thus including the congregation in their circle. Brian invited anyone who wanted prayers to come forward. Slowly and reverently individuals came forward and quietly whispered their prayer concern to Pastor Brian. Brian then repeated the prayer concern for the congregation to hear, invited the person to sit, the session all laid hands on the person and Brian lifted up a pastoral prayer focusing on their individual prayer need.
This Service of Healing, I learned, is a regular practice at Waynesboro expressed about quarterly and always as part of worship. I am sure there may be some uncomfortable feelings and attitudes when this practice is first introduced in worship for the first time. But the feeling I had with the Waynesboro Church was one of deep reverence and a real depth of prayer as the congregation prayed for healing. Such depth of prayer only comes with practice.
Given my introverted personality, if you asked me whether I would ever seek such public prayer for myself, I would quickly respond, “Probably not.” I typically prefer my prayers private and anonymous. But this time of healing prayer during worship at Waynesboro moved me deeply. So I went forward when there was an appropriate time, and quietly asked Brian to pray for the healing of the Presbyterian Church, and for my leadership. I was lifted and blessed by the gentle touch of the session members, and truly encouraged by Brian’s prayer for the unity of our church and my ministry.
Maybe our church will be more faithful and effective if we each identified those ways we need to be healed, and publicly asked for healing prayers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you list all the Bible stories of Jesus which involve healing? Of course, we know healing is a powerful and common dimension of the ministry of Jesus.
Despite all the changes and transformations in the church today, one constant remains true about the work of pastors. Pastors today are expected to make hospital calls. This is an aspect of ministry which simply cannot be neglected or abandoned in the church today. Indeed, most pastors understand the vital, spiritual importance of hospital calls. We understand that our pastoral presence is a powerful source of healing and encouragement when our people are living through the trauma of modern medical care.
I was richly blessed by the opportunity to worship with our Waynesboro Presbyterian Church on a Sunday when they included a Service of Healing in their worship. Given the centrality of healing in the ministry of Jesus and in our professional ministries today, it may be appropriate to consider more ways we may include a Service of Healing in our regular worship services.
The Waynesboro example is very meaningful and beautiful. This Service of Healing was expressed during the regular Sunday morning worship. Pastor Brian introduced the Service of Healing by explaining it as an extended time of prayer. The members of the session were invited forward to join him at the front of the church. A chair was brought out and the pastor and session formed a loving semi circle around the chair, facing out toward and thus including the congregation in their circle. Brian invited anyone who wanted prayers to come forward. Slowly and reverently individuals came forward and quietly whispered their prayer concern to Pastor Brian. Brian then repeated the prayer concern for the congregation to hear, invited the person to sit, the session all laid hands on the person and Brian lifted up a pastoral prayer focusing on their individual prayer need.
This Service of Healing, I learned, is a regular practice at Waynesboro expressed about quarterly and always as part of worship. I am sure there may be some uncomfortable feelings and attitudes when this practice is first introduced in worship for the first time. But the feeling I had with the Waynesboro Church was one of deep reverence and a real depth of prayer as the congregation prayed for healing. Such depth of prayer only comes with practice.
Given my introverted personality, if you asked me whether I would ever seek such public prayer for myself, I would quickly respond, “Probably not.” I typically prefer my prayers private and anonymous. But this time of healing prayer during worship at Waynesboro moved me deeply. So I went forward when there was an appropriate time, and quietly asked Brian to pray for the healing of the Presbyterian Church, and for my leadership. I was lifted and blessed by the gentle touch of the session members, and truly encouraged by Brian’s prayer for the unity of our church and my ministry.
Maybe our church will be more faithful and effective if we each identified those ways we need to be healed, and publicly asked for healing prayers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Report to the Presbytery April 28, 2009
"Abundantly Far More"
I know many of you will find this hard to believe. But truly, I had a wonderful spiritual experience at the annual meeting of a congregation once. It was way back in the first half of the 1970s; I was still a junior high school student; I do not remember the exact year. It was a difficult time for our nation. We were in the middle of the OPEC oil embargo, and the national economy was in a very serious recession. At my small, home church our annual meeting was on one very cold, winter Sunday. At that time my father was serving as both the Clerk of Session and the financial secretary of our little church.
He did his Clerk report, not much had changed in that little church in a year. He moved right into his financial secretary report, and reviewed the financial reports and the budget for the new year. Things were very bad. There was a lot of anxiety and a lot of discussion. I have this memory of my dad responding to many questions and concerns clearly and calmly. (By the way, my parents are very well. They are now fully retired and living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.) This was a small family church, and this meeting was much more of a conversation among friends, than a business meeting. And then, after all of the concerned discussion waned, my father gave this sort of off-the-cuff little sermon to the congregation. He said something like, “We know this is a very difficult time for the church and for many of our families. We need to make some difficult decisions; we need to be managing this situation very carefully. But the church will carry on. We will carry on through this. The church will carry on.” My dad never used God language, like we preachers use. My dad would never have used words like prayer and providence. But in his own way, and in a way that was deeply meaningful to our family church, he proclaimed our essential truth: God will be God, and the church will carry on. Preachers, I challenge you to bring that same spirit of encouragement and hope to our people now.
More than fifteen years after that annual meeting of my home church, I was the pastor of a very small church. We did not have a secretary. I took the bulletin material and the announcements to Carol’s home every Wednesday morning, and she typed and then photocopied at her dad’s auto parts store. Without a secretary, I was glad to walk out to the road every noon and gather the mail, and I took responsibility for getting all the stuff to the right people: Sunday school curriculum to our teachers, bills and bank statements to our financial secretary, etc. You all know the routine. But that day, this one envelope caught my attention, so I opened it. This was a notice from the electric company to the church that because we were three months past due our electricity was going to be turned off. I had never experienced anything like this before either in my family or in the church, and this notice really upset me. For some reason, our financial secretary, Rose, was out of town for a couple days and unavailable. So this notice sat on my desk, and burdened my mind. Sunday morning rolled around again; this notice was still sitting on my desk and rolling around in my mind.
I noticed that Ron had arrived, and was sitting in his usual pew near the front. Ron was one of the saints and was a great supporter of me. He was on session at that time and was, of course, related to our financial secretary Rose. If I was 25 years old at the time; Ron was probably 65. Ron and his family became some of my best friends in the church as I was learning how to be a pastor. So I decided, on the spot, to share this notice with Ron a few minutes before the worship service. I snatched it up off of my desk, and went out and sat down next to Ron in his pew. Ron always sat alone in worship because his wife and two daughters were all in the choir. I handed Ron the notice from the electric company, and told him that this was bothering me and Rose was out of town. I was not sure what to do about it. Ron quickly looked at the notice. Calmly, he put it back in the envelope and tucked into his jacket pocket. He looked at me and said, “The session will take care of this. You need to worry about your sermon.” That is still very good advice for our preachers. He flashed me a big smile and sent me on my way to lead worship. It was another of those moments of grace in my life. At the next session meeting I noticed on the Treasurer’s report an extra large payment to the electric company. I did not feel a need a comment on it and neither did Ron, and the electricity was never disconnected, and the church carried on.
Wow, it is stunning to me how quickly the social and economic climate has changed in the past half of a year. My friends, for times like these the church needs to carry on. The church needs to be the church. Let us be clear about who we are what we are able to do. We cannot feed all the hungry people in the world, or even in our presbytery. We cannot stop people from losing their home because they cannot pay their mortgage. We cannot stop company managers from sharing the sad news that jobs are being eliminated, and people will be out of work. We cannot restore the investment savings of our people, or insure that everyone will have an abundant retirement. We cannot pay every tuition bill, or even everyone’s utility bill. But we can be the church. We can be the church. And the church will carry on. We can proclaim a word like this one from the letter to the Ephesians:
"Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever." Amen
I know many of you will find this hard to believe. But truly, I had a wonderful spiritual experience at the annual meeting of a congregation once. It was way back in the first half of the 1970s; I was still a junior high school student; I do not remember the exact year. It was a difficult time for our nation. We were in the middle of the OPEC oil embargo, and the national economy was in a very serious recession. At my small, home church our annual meeting was on one very cold, winter Sunday. At that time my father was serving as both the Clerk of Session and the financial secretary of our little church.
He did his Clerk report, not much had changed in that little church in a year. He moved right into his financial secretary report, and reviewed the financial reports and the budget for the new year. Things were very bad. There was a lot of anxiety and a lot of discussion. I have this memory of my dad responding to many questions and concerns clearly and calmly. (By the way, my parents are very well. They are now fully retired and living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.) This was a small family church, and this meeting was much more of a conversation among friends, than a business meeting. And then, after all of the concerned discussion waned, my father gave this sort of off-the-cuff little sermon to the congregation. He said something like, “We know this is a very difficult time for the church and for many of our families. We need to make some difficult decisions; we need to be managing this situation very carefully. But the church will carry on. We will carry on through this. The church will carry on.” My dad never used God language, like we preachers use. My dad would never have used words like prayer and providence. But in his own way, and in a way that was deeply meaningful to our family church, he proclaimed our essential truth: God will be God, and the church will carry on. Preachers, I challenge you to bring that same spirit of encouragement and hope to our people now.
More than fifteen years after that annual meeting of my home church, I was the pastor of a very small church. We did not have a secretary. I took the bulletin material and the announcements to Carol’s home every Wednesday morning, and she typed and then photocopied at her dad’s auto parts store. Without a secretary, I was glad to walk out to the road every noon and gather the mail, and I took responsibility for getting all the stuff to the right people: Sunday school curriculum to our teachers, bills and bank statements to our financial secretary, etc. You all know the routine. But that day, this one envelope caught my attention, so I opened it. This was a notice from the electric company to the church that because we were three months past due our electricity was going to be turned off. I had never experienced anything like this before either in my family or in the church, and this notice really upset me. For some reason, our financial secretary, Rose, was out of town for a couple days and unavailable. So this notice sat on my desk, and burdened my mind. Sunday morning rolled around again; this notice was still sitting on my desk and rolling around in my mind.
I noticed that Ron had arrived, and was sitting in his usual pew near the front. Ron was one of the saints and was a great supporter of me. He was on session at that time and was, of course, related to our financial secretary Rose. If I was 25 years old at the time; Ron was probably 65. Ron and his family became some of my best friends in the church as I was learning how to be a pastor. So I decided, on the spot, to share this notice with Ron a few minutes before the worship service. I snatched it up off of my desk, and went out and sat down next to Ron in his pew. Ron always sat alone in worship because his wife and two daughters were all in the choir. I handed Ron the notice from the electric company, and told him that this was bothering me and Rose was out of town. I was not sure what to do about it. Ron quickly looked at the notice. Calmly, he put it back in the envelope and tucked into his jacket pocket. He looked at me and said, “The session will take care of this. You need to worry about your sermon.” That is still very good advice for our preachers. He flashed me a big smile and sent me on my way to lead worship. It was another of those moments of grace in my life. At the next session meeting I noticed on the Treasurer’s report an extra large payment to the electric company. I did not feel a need a comment on it and neither did Ron, and the electricity was never disconnected, and the church carried on.
Wow, it is stunning to me how quickly the social and economic climate has changed in the past half of a year. My friends, for times like these the church needs to carry on. The church needs to be the church. Let us be clear about who we are what we are able to do. We cannot feed all the hungry people in the world, or even in our presbytery. We cannot stop people from losing their home because they cannot pay their mortgage. We cannot stop company managers from sharing the sad news that jobs are being eliminated, and people will be out of work. We cannot restore the investment savings of our people, or insure that everyone will have an abundant retirement. We cannot pay every tuition bill, or even everyone’s utility bill. But we can be the church. We can be the church. And the church will carry on. We can proclaim a word like this one from the letter to the Ephesians:
"Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever." Amen
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
In Memory of Carl Dudley
I never met Carl Dudley. But when my email popped up with a Presbyterian News article announcing his death, a deep sadness filled my heart. This is a man who wrote a book that was a very significant source of inspiration and encouragement for me in the very first years of my ministry. After reading the short article (Presbyterian News Service, number 09338, April 24, 2009) I pulled my copy of Making the Small Church Effective, (Abingdon Press, 1978) down off my bookshelf. This is not a book I have looked at for many years, but as I paged through it quickly I felt again the power with which this book blessed my ministry. As with all my books, the year I first read it is written in the front cover: 1982. That was my first year of seminary and this book was one of the required texts in our Introduction to Ministry course.
After graduation in 1985, I started ministry in a very small, rural congregation in Kiskiminetas Presbytery. I remember those first years of ministry with great fondness. I remember most of all the profound graciousness of this family church that took me in as one of their own and literally taught me how to be a pastor. They poured out hospitality, kindness, and tolerance for the young, new minister who had all the academic answers and none of the life experience to be a pastor. Indeed, in the first years of my professional ministry we created, by the grace of God and the amazing tolerant and accepting love of the congregation, a very effective ministry.
But there were many dark days in those first years of ministry; days when isolation and loneliness burdened at my heart. On Thursday mornings when I tried to write yet another sermon, or on Monday mornings when I sat quietly wondering what exactly I should do with my time all week, I often pulled this little Dudley book off the shelf and read through it again. That a “professor of church and community at McCormick Theological Seminary,” as the back cover proclaimed, would have bothered to write a book about the tiny, isolated church where I found myself serving was an idea that itself inspired me. Somehow, just the fact that this book existed with its focus on and celebration of small churches, encouraged me. “Truly, I am not alone!” Furthermore, that such a small church could and should actually be “effective” was like a fount of divine inspiration for me.
So I type out here Dudley’s eloquent description of small church as family. This is my own heritage and history. Deep down in my heart, there is an abiding love and affection for small, family churches:
“To understand our small church, we begin with the feelings of the members. When asked, members show a strong sense of ownership and deep feelings of belonging. ‘This is our church,’ they say. Members do not begin with apologies or comparisons, unless they are implied because the questioner comes from a larger congregation. For members, the small church is not ‘small is beautiful,’ or ‘small is quality,’ or ‘small but anything.’ Members have a strong, positive attitude toward belonging, because it is a significant experience in their lives. Some ‘members’ are not active in programs, or even in regular attendance on Sunday. They may participate only on special occasions and attend only for annual events. Some such members are not even listed on the rolls of the church, but it remains ‘our church’ to them. They have remained with the church despite other alluring alternatives. In times of crisis for the congregation, they have rallied with support. In the crises of their personal families, the congregation has surrounded them with care and concern. Belonging to the church is like being a member of the family.”
(Dudley, Making the Small Church Effective, page 29)
Thanks be to God for the life, witness and ministry of Professor Carl Dudley.
After graduation in 1985, I started ministry in a very small, rural congregation in Kiskiminetas Presbytery. I remember those first years of ministry with great fondness. I remember most of all the profound graciousness of this family church that took me in as one of their own and literally taught me how to be a pastor. They poured out hospitality, kindness, and tolerance for the young, new minister who had all the academic answers and none of the life experience to be a pastor. Indeed, in the first years of my professional ministry we created, by the grace of God and the amazing tolerant and accepting love of the congregation, a very effective ministry.
But there were many dark days in those first years of ministry; days when isolation and loneliness burdened at my heart. On Thursday mornings when I tried to write yet another sermon, or on Monday mornings when I sat quietly wondering what exactly I should do with my time all week, I often pulled this little Dudley book off the shelf and read through it again. That a “professor of church and community at McCormick Theological Seminary,” as the back cover proclaimed, would have bothered to write a book about the tiny, isolated church where I found myself serving was an idea that itself inspired me. Somehow, just the fact that this book existed with its focus on and celebration of small churches, encouraged me. “Truly, I am not alone!” Furthermore, that such a small church could and should actually be “effective” was like a fount of divine inspiration for me.
So I type out here Dudley’s eloquent description of small church as family. This is my own heritage and history. Deep down in my heart, there is an abiding love and affection for small, family churches:
“To understand our small church, we begin with the feelings of the members. When asked, members show a strong sense of ownership and deep feelings of belonging. ‘This is our church,’ they say. Members do not begin with apologies or comparisons, unless they are implied because the questioner comes from a larger congregation. For members, the small church is not ‘small is beautiful,’ or ‘small is quality,’ or ‘small but anything.’ Members have a strong, positive attitude toward belonging, because it is a significant experience in their lives. Some ‘members’ are not active in programs, or even in regular attendance on Sunday. They may participate only on special occasions and attend only for annual events. Some such members are not even listed on the rolls of the church, but it remains ‘our church’ to them. They have remained with the church despite other alluring alternatives. In times of crisis for the congregation, they have rallied with support. In the crises of their personal families, the congregation has surrounded them with care and concern. Belonging to the church is like being a member of the family.”
(Dudley, Making the Small Church Effective, page 29)
Thanks be to God for the life, witness and ministry of Professor Carl Dudley.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Characteristics of a missional congregation.
Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.
Our missional church study group has been intentionally reading and discussing missional theology for several years. We recently finished working through one of the seminal and early works in missional thinking: Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. I want to highlight the image of a missional congregation which Newbigin outlines in Chapter 18, “The Congregation as a Hermeneutic of the Gospel.” As I regularly visit the churches in our presbytery, I see many glimpses of these characteristics. I believe Newbigin has captured in his six, short descriptions the basic outline of what a missional congregation may look like. These characteristics may inspire good conversation in our congregations as we continue to explore new directions in ministry and mission.
It will be a community of praise (page 227). Then, too, the Church’s praise includes thanksgiving. The Christian congregation meets as a community that acknowledges that it lives by the amazing grace of a boundless kindness (page 228).
Second, it will be a community of truth (page 228) A Christian congregation is a community in which, through the constant remembering and rehearsing of the true story of human nature and destiny, an attitude of healthy skepticism can be sustained, a skepticism which enables one to take part in the life of society without being bemused and deluded by its own beliefs about itself (page 229).
Third, it will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in the concerns of the neighborhood (page 229).
Fourth, it will be a community where men and women are prepared for and sustained in the exercise of the priesthood in the world. The Church is described in the New Testament as a royal priesthood, called to ‘offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God’ and ‘to declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light’ (I Peter 2: 5,9) (page 229 – 230).
Fifth, it will be a community of mutual responsibility. If the Church is to be effective in advocating and achieving a new social order in the nation, it must itself be a new social order (page 231).
And, finally it will be a community of hope (page 232).
May it be so in our churches.
Our missional church study group has been intentionally reading and discussing missional theology for several years. We recently finished working through one of the seminal and early works in missional thinking: Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. I want to highlight the image of a missional congregation which Newbigin outlines in Chapter 18, “The Congregation as a Hermeneutic of the Gospel.” As I regularly visit the churches in our presbytery, I see many glimpses of these characteristics. I believe Newbigin has captured in his six, short descriptions the basic outline of what a missional congregation may look like. These characteristics may inspire good conversation in our congregations as we continue to explore new directions in ministry and mission.
It will be a community of praise (page 227). Then, too, the Church’s praise includes thanksgiving. The Christian congregation meets as a community that acknowledges that it lives by the amazing grace of a boundless kindness (page 228).
Second, it will be a community of truth (page 228) A Christian congregation is a community in which, through the constant remembering and rehearsing of the true story of human nature and destiny, an attitude of healthy skepticism can be sustained, a skepticism which enables one to take part in the life of society without being bemused and deluded by its own beliefs about itself (page 229).
Third, it will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in the concerns of the neighborhood (page 229).
Fourth, it will be a community where men and women are prepared for and sustained in the exercise of the priesthood in the world. The Church is described in the New Testament as a royal priesthood, called to ‘offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God’ and ‘to declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light’ (I Peter 2: 5,9) (page 229 – 230).
Fifth, it will be a community of mutual responsibility. If the Church is to be effective in advocating and achieving a new social order in the nation, it must itself be a new social order (page 231).
And, finally it will be a community of hope (page 232).
May it be so in our churches.
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