~ by the Pastor and guest writers ~
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A Connectional Church (July 24, 2002) As important as congregational life is, it is not an “island entire of itself,” to use John Donne’s phrase. As you know, our local congregation is part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and is not isolated and autonomous. It is part of a system of faith and government that upholds, guides, disciplines, challenges, and inspires its members to do the Kingdom’s work. This is sometimes referred to as the “interdependent” or “connectional” nature of the Presbyterian Church. The bottom line: we are not “Congregationalist” in our government! The local congregation shares certain responsibilities and functions with the Presbytery. Because we are interdependent I believe we need to keep abreast of the news of our larger, connected church. You may already have read about our 214th General Assembly that met in June. To keep you informed I want to mention some of the major news items. First, and I believe most importantly, a Palestinian-American minister was elected moderator of the General Assembly. Fahed Abu-Akel, 58, came to the U.S. in 1966 as a student with one suitcase, a Bible, and an Arab-American dictionary. He is the son of Palestinian-Arab Orthodox Christians. He became a U.S. citizen in 1981, served on the staff of First Church, Atlanta, and established a ministry to international students. Asked what he would say to President Bush, he said: “I want my nation to win and work with the rest of the world through peaceful means, not military,” and that he prays for the government, military, and nation daily. Abu-Akel challenged our denomination to focus on three things: spiritual renewal, mission, and unity. A second significant action by the General Assembly was the approval of a theological statement on Jesus and salvation called “Hope In the Lord Jesus Christ.” If you have not read it I urge you to get a copy of it on our national website. If you want to download the statement with study suggestions here is where you can find it to download here. “Hope in the Lord” states that “Jesus Christ is the only Savior and Lord, and all people everywhere are called to place their faith, hope, and love in him,” and that “No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus Christ.” It does go on to say that “we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of ‘God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.’” “Thus, we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith. Grace, love, and communion belong to God, and are not ours to determine.” The third piece of news from the General Assembly was the recommendation to hold biennial assemblies. The first year without a General Assembly will be 2005. Many believe that moving to a biennial assembly will save millions of dollars for the national, synod, and presbytery budgets. Closer to home is the announcement of a new seminary President for Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. This congregation generously supports Austin Seminary with two First Sunday Offerings a year. That speaks well of your commitment to train women and men who are called to ordained ministry. Ted Wardlaw, Senior Pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia, will become the ninth President of Austin Seminary upon the retirement of Robert M. Shelton in mid-November. "We have been richly gifted with the presidents who have served us in the past," says John McCoy, of Dallas, Texas, vice-chair elect of Austin Seminary's Board of Trustees and a member of the Presidential Search Committee. "I see enormous potential in Ted Wardlaw, not only to continue that heritage, but to enhance it with his genuine style, his personal charm, his good humor, his love of people, and the grace that accompanies the way he presents himself." I hope you will pray for our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its new moderator. Together, we are the body of Christ for each other and our world. Is our denomination perfect? By no means! But we are called to be part of a rich historical and theological heritage. Study it, learn more about it, love it, and serve it. Thanks be to God!
 No Longer a Dead End (July 10, 2002) Dead ends frustrate and scare me. A few years ago I flew into Chicago late at night and rented a car. I had never driven in that urban area and before long I was completely lost. I had come to a dead end and there appeared to be no way out. The neighborhood looked less than friendly and downright scary! For a brief moment I panicked and wondered what would happen if I got stuck. I managed to make a couple of turns and figured out how to get to the main highway faster. Have you had one of those moments when you thought you had encountered a dead end but discovered a new road had been put through to get to the highway faster? What a perfect picture of the meaning of the gospel for those who believe their lives are washed up, finished, closed: by the grace of God in Christ life is no longer a dead end. Consider those people in Matthew who were accounted losers, “the tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 9:10). To a person it looked as though their lives were headed nowhere except for the dead end of rejection and social worthlessness. Why expend energy on those whose very lives announced that they were at a dead end? What Jesus saw is what African American preaching has long celebrated: “God will make a way out of no way.” God will take what is a dead end and make it a thoroughfare for value, meaning, grace, hope and faith. This is, according to St. Paul, part of God’s essential character: God is the One “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17). God is the power who opens up the dead ends of life. If we have made the religious life a dead end of legalistic perfection, God helps us to reclaim what it is to live by faith and not the assumptions that we are finally doing everything right for God. If we or others have squashed our sense of self worth, then God comes to us in Christ to assure us we are filled with value and possibility. The God who opens dead ends and makes them thoroughfares is a God that our world is desperate to hear about. Several years ago the British theologian, Lesslie Newbegin, in an essay assessed the state of the church and the world as it approached 1984. He described how the world has come to a sense of having exhausted its possibilities, of having reached a dead end. And he affirmed that the most important thing we needed to do was to envision those openings for new life and faith which currently do not appear to many people Reading the lections the last few Sundays from Matthew and Paul, I am struck by how those who lived at the time they wrote must have felt at a dead end, especially after the reign of God did not swiftly arrive as they had expected. Yet by faith they saw beyond their dead end to the reality revealed in Jesus Christ, the God who “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” I’ll See You Sunday!
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