Our Presbyterian Church (USA) Family

The 2012 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will be held this July, not too east of here in Pittsburgh. Our own Dick Glass will be there in an official capacity as commissioner. He will be joined in that capacity by several others including our former interim pastor, Rev. Charlotte O’Neill. Since Pittsburgh is fairly close I will be driving over July 3-4 to peruse the exhibit halls for new curriculums and ministry ideas, to network, and to catch up with colleagues from Indian Nations and Cimarron Presbyteries and classmates from Austin Seminary. I will have no official responsibilities whatsoever, and I, for one, am okay with that. Over the next month or so I will write some blog posts about General Assembly and about some of the issues that are on the docket for this meeting. I may even try to get some point/counterpoint guest bloggers to help us understand both sides of a few of the issues. Before I get there, though, I want to just say a little bit about the Presbyterian Church (USA), the denomination of which our congregation is a member, and to say a few things about presbyteries in general and our presbytery, Scioto Valley Presbytery.

When I was eight-years-old my dad married my stepmother. When my parents had been married, my dad, mom, my two older sisters and I were involved in a United Methodist Church. As is often the case when there is a divorce and subsequent remarriage it was difficult for my dad and stepmom to feel comfortable in the church family that my dad and mom had been a part of. That is unfortunate but it is completely understandable. My stepmom, along with my older stepbrother and stepsister, were involved in a church in a different town called Yeamans Park Presbyterian Church. Since my stepmom’s ex-husband had never been a part of that church there wasn’t the awkwardness there so we all started going to the Presbyterian Church. I was there pretty much every Sunday from the age of eight to thirteen, when I moved away to live with relatives. I don’t remember all that much about those years except gathering in a circle outside on the church lawn with our lit candles on Christmas Eve (you can do that in coastal South Carolina), a lesson about Moses in Sunday school, a week at Bethelwoods Presbyterian Camp, and the pastor during all those years, Rev. Bill Neely. He told good jokes and he tried to help my family in the midst of some real difficulties.

About nine years later, in my early twenties, after a stop in a Southern Baptist church and several years of inactivity, my new bride and I decided to find a church home. I decided to visit the Presbyterian church in the town we were living in because of those four memories from my childhood in a PC(USA) church, especially because of how Rev. Neely had treated our family with grace, mercy, and understanding. We found a home in that church, The First United Presbyterian Church of Guthrie, Oklahoma, and it was through that church that I received my call to the professional ministry. Cimarron Presbytery supported me in that call and I attended a PC(USA) seminary in Austin, Texas. God used Yeamans Park Presbyterian Church and Rev. Neely to plant seeds of faith in me, First United Presbyterian Church in Guthrie, Oklahoma and Cimarron Presbytery to call me into my life’s purpose, Austin Seminary to prepare me for that purpose, and FPC Newkirk, FPC Norman, and FPC WCH as families of faith whom I can serve and love, as well as being served and loved by them. I love the Presbyterian Church (USA); it is a part of who I am and God’s plan for my life. I do not always agree with some of the stances taken by the PC(USA), but that doesn’t change the fact that I love this branch of Christ’s Church.

The first presbytery I was a part of is called Cimarron Presbytery, encompassing the northwestern corner of Oklahoma. It is, I believe, the smallest presbytery in the number of churches. Cimarron has only thirteen churches, albeit some of them as many as six hours apart. For a frame of reference, our presbytery, Scioto Valley, has 108 churches. Everybody knew everybody in Cimarron, which was one of the advantages. We didn’t really have enough people or resources to do much, however. I remember fondly my days in Cimarron. The people there are like family to me in a lot of ways. The second presbytery I served in is called Indian Nations, which encompasses about fifty churches in the Oklahoma City metro area (similar size to Columbus) as well as in southwestern and south central Oklahoma. Unfortunately Indian Nations has been dysfunctional for decades and remains highly divided into certain camps that war it out at just about every presbytery meeting. I really liked a lot of the people there but I absolutely hated going to presbytery meetings there because it was like going to a Hatfield and McCoy joint family reunion. While in Indian Nations I tried to be a part of the solution by serving on the Presbytery Council and attempting to serve as a bridge builder between “camps” but sometimes even when you build a bridge it just sits there unused while the people on both sides move a little further downstream so they’ll have an excuse to keep throwing stuff over the river at each other instead of meeting in the middle of the bridge.

When I came to the Presbytery of Scioto Valley I expected it to be like Indian Nations. But when I got here I met Rev. Jim Browne of the Hilliard Church and Jeanne Harsh, the acting executive presbyter. I met Rev. Stephen Moulton at Parkview PC, where I preached for our pastor nominating committee during the interview process. I even found out that one of my favorite colleagues of all time, Rev. Charlie Smith, with whom I had worked in Cimarron Presbytery is the pastor of 2nd Presbyterian in Newark. At the first presbytery meeting I attended, there was some heated discussion but it was much more civil than Indian Nations. This past Tuesday, I attended my second presbytery meeting, and it wasn’t just civil, it was—dare I say it?—loving and grace-filled. The church in South Salem had asked to be dismissed from the PCUSA to become an independent community church and after hard work from a presbytery administrative commission, which included our own Jennifer Pieratt, the presbytery voted unanimously to allow that to happen graciously, with minimal payout to the presbytery, and even with our blessing on these brothers and sisters in Christ and their newfound direction in ministry. One candidate for ministry was confirmed in her call and moved on to the next stage in the process, while another was approved as ready for ordination. In addition to all that, the presbytery council, which includes our own Dick Glass (who also preached in the presbytery’s worship service), made suggestions on how to streamline the organization structure of our presbytery (music to my ears!).

I know that many in this congregation do not have the fuzziest feelings for our presbytery because of the way many feel this congregation was treated in regard to a severance payout to a former pastor and because of the alleged embezzling of funds by the former executive presbyter, who had also been a part of that severance negotiation. It is completely understandable for folks in our church to have been upset with our presbytery, or more accurately one or two individuals in leadership roles in our presbytery, because of how things went down over the last several years. It does not make sense, however, for our congregation to continue in any sort of adversarial or dismissive stance toward our presbytery, which I always remind people is not "they" but "we."

This Sunday I will be preaching at the First Presbyterian Church in Norman, Oklahoma for their Senior Recognition Sunday. I was honored to have been asked back by that congregation to participate in that service with twelve graduating seniors who I love like my own family members. Just the fact that they asked me back and that this congregation not only allowed me to go but blessed and encouraged me to go, shows the connection between two PC(USA) churches that are two very different congregations but that share a bond as sister churches. Please don’t take this Sunday as your Sunday off since the pastor won’t be here to notice you’re gone. I know people do that because I have done it once or twice in my life. We have great momentum going in this church and I don’t want that to slow down every time I go out of town, which will make me more and more hesitant to take very important vacation and study leave time. Come be a part of the service led by my new friend Jeanne Harsh, the acting executive presbyter who is one of the kindest, most caring, and funniest people I’ve come across in a long time. She is doing a great job and graciously agreed to preach God’s Word to this church while I’m out of town preaching God’s Word in Norman. She is excited to worship with you all.

I love the Presbyterian Church (USA), both as it exists as First Presbyterian Church in Washington Court House and as the larger denomination, and I hope you do too. As I mentioned earlier, God raised me up, called me to my life’s purpose, and has given me a loving family of God’s people all through the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Blessings on all of you and I’ll see you when we get back!

If You Don't Work on Sundays, You Don't Work Here

This past Sunday we had everything but the kitchen sink in our worship service—children’s choir, recognition of graduating seniors, reception of confirmands, a baptism, and communion. Also, I tried preaching from a minimal outline so I could get out from behind the pulpit for a change. Looking back on it this past Sunday was probably the worst possible Sunday to attempt that because what would have been a short twelve minute sermon if I would have had my usual manuscript became seventeen minutes long, and even with that I forgot to bring something up that I really wanted to mention. Oh well, this week I’ll be back to the manuscript and maybe I’ll try a few different things this summer. But before I turn to working on this week’s sermon, which will be on the final appearance of the Risen Jesus in Matthew, which appears in chapter 28:16-20, often called the “Great Commission,” I want to say what I forgot to say this past Sunday in worship.

How many of you reading this blog post ever go out to eat for lunch on Sundays? I am raising my hand on this one too. How many of you run out to Kroger or Wal-Mart to pick something up on Sunday afternoon or evening? Let's be honest, people of other religions or no religion aren’t supporting Sunday commerce by themselves. Don't get defensive yet, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, although as I’ve mentioned in a previous post we should all assess whether or not everything we do on Sundays now is worth what we lose in rest and worship, but to consider a group of people that are affected (and who quite often benefit greatly) from our Sunday commerce. I’m talking about all the people who have to work on Sundays. There’s waiters and waitresses, cooks, retail salespersons, truck drivers, nurses and nurse’s aids, doctors, gas station attendants, cashiers and baggers, and so on.

For a while before I went to seminary I was a sales associate at a Dillard’s Department Store, which is a lot like Macy’s. When the manager was hiring me and we started to work out my schedule I said, “I don’t work on Sundays because of church.” He said something like, “I can respect that. None of us want to work on Sundays, but if you don’t work on Sundays then you don’t work here.” I acquiesced and he compromised by only scheduling me for every other Sunday. Just finding another job wasn’t an option. I’d just lost a job and Danielle was finishing up school at Oklahoma State. Getting a job that didn’t include work on Sundays wasn’t an option. I wanted to be in worship with my church family on Sunday mornings, but I couldn’t. We can lament the loss of the way things used to be, but this is life in the 21st Century, folks. It's time to live in reality.

Here are some snippets from conversations I’ve had with four different people lately:

Someone said something to this effect to me recently, “When I worked in the restaurant industry, I could almost never be at church. I wanted to be there. I wanted to worship, but Sundays are when the money is made at restaurants. So I went years with barely ever getting to worship.”

"I want to become a member of this church. My family is so excited about the ministry and worship here that I want to be a part of it." Great, I responded. "But I work almost every single Sunday," the person responded. "Am I still allowed to join?" Hmm... What does it mean to be a member of a church when you can never participate in worship? I wondered.

"If I always took off Sundays I'd never have Saturdays off, which would mean I'd never get to go to my kids' ballgames."

When invited to get involved with this church one person responded, "I can't be in worship because of work, unless there's another worship service in the evening sometime."

These brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who might be invited into faith in Jesus Christ and participation in the church, who have to work on Sunday either most of the time or all the time, have been on my heart lately. In light of Jesus' commission to Peter in John 21, I've been asking myself, "Are we feeding these lambs of Christ's fold? Are we taking care of these sheep of Christ's flock?" Or are we leaving them to find their own pasture saying in essence, "You can be a part of this church when you get a different job." I'm not saying that I have any answers, only questions.

I've been on the Austin Seminary alumni Facebook page asking what other churches are doing to minister to these brothers and sisters in Christ (or potential). It seems I'm not the only one who is struggling with this. One church has started a small Saturday evening worship service. Another has done the same on Sunday evening. One church has an "express" service at 7:30 am on Sunday morning. Other pastors are trying to get their church leadership to stop thinking of Sunday or Wednesday as the only options. There's five other days of the week, those folks are reminding their leadership. Some of these ideas are working. Some aren't. At least churches are thinking about it.

In our Presbyterian Book of Order we read that "Christians have received the Lord’s Day (Sunday) to be kept holy to the Lord. It is the beginning of the believer’s week and gives shape to the life of discipleship. Disciplined observance of this day includes preparation of one’s self for...public worship... acts service... re-creating rest." Then it says, “In observing this discipline, Christians whose work takes place on Sunday should set aside another day of the week for these observances.” Fair enough, but how is someone who works on Sunday supposed to set aside another day for public worship when public worship only occurs on Sunday, especially Sunday morning?

Again, I don't have the answers to this but I think we really need to start prayerfully considering the predicament and talking to folks who work on Sundays to see what they think. As we do that I want us to remember a few things and practice these in our lives.

(1) Don’t judge people who have to work on Sundays. To the person who would say, “you should get a different job then,” I’d invite you to come up to the food pantry on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, to meet all the folks who can’t find a job or are under-employed and then try to make the case to someone that they should leave their good job because it requires them to work on Sundays. Especially these days, and particularly in this part of the country, when you have a decent job you stick with it and pray to God that you can keep it.

(2) Commend people who fulfill their responsibility to provide for their family. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul writes, “And whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” For a growing number of people that takes place on Sunday.

(3) Stay in communication with people who work on Sundays. They need communication with the family of faith more than anyone who can be here on Sunday mornings. They need to know that they are valued members of this congregation. Sitting and listening to a sermon online or reading a blog, while they may be helpful, are not a good substitute for being in the actual presence of the family of faith gathered together to worship God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

(4) Start thinking “outside of the box” with me about how to “fish in a different part of the lake” and “feed these lambs and take care of these sheep.”

May the Holy Spirit grant us the peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as we attend to the duties of life this week with joy in our hearts.

Pastor Everett

Fortunate Son

I just finished reading a book entitled God is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China. It is written by Liao Yiwu who is an author who chronicles the struggles of different groups of people under the communist government. He has had plenty of run-ins with his government because of his opposition to communism. He is not, himself, a Christian but became interested in the story of Christianity in China and how Christians have suffered for their faith in his country. The book basically

consists of a mix of the history of Christianity in China and transcripts of his interviews with different kinds of Christians in different areas of the country. It was a very hard book to read and took me longer than a 270 page book usually would. It wasn’t hard because of the translation but because of the subject matter. I can only read so many pages a day of personal accounts of beatings, imprisonments, public disgrace, and executions. It wore me out emotionally. You’ll hear more about this book this summer in my sermon series on the Book of Acts and how the Church is made manifest in different parts of the world these days.

Something else this book did for me, in addition to wearing me out, was to make me thankful that I live in the United States. I often hear people say, “We’re the best country in the world.” Personally, I can’t speak to that as I have never been to any other country, let alone to every other country in the world to be able to determine if we’re the best, but I do feel I am very fortunate to live in this nation. The other day, as I was close to finishing the book I felt the compulsion to go by an American flag for the manse, which I did. For one, that big porch just calls out for a flag waving in the wind, and secondly I felt in that moment very thankful for where I live. Don’t get me wrong, I am not naïve, nor am I patriot with blinders on. I might not feel all that great if I had just finished a book like Roots (about slavery), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (the history of the West from a Native American perspective), Nickel and Dimed (about the trials and travails of the American working poor) or even The Help (a novel dealing with the Jim Crow laws). But when I finished God is Red I felt pretty good, so I mounted the flag and decided to take the dog for a walk.

It was about 7:30 pm, the sun was descending slowly in the west, and there was a stiff cold wind, too cold for late April in my opinion. As we often do when we have a chance to go for a walk while the sun is still out, my dog, Eli, who is a yellow Labrador Retriever, and I headed down to the paved trails that weave through Eyman and Washington Parks. I plugged my earphones into my iphone and turned on some Garth Brooks. Like I said, I was in an American mood, and what says American more than some good ol’ Garth Brooks, right? As we walked, we passed ball fields filled with girls and boys practicing softball and baseball. Coaches hit grounders to waiting fielders as the next kids in line blew on their non-glove hand to keep it warm so they’d be ready to make the throw to first base.

Memories of twelve seasons of baseball flooded my memory and my body tensed each time I heard the ping of the ball popping off the bat. I was ready to field a grounder, to make that throw, to hear the pop of the ball hitting the glove. We continued walking alongside Paint Creek where geese and goslings floated in the water. After a long walk we finally returned home, climbing up onto the porch on our scarlet and gray stairs beneath the stars and stripes flowing in the cold wind. The best word that can describe how I felt in that moment is grateful.

Our nation is not perfect. We have many skeletons in our closet and we have a lot of problems right now like unemployment, national debt, 1 in 5 children being in danger of going to bed hungry each night which is ironically coupled with an obesity epidemic, and a tragically high incarceration rate,

just to name a few. But even with all those scars and blemishes, I am so incredibly thankful to live here, grateful for the freedoms I enjoy.

This Thursday is the National Day of Prayer. On that day, at noon, let each of us say a prayer that we too often save up for the 4th of July, a prayer of thanks to God for the lives we enjoy, and a prayer that our nation would have a common life together that is based upon the dignity of all persons (there is a community gathering at the court house Gazebo Thursday at noon as well). And let us pray for our Christian brothers and sisters who experience persecution wherever that occurs. Let us educate ourselves about their plight and ask God to deliver them and to give them strength to endure until that freedom comes. We owe it to them to be grateful for our experience of what they long for, and we owe it to them to pray for them. We also owe it to them to do everything within our power to work toward religious freedom throughout the world. I am usually very hesitant to mix my Christian faith with my patriotism as I think that too often Christians get Uncle Sam and Jesus mixed up, but that book helped me to realize just how good I have it here. If you don’t feel fortunate to live here then come by my office sometime and I’ll loan you my copy of God is Red, and that might help you have a moment of gratitude like I did.