I was doing my studying this morning and the question raised some
interesting thoughts to me especially in light of Joe Clifford's letter
about the situation with Highland Park...
It is not often I will put my thoughts about a situation in writing, but today I wanted to commit them to paper...
Both
churches are a part of my past - I was baptized at First Presbyterian
Church, Dallas and was raised and confirmed in Highland Park. Both have a
hand in who I am today and where I have gone and what I have done,
through their commitment in the Baptismal promise to lead and guide me.
It breaks my heart to see the division in the church because of this
situation, but it does help me answer the question asked in this
morning's lesson
1.
Is the
church of Christ united today? If it is,
how does that unity manifest itself? If it is not, how do we pursue that unity
that these passages (Ephesians 4:3, 4:12-13) refer to?
Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.
Eph 4:3 (NLT)
12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
Eph 4:12-13 (NLT)
Yes,
the church is united today! No matter what our "political" differences
may be, we are all united as born again believers united in God. We
are all equally members of the church, not one above the other, but each
one standing side by side, in our agreements and our disagreements. No
matter our beliefs about "earthly" issues, Jesus Christ is still the
sole head of our church.
Highland Park was
born from the members of First Presbyterian, Dallas. Their roots are
there as well as mine. Their beginning is there as well as mine. There
is unity in that coming together of roots and heritage, of shared
beginnings. There is the unity in the sending out of members to plant a
new church, as a child of those churches sent out to serve God in some
pretty interesting places.
I have to
wonder, while it is a long, hard, challenging, expensive, heartbreaking
experience for HPPC to leave PCUSA, is it Gods will for them to be sent
out? How are we to know? Who are we to decide? God makes manifest his
own plans in his own time. I have to wonder if the verse I chose as the
theme for my mission to South Sudan, doesn't apply here as well.
Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that God has a plan for each of us, not only
as individuals, but I believe as a body of believers as well. Perhaps
it is God's will for them to leave. I have to have faith, I have to
believe that God has a plan in all of this and though we may never see
the fruits of that plan, I have to believe it is His plan.
It also answers the second part of the question, "how do we pursue that unity"...
I
have been blessed by the unity I have seen in the church as a
Presbytery throughout this process, so far. It has had the opportunity
to grow mean and nasty, and I am sure it has, but I have not seen
anything like that publicly. What I have seen publicly, has been a
reaching out, a call to pray for our friends and family at HPPC during
this time of transition. That is the true unity in the church that I
can see in this situation. The call for prayer from our top leaders
down, to Pastors in the pulpits, to the Bible study groups and
individuals. All joined together as the body of Christ in prayer.
It tells me that in spite of our lack of unity on this one issue, proves there is unity in the church in spite of its division, in spite of the heartbreak, in spite of the challenges facing us all. We stand together, side by side, hand in hand in prayer for each other under the veil of the Holy Trinity as God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
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