wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] 'We are all beggars,' preacher tells Assembly

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Note #7783 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

'We are all beggars,' preacher tells Assembly worshipers
GA03094

'We are all beggars,' preacher tells Assembly worshipers

by Nancy Rodman

DENVER, May 29 - "Our faith is nurtured by one another," the Rev. Paul T.
Eckel, president of Renewal Ministries Foundation, told commissioners to the
215th General Assembly during morning worship on Thursday.

	Eckel spoke of his experience of leading a retreat for church
officers, a group of people he didn't know. In a community-building
experiment, he said, he asked the participants to address the question, "When
was the church really there for you?" He thought the exercise might take 20
minutes, but after two hours it was still going strong.

	"The best thing about the church," Eckel said, "is not that it is a
well-oiled ecclesiastical machine, or beautiful buildings, but that it is a
place of warm welcome and grace."

	It was out of his passion to share the gospel that Paul wrote his
letter to the Christians in Rome, Eckel said, commenting, "That is the
passion of every pastor I know." 

	Paul also encouraged the Christians in the Roman church to be
"mutually encouraged by each other's faith" (Romans 1:12), Eckel said. 

	"The gospel is not a one-way street," he said. "It is shared
together, and it is experienced together. The communities of faith strengthen
and enrich our lives."	    

	Eckel told the Assembly worshipers that we are called by Christ on
the foundation of the gospel and empowered by the Holy Spirit to open the
door of hospitality.

	He said he was the pastor of First Presbyterian Church, of Atlanta,
GA, when former General Assembly Moderator Fahed Abu-Akel, a member of the
church staff, led the congregation to open its heart to all. "We learned
about hospitality from Fahed," he said. The congregation was moved to begin a
ministry with former mental patients, who came to feel that First was their
church.

	One Sunday, Eckel said, as he invited those who were hungry to come
to the table, a mentally ill man rose and approached, creating a moment of
high anxiety. When the man arrived at the table and grabbed a handful of
bread cubes and began stuffing them into his mouth, many in the congregation
gasped.

	"But he was hungry, and I had invited him to the table," Eckel said.
"He was the only person in that church who came." An elder gently took the
man by the arm and invited him to sit in his pew.

	"The ground is level at the foot of the cross, and we are all
beggars, all of us," he said. "Our faith is nurtured by one another. By the
grace of Jesus Christ, we are all 'called alongside' together." 

	The liturgists for the service were Ana Atencio, a commissioned lay
pastor from First Presbyterian Church of Aurora (CO); the Rev. Janet
Schlenker, stated clerk of the Presbytery of Denver; Elder Sue Cornman, of
Arvada Presbyterian Church, of Arvada, CO, a co-moderator of the Committee on
Local Arrangements; and the Rev. Harrell Davis, pastor of First Presbyterian
Church, of Lakewood, CO. 
	

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