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07536 August 30, 2007
Dangerous elders
'Claim ministry for your own,' first-ever national conferees told
by Mike Ferguson Presbyterian News Service
NASHVILLE - The Rev. Gradye Parsons laid down the challenge from the very start of the first-ever National Elders Conference Wednesday.
"We want to create a bunch of dangerous elders," Parsons said, elders "who know what the ministry of being an elder is about and want to claim that ministry for their own."
Part of that role is that of worship leader. Melva Costen and the Rev. Rhashell Hunter, presenting together, thanked the 330 elders in attendance for, as Hunter called it, "saying yes when (pastors) come to you with big puppy dog eyes."
Costen, one of the denomination's foremost authorities on worship and music, noted that centuries ago both men and women from Africa, the Orient and Native American culture were respected as elders because they "had their fingers on the pulse of the community. Can they say the same about us today?"
Worship, witness and service are inseparable, Costen said. "We live as we worship, and we can't lead without realizing that."
Leadership can begin at a young age. By the time Costen's grandson was four, the boy, who grew up being the "baptism guinea pig" for seminary students Costen was teaching, "had been baptized in every way imaginable." The experience made him at least as aware of the importance of sacraments as the students.
Hunter, director of the PC(USA)'s Racial Ethnic and Women's Ministries program area, advised elders to enjoy the times they're asked to preach. "Good preaching delights in God," she said.
Don't forget to pray first, Hunter said. "Preaching is sharing God's word, and you can't share it if God hasn't told it to you," she said.
The best preaching strikes a balance between head and heart. During worship, "you don't have to wait until the choir sings to have something emotional happen," she said. "Preaching has moved from proving a point to respecting the emotional and intellectual lives of hearers, so that they can become participants in the sermon, too."
Successful preachers listen to parishioners and know what is going on in their lives. "Preachers don't start with the answers," she said. "Good preaching gathers the community around the Word. People today want to be included. They want to be able to question and disbelieve."
In a world filled with virtual reality - including the Internet and television - people come to church "wanting to be known and to experience community," Hunter said. "Good preaching helps people deal with their lives, which can be difficult, and to learn how to live together in community."
Hunter asked elders to picture the stalwart members of their congregations: the elder who "does things that the church needs, with or without being asked," the Sunday school teacher who "retired a long time ago but continues to teach because no one else will" or choir members who sing "because they know if they don't they will be missed." All elders have the responsibility to model the kind of leadership that will serve the next generation of leaders, she said.
"It's our job to be a witness for Jesus Christ," Hunter said.
Mike Ferguson, a Presbyterian elder, is a reporter for the Baker City Herald in Baker City, OR.
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