wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Graceful Growth

[Deeanna Alford <dalford@CTR.PCUSA.ORG>]

 03282
July 15, 2003

Graceful Growth

A message to the church from the General Assembly moderator

by the Rev. Susan R. Andrews
Moderator, 215th General Assembly

 When I think back to my earliest memories of church, I see and feel
myself in worship - a small child, cherished and safe.

My favorite part was the offering because I could participate. I could
place my quarter on that velvet lining and then imagine myself curled up in
that plate, being carried forward as an offering to God.

 I invite us this year to imagine ourselves as a collective offering to
God, carrying forward our whole lives as a gift of hope for the church. I
call our Presbyterian Church to a season of graceful growth - in gratitude,
membership, and mission.

Growth begins with deep gratitude for the trustworthiness of God. We have
much to be grateful for in our denomination: love of scripture and
scholarship; cultural and theological diversity that challenges and changes
us; wide arms of mission, embracing the whole world.

Let's spend this year saying thank you to God and to each other.

 I call us to graceful growth in membership. The congregation I serve has
been growing for fourteen years. The reasons include making a commitment to
grow twenty-five percent in five years. We also doubled our evangelism
budget. We offer creative options for reverent worship, rooted in strong,
biblical preaching. We openly welcome thinking, searching Christians. We
have an interfaith witness in our pluralistic city. We push each other to
serve "out there" - in God's fragile world.

I call us to graceful growth in mission. We have two mission fields in
this rapidly shrinking world.

One is across the ocean, where we are called to meet the physical and
spiritual hungers of the developing world and where we are energized by the
fresh joy of global Christians.

The second is in our backyard. We need to reclaim our conviction that
ministry is everybody's business, that the vocation of each Christian is to
be the living presence of Christ in    the boardrooms, courtrooms, living
rooms, and classrooms of our world.

We are surrounded by people who long to experience the presence of God.

 I've known Yoshi for seven years. He grew up in Japan, the grandson of a
Zen Buddhist master. He came to the States to study and pursue a career in
bio-medical research. He married a Christian woman and started attending
our congregation, but distanced himself from any kind of faith commitment.

Then God decided to come close.

In two powerful dreams, Jesus appeared to Yoshi. Providentially, that same
week, I approached Yoshi, asking him if he was ready to claim Christ as his
own. On Father's Day, Yoshi was baptized. He offered to Jesus his Japanese,
Buddhist, scientific self, now transformed by the living Christ.

Brothers and sisters, God is in our dreams. God is working in the
imagination of our denomination. This year let us be that grace-filled
offering I dreamed of as a child. Together we can give ourselves to God for
the sake of the world.

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