So what was Presbytery like this spring?
Spring 2011 Presbytery was held in a small church in Upton, Massachusetts. By the standards of Orthodox Presbyterian churches, the building was quite modern, having been constructed in the 1970's (according to a sign engraved on the outside of the building). The church had two floors. The main floor housed the sanctuary and a handicapped bathroom, while the basement .... well, I actually have no idea what was in the basement. Due to my own handicap issues, I never ventured down the stairs. However, I imagine it must have been lovely, because the representatives were constantly wandering down the stairs and coming back up in a jovial mood with handfuls of jellybeans which were apparently available via a motion-sensitive jellybean dispenser (no, I'm not kidding).
"I would like to point out," said the hosting pastor, "that you merely have to hold your hand under the dispenser to receive jellybeans. Some of you have been completely befuddled in your efforts to get the jellybeans out other ways."
"There is a lesson on grace in there somewhere," commented an astute pastor in the audience.
I counted forty-eight people present, only three of whom were women. Possibly there were more women in the basement hovering over the jellybean dispenser, but if so, they never emerged to the main floor.
For the first time, I was able to attend the entire Presbytery meeting. I was there at the opening on Monday at 4pm, and I was there when the last prayer was prayed and the doxology sung on Tuesday around 2:45pm. In the eyes of our Presbytery, that constituted a Very Brief Meeting.
The breathtaking pace of the meeting obviously caught some of the presbyters by surprised. Several committees, when called upon, demurred in mild embarrassment, asking that their reports be postponed until they were better prepared. "I normally do not speak until this time tomorrow," said the chair of the Foreign Missions Committee. "You know, when the presbyters eyes are glazed over and they don't even know who is talking anymore."
By the next morning, the confusion had evidently been resolved, and the committees took to the pulpit with new energy and purpose. (See graph below for breakdown of Tuesday discussion).
The morning began with a sermon by a man who was seeking licensure as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The same man was later examined by the Presbytery on his theological views.
However, the main focus of the meeting seemed to be on missions. The Home Missions committee reported on various church-planting efforts with encouraging reports and discussion of difficulties and challenges at each location. The Foreign Missions committee discussed relief efforts in Japan and several locations in Africa, and the need for another missionary family to join the one already serving in Haiti. An OPC chaplain recently returned from working with soldiers headed to and from Afghanistan spoke of the terrible heartache, sleep deprivation, and exhileration of working with soldiers who were in such desperate need for spiritual guidance.
The other key feature of this Presbytery meeting seemed to be prayer. The representatives prayed over everything--for each mission work, for the chaplains, for the committees, for the food being prepared downstairs, for the guy who left early because his wife called him to say that the baby was sick... I wondered whether they prayed more than usual this time, but I suspect that it was only the faster pace of the meeting that made such prayers more frequent and thus more obvious.
As I watched them stand every few moments to earnestly entreat God on some matter, I was struck by an impulse to add my own prayer request. I wanted to tentatively raise my hand. "Excuse me? Yeah, I know I'm not really supposed to have the floor, but I'm just wondering ... My husband's father died last night, and he is really sad about it. And he has to go out of town for the funeral, and I have a really difficult time when he is gone because I'm ill ... will you pray for both of us?"
I never did work up the nerve for that, and so I will always wonder whether they would have prayed for us if I had asked.
Spring 2011 Presbytery was held in a small church in Upton, Massachusetts. By the standards of Orthodox Presbyterian churches, the building was quite modern, having been constructed in the 1970's (according to a sign engraved on the outside of the building). The church had two floors. The main floor housed the sanctuary and a handicapped bathroom, while the basement .... well, I actually have no idea what was in the basement. Due to my own handicap issues, I never ventured down the stairs. However, I imagine it must have been lovely, because the representatives were constantly wandering down the stairs and coming back up in a jovial mood with handfuls of jellybeans which were apparently available via a motion-sensitive jellybean dispenser (no, I'm not kidding).
"I would like to point out," said the hosting pastor, "that you merely have to hold your hand under the dispenser to receive jellybeans. Some of you have been completely befuddled in your efforts to get the jellybeans out other ways."
"There is a lesson on grace in there somewhere," commented an astute pastor in the audience.
I counted forty-eight people present, only three of whom were women. Possibly there were more women in the basement hovering over the jellybean dispenser, but if so, they never emerged to the main floor.
For the first time, I was able to attend the entire Presbytery meeting. I was there at the opening on Monday at 4pm, and I was there when the last prayer was prayed and the doxology sung on Tuesday around 2:45pm. In the eyes of our Presbytery, that constituted a Very Brief Meeting.
The breathtaking pace of the meeting obviously caught some of the presbyters by surprised. Several committees, when called upon, demurred in mild embarrassment, asking that their reports be postponed until they were better prepared. "I normally do not speak until this time tomorrow," said the chair of the Foreign Missions Committee. "You know, when the presbyters eyes are glazed over and they don't even know who is talking anymore."
By the next morning, the confusion had evidently been resolved, and the committees took to the pulpit with new energy and purpose. (See graph below for breakdown of Tuesday discussion).
The morning began with a sermon by a man who was seeking licensure as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The same man was later examined by the Presbytery on his theological views.
However, the main focus of the meeting seemed to be on missions. The Home Missions committee reported on various church-planting efforts with encouraging reports and discussion of difficulties and challenges at each location. The Foreign Missions committee discussed relief efforts in Japan and several locations in Africa, and the need for another missionary family to join the one already serving in Haiti. An OPC chaplain recently returned from working with soldiers headed to and from Afghanistan spoke of the terrible heartache, sleep deprivation, and exhileration of working with soldiers who were in such desperate need for spiritual guidance.
The other key feature of this Presbytery meeting seemed to be prayer. The representatives prayed over everything--for each mission work, for the chaplains, for the committees, for the food being prepared downstairs, for the guy who left early because his wife called him to say that the baby was sick... I wondered whether they prayed more than usual this time, but I suspect that it was only the faster pace of the meeting that made such prayers more frequent and thus more obvious.
As I watched them stand every few moments to earnestly entreat God on some matter, I was struck by an impulse to add my own prayer request. I wanted to tentatively raise my hand. "Excuse me? Yeah, I know I'm not really supposed to have the floor, but I'm just wondering ... My husband's father died last night, and he is really sad about it. And he has to go out of town for the funeral, and I have a really difficult time when he is gone because I'm ill ... will you pray for both of us?"
I never did work up the nerve for that, and so I will always wonder whether they would have prayed for us if I had asked.
(Coming soon: Post-Presbytery Analysis).
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