(This homily was delivered at the opening of the April 3, 2012 stated meeting of the Presbytery of the Dakotas [OPC].)
Given the age in which we live, whether you’ve ever preached our text, you’ve almost certainly turned to it as you’ve exhorted a Church member to more faithful attendance at Sunday services. And well you should! Particularly when we understand the connection between the eschatological Day of Hebrews 10:25 and the Sabbath day of Hebrews 4, this text calls us to see the Church’s Lord’s Day services as the primary place to discharge our Christian duties of mutual edification and encouragement. Nonetheless, because the Apostle directs us to love and good deeds, a category broader than liturgical action, we are also called to dedicate ourselves to assembling together for encouragement, on the basis of our shared hope, on other occasions as well. If all our people understood and lived out these few verses, our congregations could all be more vital and uplifting places. A great many of our congregations’ problems would disappear if all our members considered how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
In most sermons there comes what I like to think of as the “Nathan moment,” when the preacher turns the sermon back on the congregation and announces, as the prophet Nathan did to King David, “you are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7).
Brothers, you are the man.
We have neglected to stimulate one another to love and good deeds and have forsaken mutual encouragement. While we all get along quite nicely when forced together by our bylaws and Form of Government twice a year, only a crazy man would suggest the other 359 days of the year are filled with edification and comfort. Indeed, we are often blithely unaware of the most momentous events in one another’s lives and congregations until the spiritual reports are delivered on Tuesday morning. [Stated meetings of the Presbytery of the Dakotas are preceded by reports on the spiritual progress of the congregations, with prayer for each.] We sit together in council, but we are not as faithful as our Lord in our brotherly duties to one another. We worship together twice a year, but do not seek out other occasions to assemble together.
This being so, what are the works fitting to our corporate repentance?
While institutional reforms might do us some good, and I intend to make several suggestions along those lines, we must first acknowledge no reform will do us any good unless we first make a heart commitment to recognize one another as brethren to whom we not only are accountable, but to whom we each need to be accountable. A number of years ago this body considered charging its Sessional Oversight Committee to regularly visit the congregations of our Regional Church. During those debates, a brother confided to me that he feared such visitations not only would not be a help, but would become a hindrance due to unwise committee members. To this day, I rather suspect his sentiment is shared by others.
That, of course, is why we must commit ourselves to considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. We would be fools to think ourselves immune to the American diseases of individualism, congregationalism, and confident exceptionalism. We will each, I am sure, continue to believe that we are right and, on certain occasions, the body wrong; precisely because we believe that, we must begin seeking out each other’s counsel and offering prayer for one another. We must act as though we need mutual edification if we are ever to learn the true depths of that need.
To begin, then, ask not how the Presbytery of the Dakotas can encourage you, but how you can encourage the presbyters of the Regional Church of the Dakotas. What can you do to build relationships with the men in the congregations geographically closest to yours? How can you come to know the sister Churches throughout our region well enough to pray for them intelligently when the last presbytery meeting was five months ago? What can you do to bring together the members of our various congregations throughout the year?
Secondly, honesty should characterize our meetings: without any institutional changes at all, honesty and transparency would enable us to minister to one another, and care for the Churches under our supervision, much more effectively. An anecdote: a number of years ago, I e-mailed another pastor asking how our congregation could pray for his. This was one of those providentially orchestrated moments when he needed someone to talk to: as e-mails led to phone calls, I learned of divisions within the congregation and session, and serious questions as to his future in that call. At the next presbytery meeting, I listened with interest and surprise to the spiritual report from that congregation. Not only was there no mention of trouble, one got the impression of an active and Spiritually vital place. Of course, he wasn’t lying: even the most troubled Church is still a Church, and one can usually find enough good things to bring to presbytery that none need suspect some bad news is being omitted. Ever since, I’ve taken our Tuesday morning reports with a grain of salt.
This congregation’s problems could not be kept under wraps indefinitely, and eventually the pastor left and the presbytery got involved. By that point, it was too late for us to offer much help, and this Church went into a period of severe decline. Here we come to the really depressing part of my story: those of you who’ve been in the Regional Church of the Dakotas for the past 12 years, as I have, will have some trouble figuring out which congregation I’m talking about. Depending on how one judges these things, we’ve had about a half-dozen de facto Church splits or sudden pastoral resignations during my tenure here, and a large portion of those have come to a head shortly after a stated meeting of presbytery at which no mention was made of the brewing crisis. We cannot help sessions, congregations, or pastors who refuse to give an honest accounting of their congregational lives. Brothers, give us the opportunity to encourage you and counsel you toward more perfect love and a greater plenitude of good deeds. You owe it to this presbytery and to your congregations by virtue of your ordination vows, not to mention by virtue of our duty to Jesus Christ, the Lord and head of his Church.
Thirdly, let us consider our institutional life. Our bylaws were not delivered atop Pike’s Peak on tablets of stone, and could be much improved. Other presbyteries have found ways to address some of the problems which chronically plague our Regional Church, and we would do well to learn from the brethren.
Less formal mechanisms are also open to us. I have used my time as moderator to promote gatherings before our stated meetings convene which create opportunity for discussion of issues of interest to our Regional Church and to the broader Church as well. (Such gatherings are held regularly by the Presbytery of Northern California and Nevada.) By design, we debate rather than discuss during presbytery meetings. Since this is how presbyteries are supposed to function, that is a good thing. However, those debates would be much improved if we had other occasions to engage in dialogue: the nuances of a man’s position can rarely be fully communicated in a floor speech. Thankfully, we are presbyterians, and when such a thing has been done three times, it has become an inviolate tradition.
Some further suggestions: perhaps our ministers and elders could gather together in geographically convenient groups for prayer and discussion every couple months. Perhaps similarly grouped meetings of deacons could gather to coordinate on local needs. Perhaps the stated clerk could distribute communications a month before the presbytery convenes so those documents could be studied and men could meet to gain a better understanding of the issues we will be called upon to judge when we sit in formal assembly.
All this will take time and energy, commodities precious to each one of us. But brethren, what choice do we have? We have been called into the service of the Great High Priest, who offered himself as the once and for all sacrifice for our sins. Let us draw near to him with sincere hearts. Let us confess our hope by discharging our presbyterial office according to the cruciform standard of his own work on our behalf. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, and all the more as we see the day drawing near. He is faithful; let us be found, by his grace and the power of his Spirit, faithful to our calling as well.
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