|
Welcome |
|||||
Phone: |
![]() |
Address: 3218 Chamberlayne Ave. Richmond, VA 23227 E-Mail: jchick@synatlantic.org |
|||
|
The files available on this site are .pdf files. You
will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open them. You may get Adobe Acrobat
Reader free from their web site www.adobe.com. |
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
A
Note from David McKee Executive
& Stated Clerk Synod
of the Mid-Atlantic March
2009
When you read the minutes of a Synod Assembly, it’s easy to see the
details of the body’s decisions and actions.
But it’s nearly impossible for written minutes to convey the
intangibles – factors such as tone, flavor, and atmosphere.
Often those elements are every bit as important as the actual
decisions made – and sometimes they’re even more significant. Those
intangible impressions struck me particularly about our Synod Assembly on
March 9-10. I’d like to offer
here some reflections about them.
The first one I noticed was energy.
By stereotype, at least, we Presbyterians are not the most kinetic
church folks around, particularly when we’re seated in meetings. Now I’m
not trying to say that any of us were even close to bouncing off the walls.
But there was a definite feeling that the assembly was poised and
prepared to address the matters before it with the kind of energy – as
well as intelligence, imagination and love – that
we promise in the vows we take when being ordained and installed to office
in the church.
Which leads to a second intangible I detected: a sense of purpose.
The commissioners were focused on serving the Church, and not merely
plowing through a list of business items and administrative minutia.
Granted, we are still in the midst of clarifying with greater
precision the emerging purpose of our Synod; yet this assembly approached
its work with a clearly evident sense that there is a point to it all, that
our synod does fit within, and contribute to, the mission of Christ, and of
the larger Presbyterian Church (USA).
A third intangible that bears mention is a big one to me:
appreciation. That was
apparent to me on more than one level. Commissioners
were quite appreciative of one another: their viewpoints, their faith
commitments, their experience in and of the church.
They were also appreciative of the process by which our work moves
forward. And I sensed a genuine
appreciation for our distinctive, Presbyterian way of being the church
together.
And one more: humor.
This was present in at least two ways:
first, in terms of the good humor which abounded within the body
throughout the meeting; and second, in terms of a lively sense of humor –
a quality without which any group is greatly impoverished.
All of those intangibles – and other positives too numerous to
mention in this limited space – came together for me in the worship
service of communion and installation. I
have always been stirred by the way we worship at governing body gatherings.
Yet rarely have I been as touched and moved as I was by the service
on the Monday evening of our Synod Assembly.
Every aspect of the service fit together in such a way that in those
moments we became in reality what we strive to be:
a genuine family of faith. From
beginning to end – from the reverent offering of the unison prayers to the
powerful singing of the Richmond Korean church’s men’s chorus, from the
thought-provoking sermon to the moving prayer of installation and laying on
of hands, from the eloquent charges to the quiet majesty of the Lord’s
Supper – the service drew all of us even more closely into being God’s
family. And for me personally,
having my father, at age 91, deliver the charge to me – as he has every
time I’ve been installed over the years – has deepened that sense of
family even more.
To be even more personal, the synod assembly of March 9-10 signifies
for me the moment when I was not only installed to the office I hold, but
also welcomed into this family of faith known as the Synod of the
Mid-Atlantic. That is a reality,
intangible though it may be, for which I am profoundly grateful.
David
W. DIGEST OF 223RD STATED MEETING
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
DIRECTIONS TO THE OFFICE OF THE SYNOD OF THE MID-ATLANTIC
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
click here to check the weather in Richmond, VA |
|||||