Stated Clerk's Column
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About This Column
Written by Gradye Parsons
Each month the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Moderator or Vice Moderator of the 218th General Assembly write a column of general interest for the church-at-large.
Recent posts
- The gift of community
- April 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
- March 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
- February 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
- January 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
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Posts with tag: monthly column
May 1, 2012The gift of community
The following is an account popular in the storytelling world and passed along in William White’s Stories for the Journey (Augsburg Press, 1988).
People in a remote village purchased a television set. For weeks, all of the children and all of the adults gathered around the set morning, afternoon, and night watching the programs. After a couple of months, the set was turned off and never used again.
March 30, 2012
April 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
Zippy was a thoroughbred horse that competed in ninety-nine races and never won. Ever. He was finally banned from rack tracks “for the protection of the betting public.”
March 2, 2012
March 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
I want to salute those silent and often unseen sisters and brothers who have the call of being a church janitor. The position may have a different name where you are, but the functions are the same.
It does not matter whether your congregation’s calendar is filled with daily programs and activities in your building or the space is used just a few times during the week. Someone, paid or volunteers, keeps it clean.
February 1, 2012
February 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
Who taught you in Sunday school? I can remember most of my teachers, which included my parents. My father taught the rowdy third-grade boys and my mother, the more mature sixth graders.
Mrs. Arnold corralled the kindergarteners on Sunday after teaching first grade in public schools during the week. She was infinitely kind and had x-ray vision for any good impulse. She was intolerant of meanness. She was an advocate for play and joy. She relayed Bible stories as if she was actually there – and, well, she did seem old.
January 6, 2012
January 2012-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
The Mayan calendar indicates that the world will end in 2012, which is a claim that several archeologists dispute. Either way, the business of making predictions generates a lot of energy – and money. People are paid to predict everything from the weather to the next president.
The liturgical year, however, is more than a prediction. From Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to Lent to Easter to Pentecost to Ordinary Time and more, the liturgical year is a steady progression – a cycle that tells us over and over again the story of God who comes to us in Jesus Christ.
December 2, 2011
December 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
Advent is here – the days of preparation for the birth of the Christ child. The root word in Latin for Advent is advenire, which means to arrive. Interestingly, it is the same root word for adventure – to venture.
Where is the sense of adventure in this liturgical season?
November 1, 2011
November 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
In the Lord I'll be ever thankful,
In the Lord I will rejoice!
Look to God, do not be afraid;
Lift up your voices: the Lord is near,
Lift up your voices: the Lord is near.
This song by Jacques Berthier (Sing the Faith #2195) is one of my favorites of all the Taizé music. It combines the ingredients of gratitude, joy, fear, and the desire for the Lord to be near.
October 3, 2011
October 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
September 25, 2011, found me worshipping with the spirited folks of the First Dominican Evangelical Church of San Pedro, Dominican Republic. It was a lively service with lots of music, many children, a fine sermon, and a moving celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Joining me in worship were five people from denominations across the Caribbean. We were one of several small groups that had spread across the region that Sunday morning as part of our meeting of the Caribbean and North American Area Council, a regional part of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
July 11, 2011
July 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
It seems only appropriate to begin the July 2011 column with a quote from the new Form of Government. The very first paragraph begins with a statement that lifts up the mission of the congregation where it is planted:
The congregation is the church engaged in the mission of God in its particular context. The triune God gives to the congregation all the gifts of the gospel necessary to being the Church. (Book of Order, G-1.0101)
May 31, 2011
June 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
I rarely see a really meaningful moment on a television medical drama. But I will have to confess that the writers for Grey’s Anatomy captured just such a moment.
An airplane had crashed into the harbor. The hospital was to be the trauma center where all of the survivors would be brought and families could gather for information. Then comes the sobering news: no survivors. So the doctors who had prepared to do lifesaving surgeries become grief counselors instead. One by one, the families are notified and most leave the hospital.
May 3, 2011
May 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
Frederick Law Olmsted was the American creator of the craft of landscape architecture. He had no college degree or much experience beyond a little farming when he was awarded the contract to oversee the construction of Central Park in New York City. He later went on to design college campuses, the Chicago World’s Fair, and the beautiful city parks that grace Louisville, Ky.
April 6, 2011
April 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
Miss Kingree, Mrs. Barnes, and Mrs. Wesson were already teaching legends at my high school when I was a freshman. Barnes and Wesson taught algebra; Kingree, first-year English.
All three were farmers and all three were tough. At some point, they each walked the halls with pretty serious farm injuries. But they never missed a day of class – as I said, they were tough. Forty-plus years later, I can look at their photos in my high school yearbook and still get that feeling in my stomach that they might call on me in class. But they were also good, very good. They had honed their teaching skills to the point that, despite all of our collective efforts, we left their classes smarter than we arrived. I thank them now when I appreciate a great book or analyze a basketball bracket.
March 7, 2011
March 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
It looks like spring might finally come after a winter filled with snowstorms, ice, bitter winds, and new records for low temperatures. Winter may have a last gasp or two, but in most places things are starting to warm up. On one hand, my irises are, as usual, trying to rush the growing season. On the other hand, my roses are wisely laying low until evidence of several sunny days in a row.
February 1, 2011
February 2011-Monthly column featuring Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
Each month the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Moderator or Vice Moderator of the 219th General Assembly write a column of general interest for the church-at-large.
This month, Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons writes about "The Pearl-handled Pistol."