December 12, 2006

Meetings are a big part of my life as a missionary. I’ll try to describe one. I’ve just been to a presbytery meeting and all of us (Brazilians and one missionary) are pretty tired right now. By special arrangement, I am a minister-member of both the São Paulo Presbytery in Brazil and New Castle Presbytery in the United States. When I attended such a meeting 20 years ago as a new missionary, it felt Presbyterian right away, even though I could have made a long list of things that were different from home.

This meeting began at 8:00 p.m. Monday night, in the chapel of First Church. As people trickled in, I was glad to see and greet former students of mine and other friends. Somebody passed me an attendance list to sign. The moderator, seated at a table beside the vice-moderator and the second secretary, called the meeting to order while the first secretary sat by the computer typing. Opening devotions included hymn singing as well as a sermon by a past moderator of the denomination, which warned us about practices that are foreign to the Reformed tradition. After the devotional, those who had missed the last meeting were called upon to stand up and say why they had been absent; the presbytery then voted to accept everyone’s explanations. Goodbyes were said to one of the ministers, who is transferring to another presbytery. Then we elected new officers, one by one, and the new moderator took over. Committees were established to operate only during the meeting itself. I was made chair of the Committee for the Examination of Candidates, a committee I have always been on but have never chaired. There was more to do, and it was 11:30 when the first session of the meeting adjourned. This is the annual meeting, and it usually has more than one session.

Between the first and second sessions of the meeting, the committees had work to do. I made sure the candidates had gotten all their paperwork in and held a committee meeting Thursday night to prepare for our work to come.

The second session, on Friday night, began with another devotional at which a patriarch of the denomination preached. He stressed the value and the importance of the Reformed tradition. I can’t really remember what we did the rest of the evening, but it took us until 11:00 p.m.

The third session began at 8:30 the next morning (Saturday); it began with a third devotional, at which a candidate for the ministry preached a trial sermon. This is an old Presbyterian practice which has fallen out of practice in the United States. (We have old-fashioned adultery trials here, too, but there were none this year.) In his sermon, the young man preached on the text that includes Jesus’ words, “I have overcome the world,” to say that the Jesus who has overcome the world calls us to fight against the wicked world and that we too will overcome it. After the devotional, the candidate took a seat in the front of the room to answer questions from the committee members and, after that, from other members of the presbytery, including the moderator. He answered questions about his life, his convictions, his sermon, the senior thesis he had written at the seminary, and his loyalty to the denomination. We find out that he has been a sincere evangelical all his life and has been very active in a Christian camping ministry outside the control of our denomination, that he has a conservative and well thought-out theology. We took our time talking with him, about two hours. Then we had a shorter interview with a young man who wants to be a candidate for the ministry and go to seminary. He is quiet and polite. In the church where he has grown up and is still active, he is a leader of other young people in the singing of praise music. We also interviewed three ministers who were transferring from other presbyteries. Two have been well-known ministers in our denomination for some time, and one has transferred to our denomination a few years ago after a few years’ ministry in the Assemblies of God. He is a studious man, a professor, and appalled by the excesses of the neo-Pentecostal churches. (The Assemblies are not Neo-Pentecostal but historic-Pentecostal.)

By the time we had done all this it was 1:00 p.m.. and we broke for lunch, after which we worked without a break until 11:00 P.M., and then the whole meeting was finally over. The last session is always exhausting. One year, we finished in a late afternoon, with the moderator pleading for no one to leave and spoil the quorum and church women bringing coffee to us where we sat so that no one would leave their seat. Another year we wound up at 2:00 a.m.. Faculty meetings at the seminary and the university are long, too. A monthly department meeting can begin at 8:00 a.m. and last until 1:30 p.m. Linnis, in her work, also has long meetings. Our apartment house has meetings, too.

These long meetings are part of the price of democracy, which is precious in a country that has had a dictatorship. In the 1960s and 1970s, when the whole country had a dictatorship, there were lots of little dictatorships too, in the same spirit, in churches and schools. It’s sometimes referred to as “personalist administration” or “authoritarianism,” but one could also call it “one person running everything.” I think that helps to explain why my faculty colleagues and fellow ministers are so patient with these long meetings.

This presbytery meeting helped me feel I belong here (sometimes I need to feel this way). And I think we handled the Church’s business rather well this year.

Arch Woodruff

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 44