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Telling the Story
by Freda A. Gardner
Moderator 211th General Assembly
In 2000, Geneva Press published what we often
call a "coffee table book"—Presbyterians:
A Spiritual Journey. Recently I re-read it and, in pictures
and words, the reality that is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
began again to breathe. This book, together with the Mission
Yearbook for Prayer and Study, tells the story of our church,
of us, as we are and as we have been.
Comparative Statistics 2001 tells the story, too. It gives
us the information we need to look both nearby and across the
church to discover how many of us there are and where we live
and some of what we are doing as congregations and governing
bodies to initiate and support our mission and to facilitate
our growth in numbers and in resources.
Probably the greatest joy known to those who are privileged
to serve the denomination as Moderator is the opportunity to
meet the church in all its diversity, to see it as the many-splendored
gift of God that it is. I stand in respectful and grateful awe
before the witness of the PC(USA), both in this country and
around the world.
I stand in similar awe before those servants of the church
who seek, gather, render, and make available to us the statistics
concerning who we are, where we are, and the monetary resources
that enable the witness in ministries everywhere.
Presbyterians: A Spiritual Journey and the Mission
Yearbook show us to each other and bring to life the many
ways we answer God's call to go into all the world with the
Gospel. Likewise—this publication of data. As one example,
taking into account the number of numerically small congregations
evokes empathy and admiration for those who struggle to find
and keep pastoral leadership and those who keep on serving each
other and their near and far neighbors in Christ's name.
The numbers call to my mind the story of a small congregation
that had worked hard to secure enough money to fix their roof.
A pastor from Africa came to speak to them and told them of
their struggles to keep going with very limited resources. As
I remember the story, the American pastor of that small congregation
stood, at the end of the guest's speech, and said to the local
congregation something along these lines, "we have a roof
and they don't even have a building; I will entertain a motion
that we give our 'roof fund' to them." He got the motion
and the vote. Behind every statistic is a story of a struggle,
of sacrifice, of readiness to grow or a realization that while
growth is not likely, ministry to those still there will still
go forward.
To look at the numbers of women and men of all ages who are
enrolled in theological institutions is a call to prayer for
them as they search for God's guidance for their future in a
world and a church that harbor uncertainties as well as a yearning
for something that will make sense of the confusions and contradictory
claims of life today. The numbers in seminaries and the numbers
of churches which can no longer afford a pastor speak volumes
to presbyteries and synods about their goals and strategies
for the future of the PC(USA) in their regions.
The continuing loss of members and the continuing and even
growing support of both local and larger mission efforts must
be examined closely. Are they portents of doom or evidence of
the mysterious ways in which God works among those God created,
redeemed, and loves?
The coffee table book and the Mission study book illustrate
the mysterious ways of God who works through us in all kinds
of endeavors to hasten the day of the new heaven and new earth
that God has promised. Sessions and presbyteries might use the
numbers as signs of God's present activity in our midst. We
may look and see only losses. It is important to take them seriously.
But we must also ask if God is looking only there or also at
the increasing ecumenical ministries, that are often initiated
by Presbyterians, which often draw together other communities
of faith in response to a need or opportunity for ministry?
We need to remember the numbers of teenagers and adults taking
vacation time to build houses for the poor and homeless, to
tutor those who need someone to believe they can do it, to collect
medical supplies for those who must watch as their children
die and their young men resort to a future that is only achieved
through violence.
The dictionary says a number is a symbol or word showing how
many. Every number in this book is a symbol of some of God's
people who have chosen or been called to be Presbyterians; a
symbol of the monetary resources they have committed to Christ's
ministry in the world or of those whom God has called to leadership
roles in the church and other institutions of the church.
Every year the statistics ask us to look, and to see, to pray
and to wonder, to celebrate the faithfulness embodied in them
and also to address the questions they pose as we seek to continue
our journey with God. We know that our salvation lies not in
numbers but in faithfulness and in God's mercy. We have in our
hands one of the tools that annually invites us to face the
truth about ourselves and the consequences and possibilities
that we are called to consider.
As you read this publication and before you succumb to measuring
yourself and your congregation, your presbytery, your synod
against all others and come away exalting or in despair, stop
and give thanks for the information which God's servants have
so carefully prepared. The information is more than numbers.
The numbers are more than guidelines for ranking. They are,
for us, another call to faithfulness as God's people in our
part of Christ's body in the world.
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