Hands on Heads, Hearts in Hands

 A sermon preached on Ordination and Installation Sunday

at Westminster Presbyterian Church by Reverend Paul Ransford, Jr.

  9/10/06

    Read our scripture lesson this morning to any corporate head hunter in contemporary business culture and you would find ready agreement that these are the leadership skills avidly sought in the business and educational sector.

  So, on this Sunday when we ordain and install new leadership for our congregation, what is it that sets them apart from the rest of the culture?

What’s different about a Christian leader?

What’s different about the officers in your church and the officers elected in other churches?

   While you were enjoying lemonade on your porch this summer after a long day at the office your new officers were in the mission center from 7:30-10:00 in class.

   They brought with them this stack of books.

   Class began with a devotional. This is not accidental. It is one of the first things they learn as new officers and that is that every meeting in the church is to begin with prayer. Whenever we come here we are reminded of you we are and who has called us as a people.

  Go to play practice. It begins with a prayer and often ends with a prayer. Of course today, there are lots of prayers being offered by the cast and the directors.

   After the devotional, the class plays “Who did you meet?”

Each new officer is expected to share knowledge of two new people from Westminster that he or she has met since the last time the class met. Thus, your new officers learn pastoral oversight as they take the class. Take a lesson from your leaders.  Meet someone after church you haven’t met before.

  Back to the books.

  The class begins slogging through some very heavy reading which is not a lot of fun and is the occasion for much grumbling early on.

   Your officers do not take classes in the habits of highly effective people , the two minute manager, or the leadership secrets of Attila the Hun.

   Your officers follow a biblical mandate here rather than one given by the culture. This is what makes you different.

  Paul’s words to Timothy that it is true that anyone who desires to be a church official wants to be something worthwhile fit very well in a congregation that takes education very seriously.

   How many church officers are here this morning? Will you raise your hands please.

  Your new officers do not lead in a vacuum but lead an educated congregation.

  Professor Ken McFayden at Union Theological Seminary where we take training leaders to the next step said in a sermon on the subject of leadership that,” Leadership takes you to a place that you would not go by yourself.”

  This is a challenge in a Westminster where the congregation is already schooled.  Or, ”Ain’t no fools in this house.”

  The Presbyterian Church at its best is known as a meddling church. With roots in the prophetic traditions of the Old Testament and the incisive commentary of Jesus, our leadership is called upon to stand in judgement of the popular culture.  Officers who have studied the creeds of the church and the statements of General Assemblies will be in a better place to teach and lead. They make good meddlers, though not always welcome.

 There is, for example, a profound shift that has taken place in our culture as we have moved to a culture of consumerism and to being a therapeutic culture. That has also infected the church. Basically, it is turning the church into a cafeteria where there is something for everybody all the way from spirituality to aerobics. In the pulpit and in the guidance of the church officers it boils down to, "Give them what they want to hear.”

  One can preach and teach about the evils of unchecked affluence but do not have an elder call me during stewardship season about my pledge. That’s meddling.

  One can have as many classes as desired about peacekeeping but do not raise issues from the pulpit that infringe on politics (no matter how many religious claims the politicians make) because that becomes meddling.

  Trained church officers, schooled in the history of the church are a bulwark against the inroads of the popular culture and they also help to keep each other and the pulpit honest.

   Darren Skeen, one of our new deacons, started keeping count one night as to how many committees had a voice in our Statement of Faith 27 committees looked at that document on its way to the churches for a vote. It’s the one we often use in our worship as part of our response.

 As we now move on to the service of ordination and installation let us do so with our hands on heads and with our hearts in our hands as an offering to our Lord Jesus Christ.