General Decisions

John 20: 21 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."

 

All week long, the PCUSA will be concentrating on the events at the General Assembly, in Birmingham, Alabama, where the main issue is about keeping the peace, maintaining the purity, and sustaining the unity of the denomination. It will not be an easy task because 650 different people, with 650 different backgrounds and opinions, will be asked to make binding decisions for 2.5 million Presbyterians across the United States.

 

Whatever the outcome, the most important thing to be kept will be the peace of the whole church. If we begin to fragment and divide, then our witness in the community will be diminished. It’s hard enough being a mainline Protestant these days, but if we shoot ourselves in the foot, we will be limping into oblivion.

It kind of reminds of the speech that Abraham Lincoln once made before the secession of the Southern States. It took place in 1858, three years before the War began. He said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

He was paraphrasing scripture and using Christ’s idea that a house divided against itself will fall (Luke 11v17). And this is precisely what the Devil wants to happen to our denomination. He wants us to be divided against ourselves. He wants us to take sides. He wants us to call each other “foe”, so that he can continue to cause havoc and create evil in our communities.

So, please take time in the midst of your busy schedules to pray for the church, our denomination each day this week, because if we ever needed the Lord before, we sure do need Him now.

 

Prayer:                        Holy Spirit, allow Your presence to be showered upon the General Assembly commissioners who meet this week in Birmingham, Alabama, carrying the weight of the world upon their shoulders. Let Your guidance and bidding, Your counsel and wisdom be evident in all that they undertake to do. Grant them discernment to do the right thing, at the right time, and in the right way. In Christ’s Holy Name, we pray. Amen.