Pittsburgh Presbytery meeting at Crestfield: 3: At worship

Worship is an integral part of church meetings. I've been in a number of meetings where efforts to fit items of business into an order of worship format have felt contrived. At the meeting of Pittsburgh Presbytery at Crestfield Camp and Conference Center on September 8, 2005 I felt that Moderator David Carver did a good job of making sure that our business was done in a worshipful atmosphere. The flow seemed very natural.

Early in the meeting there was a service of the Word at which Dan Merry, Pastor to the Presbytery for medium-sized churches, preached. Dan has been in Africa for a year, "on loan" to the Blantyre Synod of the CCAP in Malawi. His presence there was an expression of Pittsburgh Presbytery's mission partnership with the Blantyre Synod. Dan spoke to us about the serious famine facing Malawi.

Dan preached to the Presbytery on the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. WIth the assistance of the Presbytery he did some very rough math to estimate the full size of the crowd, given that the writer was only counting the men who were present. His rule of thumb total was that the crowd may have been twenty thousand people. Dan explained that when Jesus told the disciples to feed the crowd, the disciples reacted with puzzlement because they had forgotten two things: their own resources and the power of God.

During this part of the meeting the Presbytery learned and sang a song called "Praise Together" by James D. Lueers. Rob of Unspace is probably already familiar with this song, as it is sung frequently at PHCPC.

During this part of the meeting the Presbytery received an offering that is to be split evenly between Hurricane Katrina relief and Malawi famine relief. Later in the meeting it was announced that the total offering was $3400. It's a start toward the million.

My articles about this Presbytery meeting are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

File under: Pittsburgh Presbytery, Crestfield, worship, Presbyterian Church, Malawi, famine, hurricane Katrina