Pittsburgh Presbytery meeting at Bakerstown: 5. On the necessity of sliding red buttons

God blessed Pittsburgh Presbytery with good humor throughout the meeting on December 1, 2005 at the First Presbyterian Church of Bakerstown.

One of the special gifts that David Carver has brought to his tenure as Moderator of Pittsburgh Presbytery is his sense of humor and his willingness to invite us to share in the peculiarity of the moment when he begins to preside over a meeting of 250 elders and ministers. At the beginning of the meeting on December 1 he stepped into the pulpit to start the meeting and found a detached post-it note with a message about sliding a red button. He showed it to the Presbytery and asked whether the note had anything to do with him. Once reassured that the post-it was not for or about him, he proceeded with the meeting able to live with the enigma.
We never learned what the red button was about, but we did have many occasions to wonder whether we were close to solving the mystery.

Did the red button have something to do with the intention to project the "Seeds for Tomorrow" video when the technology failed to cooperate? The video showed how God was at work transforming many congregations around the Presbytery. And we were assured that no red button was involved.

Or did the red button have something to do with the transmitter for Pastor Jim Mead's wireless microphone that picked up some of his comments to other worship leaders before the worship service? No one knows, but when he preached Pastor Mead was able to make some jokes at his own expense about the embarrassment. Humor that faces the awkwardness of the moment head-on is a wonderful gift.

It is always a welcome act of hospitality to provide something to drink to the person who will have to speak a lot during the meeting. The host church provided Moderator David Carver with an official 2005 moderatorial styrofoam cup so that he would be able to drink water during the meeting. Moderator Carver made sure the rest of the presbytery could appreciate the pen inscription on the cup.

My other articles on this meeting: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

File under : Bakerstown, Pittsburgh Presbytery, church humor