A redone: Falling sunflowers, falling tears and falling Churches

I have removed the last posting I put up because I found the information on the Presbytery web site calender. I have no way of showing that it was not there before. It is possible that it went up over the weekend and I did not see it. I know I have been looking for it for a while, nonetheless it is there. I will still post the rest of my material.

-

I came home this afternoon from my Committee on Preparation for Ministry meeting and visited my garden. In my garden, two beautiful sunflowers, one just beginning to bloom, lay destroyed. One, the biggest, which had undoubtedly bloomed early in the morning, had the flower head totally missing. The other, with several blooms, had its flower petals shattered all over the new sprouting beans. I found myself crying.

But, something more painful then lost flowers is troubling me, and I am sure that is why I reached the point of tears. At CPM, I discovered that this Tuesday and Monday evening our Presbytery had meetings with two members from the General Assembly Task Force on the investigation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church's role in churches leaving the PCUSA. My first problem was I did not know about the meetings and I should have been there. (I may have just missed the calender postings which must have been placed there very late.)

When I found out I was devastated, because I have a story to tell and some very strong feelings about my brothers and sisters in the EPC.

-

I may have told my story before, but I will tell it again. My husband and I were the only members of Sacramento Presbytery, that I know of, that were attending the General Assembly’s Committee on Ecumenical Relations when the overture on the investigation came up for people outside of the committee to speak to. (I was there for a different overture.) The only person who stood up to speak for that overture was the former pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento, David Thompson.

He is the person who filed the complaint against our Presbytery for coming to a settlement with the First Presbyterian Church of Roseville and Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church. He thought that we had not asked for enough money. He actually suggested in Presbytery that they should give up their church buildings.

Thompson, in the GA committee meeting, said that the EPC had stolen several of our biggest churches and millions of dollars from our Presbytery. The truth is there is only one person who has caused Sacramento Presbytery to lose thousands of dollars.

That is my story, and here are my feelings. As most people know who read my articles I have strong feelings about ordaining practicing homosexuals. I believe it would be ordaining those who willfully sin and will not repent of that sin. I believe it would bring great damage to our churches and to sinners who need the transforming grace of Christ.

But insisting that we as a denomination should break fellowship with another body of believers in the Church catholic because some of our members and churches, for conscience sake, have moved to their denomination, is sin.

It isn’t that it will damage our churches; it will bring them to ruin. It isn’t that it will keep sinners from being transformed; it will make great and horrific sinners out of all of us. And that outcome bothers me more than the possibility of our denomination ordaining practicing homosexuals.

I beg of my Church, the PCUSA, to be on the side of righteousness and not be the persecutors of the people of God.

-

The dates on the calender are here: http://www.sierramissionpartnership.org/component/option,com_events/Itemid,37/. I apologize to all those who commented, since I also deleted your comments.