Bi-Weekly Brief for 6-8-11

First Presbyterian Church of Lansing, Michigan, is seeking a person to fill a full time position for Director of Youth and Family Ministry. The purpose of the position is to develop and coordinate a viable integration of youth and and family in religious worship, education, spiritual development and fellowship in the general life of the church. Someone having a high degree of vision, creativity and energy, along with beliefs compatible with the tenets of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is essential.

College education in a related field and related experience are important too. Altogether, this is a wonderful opportunity in a forward looking, busy church located in a socioeconomically diverse and culturally rich community.

View the church website at www.lansingfirstpres.org to become familiar with our vision. For more information regarding the position call Kathy Banghart at the church, 517-482-0668, or e mail, kbanghart@lansingfirstpres.org.

The deadline for applications is June 17.

Photo by Danny Bolin

Calling all elders

"I'm just an elder."

Have you heard someone say that? Have you said it yourself? Maybe in response to being asked to lead worship, or preach, or visit someone in the hospital?

"No," you reply, "I couldn't do that. I'm just an elder. Those are things the pastor does."

Our Presbyterian polity doesn't recognize the statement, "I'm just an elder." In our polity, ruling elders and teaching elders (also known as Ministers of the Word and Sacrament) share equally in the governance and spiritual leadership of the church. Our calls to ministry encompass different functions and tasks, but we are called equally to ministry and to leadership in the church.

For too long the ministry of ruling elder has been diminished, equated with serving on a non-profit board of directors. Yes, the session does perform tasks like hiring nursery attendants and deciding whether the amount of insurance coverage is adequate. But that is not the primary task of the session or of the ruling elders who serve on it.

Ruling elders have the awesome task of ...continue reading Cynthia Bolbach's June Moderator's Column.

Grand Rapids Says 'No' To Dying

I never know what will come in the day's e-letters. But I have learned to follow links to the vast world beyond what I already know.Today I followed a link to this video: www.youtube.com.

Called by one critic "the best music video ever made," it answers some fundamental questions faced not only by Grand Rapids, Michigan, the video's subject, but by mainline churches across the country.

If you aren't yet among the 1.4 million people who have watched "Grand Rapids Lipdub" in the past five days, please take a few minutes to watch, and then come back to this e-letter.

Did you hear the questions as Don McLean sang about "the day the music died"?

One was, "Are we dying?" Grand Rapids had recently appeared on a list of dying cities. (www.newsweek.com) Most are once-strong manufacturing cities. You could make a similar list of once-lively churches. Heyday in the 1950s, then a long decline that emptied pews, depleted funds, and demoralized members.

Some people in Grand Rapids took an honest look at their city of 200,000 and said, "No, we aren't dying." To demonstrate it, they didn't prepare photos of lovely buildings and stories about fabled traditions. They didn't look for life in yesterday, as the truly dying towns and churches usually do.

They showed people. Today's people. People engaged in interesting activities, like high school, dancing, waving at neighbors, getting married, going about in the uniforms of work. People in relationship with other people.

A second question was, "Should we.... click here to continue reading.

This article was taken from the Church Wellness Professional Edition newsletter and used by permission of the author. Click here for a PDF version.

Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and pastor. After a first career as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Tom served congregations in Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina and New York. He also worked as a business consultant in an international consulting firm. In 1993 Tom founded Journey Publishing Company, which evolved and expanded into Morning Walk Media Inc. in 2007.

The Wounds of War

Helping returning soldiers and their families heal from the stresses of deployment is a vital ministry

By Emily Enders Odom

Men and women in today's military are returning home carrying painful memories of their experiences in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A significant number are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

"A military spouse will say something to me like, 'I'm walking on eggshells because my husband is so irritable,' " says Larry Toney, associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, N.C.

Toney is also the chaplain for the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, N.C. He and the more than 200 other military chaplains affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), along with a growing number of congregations, are tackling the urgent challenge of helping soldiers and their families find healing. For example, the Fayetteville church's pastor, John W. "Jay" Coker Jr., has encouraged the congregation to call two successive military chaplains to serve as associate pastor in order to work specifically with the military community.

Unlike the situation in previous wars, more than half of the forces deployed today are reserves or National Guard troops, observes Ed Brogan, director of the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel (PCCMP). "That means that when they return from the war zones, they head quickly into our small towns and communities. They can all too easily become isolated, and if suffering symptoms from their deployments, react emotionally in negative ways. Equipping local ministers, hospitals, social workers and others to spot symptoms and mobilize help is important."

Click here to continue reading online.

Lake Huron Presbytery has a minister member who is serving in the Army as a Chaplain. The Rev. Lucy Der-Garabedian was deployed to the middle east. We are grateful for her service and pray for her and all of our military personnel.