I wish you could have been there

I wish you could have been there

Twelve of us were gathered last week at Ward EPC Church in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan for our General Assembly, the annual national gathering of our denomination. 

In the opening worship service, our own Julie Hawkins preached (magnificently), the first EPC woman pastor to preach to the Assembly in person. Ever. Then our own elder Scott Griffin got up to introduce our own elder Rosemary Lukens to be installed as the first-ever woman moderator of our denomination. Ever.  (And, by the way, the vote was unanimous…even in a room that contained complementarians!) And finally, our own Rachel White came forward to pray for Rosemary as she commenced this history-making chapter in the history of our denomination. 

I know, I know…humility is one of our DNA values…but wow, it was hard for me not to feel proud. 10 years ago, Chapel Hill had barely been received into our new denomination. On Wednesday, Chapel Hill played a big part in making history at the 42nd General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. I sat there…and beamed. You would have, too!

Tomorrow, I share with you the last of “Our DNA” sermon series. AND…we are going to have another reason to celebrate. 600,000 of them, as a matter of fact. You couldn’t join us in Detroit. You won’t want to miss us in Gig Harbor. I’ll see you in church…in person!

Pastor Mark

PS—On Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade. I celebrate this long-awaited and prayed-for moment AND I acknowledge that this will be a point of painful division in our country that deserves the loving and thoughtful response of God’s people. We will raise this in prayer tomorrow and I will deal with this more fully in next week’s blog. Please join me in offering prayers to the Lord for his guidance in this historic moment.