Get a Good Burn Going
When I was about 9 or 10 (I remember it being in third grade), my family switched from the Pentecostal church my dad had grown up in to a Presbyterian church. Except for a couple brief stints I've been attending Presbyterian churches ever since.
I remember that our church hosted a Korean Presbyterian congregation that used the sanctuary after our morning service. About once a year we would hold a joint worship service. Our pastor would preach and the Korean pastor would translate. Our pastor was a learned, erudite and proper man from Back East, and he spoke with a certain dignified manner. When the Korean pastor translated, I often wondered if they were preaching the same sermon. The Korean pastor was much more animated.
Tuesday I got to hear a Korean pastor preach a whole sermon on his own, mostly in English but there were parts that he gave in Korean, presumably reinforcing his points for the benefit of the primarily Korean speakers in the audience.
The occasion was a joint meeting of three presbyteries of the PCA: South Coast (of which my church is a member), Pacific, and the Korean Southwest Presbytery. I'd been looking forward to it for several months. We don't often have the opportunity to get together for worship and fellowship with members of our broader church. This is unfortunate, not the least because one of the hallmarks of presbyterianism is supposed to be our connectedness with each other. We talk a lot about being connected. We don't do it very well.
But Tuesday we made an effort, and it was a good one overall. I got to see some friends I don't see very often, members of both the Pacific and Korean Southwest presbyteries, and meet new friends. I hope we do it again.
I hope we do it again not just for the friendship (and the food!). I hope we do it again so we can hear preaching like I heard Tuesday morning. It wasn't so much that the sermon was theologically deep or technical. It was full of truth and expressed the power and wonder of God's loving work for us poor sinners. The pastor spoke with a passion that communicated how deeply he believed what he was preaching. As I listened I felt like the disciples left sitting at a table in the village of Emmaus, less one Companion who had expounded the Scriptures to them on the way there:
My heart burned within me.
It was a good burn.
I remember that our church hosted a Korean Presbyterian congregation that used the sanctuary after our morning service. About once a year we would hold a joint worship service. Our pastor would preach and the Korean pastor would translate. Our pastor was a learned, erudite and proper man from Back East, and he spoke with a certain dignified manner. When the Korean pastor translated, I often wondered if they were preaching the same sermon. The Korean pastor was much more animated.
Tuesday I got to hear a Korean pastor preach a whole sermon on his own, mostly in English but there were parts that he gave in Korean, presumably reinforcing his points for the benefit of the primarily Korean speakers in the audience.
The occasion was a joint meeting of three presbyteries of the PCA: South Coast (of which my church is a member), Pacific, and the Korean Southwest Presbytery. I'd been looking forward to it for several months. We don't often have the opportunity to get together for worship and fellowship with members of our broader church. This is unfortunate, not the least because one of the hallmarks of presbyterianism is supposed to be our connectedness with each other. We talk a lot about being connected. We don't do it very well.
But Tuesday we made an effort, and it was a good one overall. I got to see some friends I don't see very often, members of both the Pacific and Korean Southwest presbyteries, and meet new friends. I hope we do it again.
I hope we do it again not just for the friendship (and the food!). I hope we do it again so we can hear preaching like I heard Tuesday morning. It wasn't so much that the sermon was theologically deep or technical. It was full of truth and expressed the power and wonder of God's loving work for us poor sinners. The pastor spoke with a passion that communicated how deeply he believed what he was preaching. As I listened I felt like the disciples left sitting at a table in the village of Emmaus, less one Companion who had expounded the Scriptures to them on the way there:
My heart burned within me.
It was a good burn.
Labels: PCA
