! SUMMER 2013

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Presbytery of the EastGetting Bigger/Thinking SmallerThe Moderator’s Musings - John Terech

No, this isn't the autobiography of John Terech. Let me start the exposition of what I really mean by this title.  As I write this, I am looking back exactly one year ago today, May 15, 2012, when the Presbytery of Tropical Florida took action at its stated meeting to release nine churches into other Reformed bodies.  Eight of those churches went to ECO.  I look back at that day and realize that we had done something monumental.  It was truly an answer to prayer.  And so a year has now passed and I marvel at how fast it went, first of all, and secondly how God has truly done things in His time and in His way.  The growth of ECO, particularly here in the Presbytery of the East has gone at a pace that we were able to handle, all of us volunteers, serving churches of our own in some cases, or serving in our other vocations.  We have heard many numbers, many predictions of where we would be in six months, a year, and so on.  That is a very tough thing to predict when we are truly dependent on timing that we do not control.  We grow as other Presbyteries release congregations and pastors to us.  So here we are.  Today we have 30 congregations in the Presbytery of the East.  All of us students of the Polity of ECO know that ordinarily we will have 10 to 20 congregations in each Presbytery.  Naturally, the question arises as to what to do next.  

For the answer of the question about moving forward, I have harkened back to my 7th grade biology class experience.  For it was in that class that I learned about the division of cells, or mitosis (pronounced my – toes – itch or something like that).  If memory serves, I received an "A" for the class!  It seems like only yesterday that I sat in that classroom surrounded by poorly constructed snake "cages."  We had all kinds of fun and nauseating experiences of dissecting things and learning all about frog innards.  But mitosis was something that really stuck with me.  What an amazing process, of course perfectly created by God.  You have one perfectly good functioning cell that becomes two, all with the necessary working parts to make each whole and fully capable of then splitting again, exponentially.  Now even though there are some bits that are hazy in my memory, like what a mitochondria does or who actually shot J.R., the same principle applies to what we are going to embark upon, more than likely, again and again.  But first things first, let's start to put the pieces in place to make this happen.  

The Presbytery of the East has large teams that are functioning in the areas of Ministry and Assimilation, Church Planting, and

Pastoral Ordination.  It also has a PJC, folks working on logistics, and corporate officers.  The teams are populated with folks from all over our larger Presbytery.  Imagine now that we were to split our now 30 congregations into 3 smaller Presbyteries.  On a map we can draw a line along the north border of Florida.  Florida has ten congregations already and can be a legitimate Presbytery. Now let's draw another line across from east to west putting Delaware to the north of that line along with Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.  We'd then have a Central Presbytery and a North Presbytery.  Let's split our teams up along those same lines, adding to their numbers so that they are fully staffed, and we'll start operating just as we've always done, in three smaller regions.  Just a few thoughts come to mind.  Prayerfully, there is enough shared experience with individuals serving the larger body that will allow the culture we've created to be maintained in the smaller units.  Cells, when divided,

should naturally function the same way they always have.  Also, there should still be maintained connectivity amongst the body, so leaders of teams should be communicating across Presbytery lines so that we share best practices and keep each other accountable.  Cells shouldn't function outside of their purpose (vision and mission) of the larger body.  I'm no doctor (although thinking about amateur dentistry), but my guess is that illness would occur if that were the case.  As the Presbytery grows, the process will again repeat itself, smoothly. This will be normal Presbytery life going forward, constantly dividing to maintain the smaller Presbytery structure, hence the title of this article.  

Now maybe I'm not exactly getting all that right from a medical/biological standpoint, but hey, I guess I have only a 7th grade education in those areas.  But I can say that the process is actually exciting!  Isn't it a miracle that this is able to occur?  God surely designed this perfectly and to see the process unfold in our Presbytery of the East is a blessing indeed.  On June 1, our goal is to start functioning in these smaller units so that in early 2014, these entities will be official Presbyteries.  As I finish this writing, I looked up what the mitochondria does and it turns out that it is the energy behind all that cell growth and division!  So may the Holy Spirit continue to guide and direct us as we go forth and multiply, our mitochondria in all of this!

Missional Motion at Trinity Presbyterian Church by Rev. Samuel Weems, Associate Pastor

One of the most attractive features of ECO for Trinity Presbyterian Church is that one of three legs of the three legged stool that are ECO’s foundations is Missional Congregations. Trinity has been struggling and wading through this concept of being missional for a while, what that means for attractional modeled churches, and how we help our people understand the seismic cultural shift that has taken place as we move into a post Christendom and postmodern era in the United States.

One of the ways we’ve moved to be more missional is by planting a new community within our church. Recognizing that the Millennial or Mosaic generation has a unique approach to spirituality and formalized religion, we created a gathering offered on Monday nights focused on authenticity, spirituality, and integration of new technologies and social media. There are certainly ties to Trinity as a whole such as the teaching moments paralleling the Sunday morning messages, but the service has its own name (Oasis), website (www.trinityoasis.net), character, and feel. For the first couple of months we gathered on average around 30 people of this generation for conversation and worship and more recently the attendance has been increasing as the word has spread in this community. The hope is that now we’ll begin to use this gathering as a place for those gathered to invite their friends who may be nominal, sojourners, or just interested in spirituality at all. There has been some pressure from within that this service becomes another “club member” opportunity, a place where our Sunday services are replicated for convenience, but for the most part there is excitement to see a part of our community involved together as a family of emissary disciples that has previously been a gap in many church communities.

Our congregation is at a place where it wants to be more missional but hasn’t internalized this value so well that it has become part and parcel of who we are as the body of Christ in Satellite Beach. So as we began to examine what our church-wide study would be in 2013, we were elated to come across the material from Hugh Halter and Matt Smay called The Tangible Kingdom Primer. This is an 8 week resource intended to be a spiritual formation tool to prepare our hearts for mission and also to be a field guide for starting mission together. I’m personally leading a group from the Oasis Monday night service with the intention of, at the end of the study, transitioning into being a missional or incarnational community. The rest of our church is partaking in the study as well, both new and long existing life groups. We hope that this study will help us along the path towards building a culture of being missional and perhaps provide the energy and momentum to launch multiple missional communities.

As one of the team members on the Church Planting team for our presbytery in the East, I can’t tell you the excitement that I have in seeing the seeds taking root in ECO as we seek to be committed to growing and planting flourishing churches as well as, in our own contexts, taking the call to be missional seriously and enjoying the fruit of those efforts.

2014 Holy Land Pilgrimage

Hosted by Pastor Mike and Amy DeArruda March 17–27, 2014

Travel arrangements by Gate 1, premier provider of Holy Land Tours www.gate1travel.com

HOLY LAND PILGRIMAGE PACKAGE

•Round trip air fare, Tampa-Tel Aviv •Luxury motor coach travel •9 days and 8 nights accommodations •All meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner •All tips to guide, driver, and hotel staff •All entrance fees to scheduled sites •Inspirational  Bible  Study  where  it  happened •Expert, licensed travel guide

Imagine sitting in a boat on the Sea of Galilee! Imagine entering the synagogue in Nazareth where Jesus inaugurated His ministry! Imagine celebrating  the  Lord’s  Supper  in  the  Garden  Tomb  where the grave could not hold Him! This and more await you in the land of the Bible. Pastor Mike and Amy invite you, members of ECO and the Fellowship of Presbyterians and your friends, to join them for an incomparable spiritual journey. For a free no-obligation information packet or to reserve your place on this limited offer tour, contact Pastor Mike at 2014HLP@gmail.com or call 727-642-2090 today. Shalom!

Minister at large, ECO

THE MARKS OF REVIVAL ELDER STEPHEN LEY, MEMORIAL P.C.

Yesterday I listened to a talk Tim Keller gave at The Gospel Coalition national conference on a Biblical theology of revival. By revival Keller doesn't mean a programmed event, or one that can be worked up by a method -- contrary to Charles Finney and his many imitators -- but a spontaneous work of the Holy Spirit characterized by a recovery of the gospel and a deep sense of repentance. Interestingly, he said that revival is often a quiet affair -- quiet in that the church gets quiet before God. This is contrary to revival-ism which tends to be noisy.

In looking at various revivals down through church history Keller sees that they look different but have several common denominators, including the two mentioned above -- recovery of the gospel and deep sense of repentance. Elaborating on those common characteristics of revival Keller said something that I think is worth latching onto -- revival is always accompanied by "sleepy Christians waking up" and "nominal Christians getting converted."

First, sleepy Christians waking up -- these are people who are genuinely saved but for some reason have lost the joy and power that should be their's in Christ. All the promises of God in Christ are objectively true for them, but they aren't experiencing the fruit of those promises. Keller illustrated it this way. Imagine a father and his young son walking down the street side by side. Suddenly, in a spontaneous gesture of affection, the father picks up his son, hugs him to his chest, and says "I love you!". What's happened at that moment? Objectively the father's love is the same as before, but now the son is experiencing that love in a fresh subjective way. This is part of what happens when sleepy Christians wake up.

Secondly, in revival nominal Christians get converted. These are often people who have gone to church all

their life. They may be leaders or officers in the church! Keller picked out the example of a former church treasurer who came to him and confessed that he had never understood the gospel until now even though he'd been serving in the church for years. Our churches are filled with such people – faithful churchgoers who've never experienced the transformative power of the gospel, many of whom are clinging to some form of works-righteousness to get them into Heaven.

You might be saying: "What about the unconverted outside the walls of the church? Doesn't revival affect them?" The neat thing is that when you have a local church, or denomination, or parachurch movement, full of sleepy Christians waking up and nominal Christians getting converted, the world can't help but notice. Those once sleepy and nominal church members have the "favor of Christ" on them and channels are opened for extraordinary operations of God.

As an elder charged with the oversight of a local church I can't think of a better prayer than this -- that the sleepy Christians in our pews are awakened and that the nominal Christians (and only God knows exactly who they are) will be converted. That's how revival starts.

An Interesting Opportunity At Palm City Presbyterian Church we are offering our congregation

FREE seminary courses through Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. This program is available to everyone. Below is the link to the

"Dimensions of the Faith" program. The courses listed here will help equip your covenant partners for ministry. Have a look!

http://my.gordonconwell.edu/page.aspx?pid=418

IS IT POSSIBLE? BY Robert T. Reich, CLP MOUNTAIN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

While listening to various presenters at our recent Presbytery Dismissal Service, I found myself wondering if our dismissal into ECO was a reality or just a dream.  Well, in fact it is reality and for a small central PA rural congregation, we are about as excited as we can be about what God has enabled us to experience with our dismissal from the Northumberland Presbytery,

thus the PC USA, into ECO.  Our dismissal was extremely gracious and that was confirmed by the kind words of the Northumberland Presbytery, Executive Presbytery, and the Rev. Dr. William Knudsen in his official blessing upon us into our new denominational home. 

As I pondered our dismissal and our new home in ECO, it also challenges me to think about how we can now bless the ECO family.  I believe the leadership that formulated ECO has been given a vision from God about the church that heretofore has been lost in many of our churches.  What I have heard in every FOP/ECO gathering is the need to get

past our judgment of PCUSA, and on with a vision that advances God’s Kingdom in our world.  We can do that only by God’s grace and a willingness to keep our eyes on Christ and what He desires for our ECO family.  If we remain “Gospel Centered” and seek to become missional we will see God at work in our churches and in our culture, in ways we have not yet conceived.   Together we will carve the path God has for our ECO family, built on the foundation of God’s love, grace and power, as we share a journey of commitment to being the church.  This can only be fulfilled by our joys of the present, and filled with dreams that fulfill God’s promises for tomorrow.

On January 1, First Presbyterian Church of Dunellen launched a year-long, church-wide discipleship ministr y cal led “TNT.” “TNT” means “dynamite,”and the root word for “dynamite” is dunamis, Greek for POWER. In 2013, the entire congregation is being encouraged to read Through the New Testament in one year, to unlock the dynamic power of God’s Word for our lives today.

By reading one chapter of the New Testament each weekday, Monday through Friday, you can read through the entire New Testament in just one year. Saturday is “Catch Up” day for anyone who falls behind during the

week.On Sundays, Pastors Jeff Wildrick (in English) and Silvio DelCampo (in Spanish) will each build their sermons on one of the passages that the congregation has just read.

 The congregation won’t be reading the books of the New Testament in order, so each week’s readings will be announced in the Sunday bulletin, on the church webpage, and at www.facebook.com/dunellenpres. In addition, participants can register to receive weekly emails with background information on the coming week’s texts at www.dunellenpres.org click on “TNT 2013”.

Please pray that God will use “TNT” to unleash life-changing power through his church in 2013.

ECO's  brand new website is now live! WThe web-site is a great resource and a dynamic tool to understand how ECO started, where we're headed, how you can get involved, and the ways God is at work in this movement! We are excited about this new

platform to share the story and mission of ECO. Check it out at www.ECO-PRES.org .