I grew up at the New Wilmington Missionary Conference. I came first at age two months; family members were commissioned as missionaries there. My husband and I first met as thirteen-year-olds at–where else–New Wilmington. As a missions volunteer in Ethiopia in 1971, I wept realizing I was missing the conference–the only one I have missed. Our four children were “Conference Kids” and then high school delegates at NWMC.
But years have passed. I am no longer a Western Pennsylvania teenager. I wouldn’t label myself an evangelical conservative. Now I have grown up, I am old. And wise. I am smarter, much more savvy theologically, sophisticated. I have been to seminary. I believe there is a God, but all of this evangelical language about Jesus and your call, and what the Lord did this week is annoying. I am tired of the easy answers to the big questions. I am tired of inadequate or pompous answers given by individual people pretending to be God Himself talking. Cynical might be a good word for my mood.
Yeah, I’m cynical.
But here I am back at Conference and Conference starts to work its power on me. It happens every year.
I grudgingly stand up with the crowd when they sing their simple evangelical songs, and I find myself harmonizing too. My feet planted firmly in the sawdust of Anderson Auditorium, I sway with the music. Some of these white people even have their arms in the air. My 92-year-old mother stands beside me, holds on to the chair in front of her and squints at the big screen, trying to see the words of new hymns. Bagpiper, redheaded Tim Cummings, along with the praise band, leads the congregation into the beautiful new hymn, “In Christ Alone” by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.
The experience of Conference begins to seep back into my tired self, reminding me that God created the whole world including those Canada geese floating on the lake; that Jesus knows me and loves me; that the Holy Spirit moves in the world in 2005; and that every person has been endowed by God with talent to be used to further God’s kingdom. The New Wilmington Missionary Conference celebrated its 100th conference this 2005 summer.
Today our denomination, The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is a combination of three Reformed denominations. In 1958 the larger Presbyterian Church in the USA merged with the smaller United Presbyterian Church in North America (UPNA). And that church combined with the PCUS, the southern strand, in 1983. The New Wilmington Missionary Conference was a conference of the United Presbyterian Church of North America. The Conference was started in 1906 on the campus of Westminster College in Western Pennsylvania as a gathering for United Presbyterian youth and young adults to focus on mission. India, Pakistan, Egypt and the Sudan were the primary mission fields of the “Old UP” denomination.
Nearly 1,800 people are here on Sunday, July 24, 2005, to celebrate those 100 years and commission new mission workers.
Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase preaches for the Sunday morning service. In his friendly, casual, conversational style he reminded us that he has been working for 18 years on the U.S./Mexico border, assessing and addressing the needs of people. In his sermon he recalls a recent trip to the Congo in which he flew to a village in the interior of the country. When they looked at the green airstrip from the little plane they saw 2,000 people waiting and waving on the runway as the plane from Mission Aviation Fellowship attempted to land.
He recalls the first Presbyterian missionaries to the Congo, the African – American William Shepherd and his colleague, Samuel Lapsley, who were sent out from a presbytery in Alabama in 1889. This was a dangerous time to be a missionary as one in four missionaries to Africa died on the field. King Leopold of Belgium controlled the rubber industry in the Congo and used this huge territory as his personal fiefdom. The moderator challenges us to take seriously our own call to mission wherever we are, and to use Shepherd and Lapsley as models for our own lives in three ways. 1) They were entirely unafraid because they knew God is in charge. 2) They were willing to defy conventional society norms. 3) They saw no distinction between evangelism and justice. Today we need to be open to the possibility that God wants us to move beyond societal norms. There are still justice issues to be addressed. (See more about William Shepherd at www.missionfrontiers.org/2000/02/shepherd.htm )
The Sunday evening service begins with a session of high energy music from the praise band, then, music leader, Karen Latta, of New Wilmington, leads the congregation in a slow and meaningful a capella, four part singing of When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. Because the General Assembly did not meet this year, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) service of commissioning for national and international mission volunteers and co-workers was held at New Wilmington. In past years the old UPNA denomination commissioned missionaries at New Wilmington.
Among those commissioned are 30 International Young Adult Volunteers, sent out to various countries such as Egypt, Argentina and the Philippines; 22 International Mission Co-workers, going out to countries around the globe; 16 Global Partners in Mission to the USA who came from other countries to be resources to congregations in the USA; 13 Young Adult Interns who serve the church in Louisville and New York City; and 25 National Young Adult Volunteers who serve in ministry in the United States. In addition, the chairman of the Conference, Don Dawson, invites anyone who has gone out in mis-sion this year or will be going out in mission to come to the front of the auditorium to join hands and receive prayer. The congregation joins in a litany of dedication. Marian McClure, the director of Worldwide Ministries Division, and Curtis A. Kearns Jr., director of National Ministries Division, lead the communion service.
The communion servers are representatives of the New Wilmington Missionary Conference Summer Service teams. During 1960 Ed Fairman, director of the Conference, along with his Board of Managers, sought to raise funds to sponsor the first Summer Service team. The Conference saw as part of its mission the challenge of giving mission experience to college age youth. Since then 343 youth and 51 leaders have participated in the Summer Service Program. In 1968 I was a Summer Service volunteer in Kingston, Jamaica. This summer in 2005 the Conference is sending eight Summer Service volunteers to Turkey.
Many of these people have dedicated their lives to full time Christian work because of the Summer Service experience. Kyle Joachim, 25, is an example. Kyle went with a Summer Service team for eight weeks to Malawi in the summer of 2002. He told me that he came back a different person. After graduating from college with a major in German and Theater he is now a Presbyterian Volunteer in Mission working with the Kurdish people in Berlin, Germany. In partnership with the Berlin Mission Society, Kyle teaches English, builds relationships with International Youth, and creates theater with younger kids. At the New Wilmington Missionary Conference this summer, Kyle is a mission study leader for a small group of 10 high school students. Kyle is one of the people up front getting blessed and prayed for at the Commissioning Service on Sunday night.
At the end of the Commissioning Service my friend, Lou Hopkins, plays a few notes on the piano and the crowd of 2,000 stands up to sing the benediction, “Surely the Presence of the Lord is in This Place.”
This was only the first day at Conference. Here at NWMC I renew my spirit for another year.
I’ll keep on believing.
LOANN FAIRMAN is an ordained Presbyterian minister, a member of the Presbytery of the James. She teaches at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, Va.
