The Office of the General Assembly and the Presbytery of Utah coordinated to bus General Assembly (GA) commissioners and guests to local Presbyterian churches as a part of the in-person plenary meeting currently happening in Salt Lake City. The Outlook team split up to see the wide variety of faithful expressions. Here are some snippets.
Let God’s will and God’s healing be done
“Your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
“I forgive you … Divorce is hard. It doesn’t matter if you’re the one leaving or if you’re the one who got left. It makes folks do crazy things.”
In Scripture and in “Ted Lasso,” healing is liberation — even when it does not look the way we imagine or come when or how we expect.
Scott Wipperman, pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Ogden, Utah, reminded congregants that our prayers equally are not always answered in the ways we anticipate. Though, as he stated, “that is not a reason to stop praying. It is not a reason to stop believing in Jesus. Maybe it’s a sign we need to be a little less specific about what we’re praying for and let God’s will and God’s healing be done.”
Trinity may be a small congregation, but they are strong in faith and deeply love one another and all who come through their doors. As one of two More Light Presbyterian Churches in Utah, it was obvious that unconditional welcome and hospitality were of the utmost importance to Trinity when I attended on Sunday, June 30. From the myriad volunteers present to show attendees around to the lunch spread accommodating a plethora of food sensitivities to the personalized take-home coffee mugs filled with salt water taffy — Trinity Presbyterian was a reminder that church isn’t always what you expect. It may not look like what you anticipate, but that is not a reason to stop being church to one another. It is not a reason to stop praying for one another. It is not a reason to stop showing up for one another.
It was evident that Trinity will continue to show up for, pray for, and be church to all needing healing and home.
Jesy Littlejohn
Trinity Presbyterian Church, Ogden, Utah
Letting go is part of the work
At Community of Grace Presbyterian Church in Sandy, Utah, Pastor Hansen Wendlant joked about the little things that nag at him (flat tire light comes on, his favorite chips are out … and it’s Monday, too fast to come around after a too-short weekend).
“I’m going to go home and have ice cream,” he thinks. “And binge-watch ‘Ted Lasso.’”
Dealing with the grind, the little things, the “stuff,” he says, is wearying. The everyday-ness takes hold — as it did with Moses as he led the newly freed (and exhausted) Israelites through the desert.
Drawing from Exodus and Deuteronomy, Wendlant reminded those in attendance that Moses’ father-in-law advised him to let go of some things because 1) we cannot carry it all and 2) letting go is part of the work.
Moses does. And then Moses goes to talk to God. Only, unlike previous talks, Moses does not ask anything of God. And God does not fix anything. Moses sits, and God reminds him: “I am with you. I will be with you.”
Dartinia Hull
Community of Grace Presbyterian Church, Sandy, Utah
Online
We are called by God
Twenty-five commissioners, advisory delegates, resource people and observers boarded a bus at 8:45 a.m. at the Salt Palace Convention Center to drive 37 miles north to First Presbyterian Church of Ogden. We were greeted by an usher in a kilt, the pastor’s dog wandering around the narthex as an unofficial greeter, and a lot of warm smiles and joyful church members who were excited to host the delegation from the General Assembly.
We shared a Spirit-filled worship service that included a mix of traditional and contemporary music, including two pieces with harp and flute. Pastor Jon Draskovic preached a moving sermon on Genesis 12 and the Great Commission in Matthew 28, reminding those gathered we are called by God and encouraging us to always put Jesus at the center of our sense of call.
Following worship we had lunch in the fellowship hall and heard a presentation about the church’s community garden project from Karl Ebeling, the executive director of Eden Streets, which facilitates community garden projects that provide opportunities for the unhoused, marginalized, and those recently released from prison serving alongside members of the church and the community. Ebeling is known as the “Mister Rogers” of farming, and he reflected beautifully on the dual mission of the community garden that provides a source of fresh vegetables and a sense of purpose for those who work in it.
Greg Allen-Pickett
First Presbyterian Church, Ogden
‘Jesus was decent. But he was not in order.’
Associate Pastor Andrew Fleishman stood outside of Wasatch Presbyterian Church in East Salt Lake City, Utah, shaking hands and offering hugs as congregational members, commissioners, and others, including Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and the Fiona Smith, principal clerk (equivalent to “stated clerk”) of the Church of Scotland.
Worshippers were reminded God’s faithfulness with the opening hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” Fleishman shared through story and prose during the sermon, titled “Being a Jesus Person,” reminding the congregation of God’s faithfulness.
Fleishman reminded the congregation of the story in Mark 5:21-43 of Jesus becoming “unclean” by being touched by and healing a woman who had suffered from hemorrhaging for years, and then touching and bringing back to life the daughter of one of the leaders of the synagogue.
Fleishman preached about what it is we’re called to do and be as followers of Jesus by sometimes doing the unpopular or culturally “unclean” thing. Playing on Presbyterian polity and the PC(USA)’s unofficial motto of always being “decent and in order,” Fleishman said, “Jesus was decent. But he was not in order.”
Moffett offered words from PMA, highlighting the Matthew 25 initiative and the work before the 226th GA.
To bring the call to discipleship home, the congregation sang the closing hymn “Be Thou My Vision.” Worshippers were then invited to a delicious luncheon in the church’s multipurpose room.
Last week, the congregation voted to call the Rev. Irene Pak Lee to serve as pastor and head of staff. She will begin in September.
Eric Ledermann
Wasatch Presbyterian Church
Love amid crisis
Bookended by a rousing and wall-shattering prelude and postlude, First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City Senior Pastor Jamie White reminded worshippers that whatever one might do, “if it wasn’t about love, it was nothing.”
White, continuing a series on Fruits of the Spirit, drew from 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, then reminded the congregation this “love chapter” was not written for a wedding, but for a church in the middle of a crisis,” she said.
“A church not so different from our own, a church that was struggling to hold on to what mattered in the midst of the challenges and changes and pressures that were happening all around them.” The letter’s purpose was to “wake these people up,” she said. “It was to remind them of who they were called to be.”
Love is the underpinning of Christianity, White said, warning against “performative” love; it doesn’t matter if you’ve moved mountains, “if it wasn’t about love, it was nothing.” As worshippers gathered for the service, organist Larry Blackburn and pianist Mike Kestler filled the sanctuary with a stirring arrangement of “Crown Him With Many Crowns;” Blackburn closed by delivering an uplifting Toccata from Charles-Marie Widor’s “Symphony No. 5,” to a chorus of “amens” and applause.
John Bolt
First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City
