Preface the 20 Rd Annual Meeting of the General Synod of the Associate
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Minutes of the General synod Preface the 20rd annual Meeting of the General synod of the associate reformed Presbyterian Church was held at the denominational con- ference center at Bonclarken. this preface is for the purpose of re- cording special activities held in conjunction with the meetings of the General synod. The Pre-Synod conference on Worship Prayer: The School of Grace (Moving Beyond the “How-To” Mentality) Monday, June 4 Afernoon optional fellowship activities 5:15 - 6:15 BBQ on the grounds 6:30 - 6:45 Welcome to the Conference & introduction to the theme 6:45 - 7:45 approaching God in Praise – led by Charles edgar 7:45 - 8:00 Break 8:00 - 9:00 Confession & repentance – led by Paul Patrick Confess both personally & corporately send people out with closure & grace Afer 9:00 encourage fellowship at the nibble nook Tuesday, June 5 early a.m. optional hike - experience God’s creation and praise the Creator 8:30 - 9:45 Kingdom prayer; Praying through the lord’s Prayer - David Galleta Use the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as an outline for prayer 9:45 - 10:00 Break 10:00 - 11:00 s ilence (listening to the lord) – led by John Kimmons 2 Chron. 20:12 “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” 11:00 - 11:15 Break 11:15 - 12:15 Prayer for revival / Praise God for What he is doing & has done – led by Charles edgar Minutes of the General synod Special Synod Week activities the Orientation for New Ministers and Delegates was held tues- day at 5:00 P.M. in the Jean White room, founder’s hall. erskine Theological Seminary hosted a barbecue picnic on Wednesday, June 6 at 12:0 P.M. at the headspring Pavilion. The Ministers Wives’ fellowship hosted a special program on Wednesday, June 6 from 10:00 a.M. until noon featuring Mrs. ethel dowling and Mrs. sally dawson. Outreach North america sponsored a Church renewal Break- fast on thursday, June 7 at 7 a.M. with dr. Ken Priddy, director of Church renewal as the featured speaker. PrOceeDINGS 203rd annual Meeting of the General Synod of the associate reformed Presbyterian church Tuesday, June 5, 2007 7:30 P.M General synod’s evening activities began with an informal Psalm singing led by earl and harriet linderman. at 7:0 P.M. the 20rd annual meeting of the General synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church ofcially began with the Worship service including the sacrament of the lord’s supper. 7:00 P.M i nformal Psalm sing ...................................................earl linderman accompanist……………………......................... harriet linderman 7:0 PM the Prelude ...………….. .............................................. Mi young lee t he Processional *Call to Worship......................... ..J. Thomas Paterson, Moderator *hymn of Praise: “Come thou, almighty King” ..hymnbook 2 *invocation and the lord’s Prayer ... .............. ..J. Thomas Paterson *the Constitution of synod....................... ... .....J. Thomas Paterson solo: ...... “Comfort ye My People”. ............ .lucas Johnston, tenor recognition of retiring synod employees.. ....J. Thomas Paterson t he service of Commissioning J. Paul Bell, Central services................. ...... .....C. ronald Beard delores P. Mcdonald, arP Magazine.......... ........h. Max Bolin Joseph h. sherer, Jr., Bonclarken............. ...... William B. Patrick randall t. ruble, erskine........................ ........Guy h. smith, iii the Prayer of Commissioning. ........................................John e. hill the anthem: ............................... .............”let Mount Zion rejoice” Coddle Creek arP Church Choir Minutes of the General synod 5 Memorial service................... ..................... ....... .J. Thomas Paterson the listing of deceased teaching elders (since last synod) the listing of deceased ruling elders (Calendar year 2006) *hymn: ...... "love divine, all loves excelling”. .... hymnbook 99 the scripture:............................................. .............. .Galatians 6:11-18 the sermon: …...“three deaths”.................................. ...John e. hill *Psalm: .... “Consecration and dedication”. .........Bible songs 2 the sacrament of the lord’s supper ................................John e. hill *hymn: “there is a Green hill far away” .... ........ hymnbook 202 the Benediction.......................................... ......... ...............John e. hill the Postlude............................................ .......... ...........Mi young lee (see appendix for the tributes and the list of deceased elders.) retired employees donna Wentz and louise raby were recog- nized. ed hogan and Beth Willis were presented with plaques mark- ing their retirement July 1, 2007. Wednesday, June 6, 2007 7:00 a.M. C. e linderman led an informal morning Psalm singing on the dining room Porch of the hotel. following the reading of the 2006 theme verse of scripture, and the singing of an opening hymn, retiring Moderator J. thomas Pat- terson led in prayer. Kyle Sims introduced The Rev. Mr. Mat Kingswood of the Re- formed Presbyterian Church of north america who led the opening worship service. Retiring Moderator J. Thomas Paterson called the frst session of the 20rd General synod meeting to order. the new President of Bonclarken Conference Center, Joseph h. (Chip) sherer, welcomed the delegates to Bonclarken. Principal Clerk C. r. Beard constituted the roll of synod. Mr. Beard announced the results of the voting in the Presbyteries on amendments sent to the Presbyteries in overture from the 2006 meeting of the General synod. all amendments were approved by a majority of those voting in the Presbyteries. Mr. Paterson presented his Retiring Moderator’s Address. reTIrING MODeraTOr’S aDDreSS fathers and Brothers, We are assembled in this place for another meeting of our General synod. another year of work is behind us, and another year of work is before us. this has been a busy two years for me and an experience i will not forget. i am humbled to have served as your Moderator, 6 Minutes of the General synod and i thank you for the privilege of doing so. it is my hope the associate reformed Presbyterian Church will grow -- spiritually as well as numerically. i continue to pray daily the lord will bless our churches and our presbyteries by adding more congregations and missions to our rolls. the opportunities for expan- sion are all around us, but we must become more aggressive in our outreach and evangelism if we are going to seize them. i had hoped that during my year as Moderator, we would have seen new congre- gations added to every presbytery. that is still my hope -- that in the coming year every presbytery will add one or more new congrega- tions and/or missions. Will you pray with me that will be so, and that when we meet here next year, we will rejoice that every presbytery has established or received one or more new congregations? those of us present in this place, for the most part, represent the leadership within our churches. We are the leaders. as the leaders of the arP Church, i want to challenge you to take your role seriously and be commited to the furtherance of the Gospel and the ministry of your local church and of our denomination. Many of us struggle with the day-to-day operations within our own congregations. We have become inward in our approach to ministry and ofen see litle beyond the walls of our own church. I want to challenge us all to look beyond our own walls and to atempt great things for God. If the ARP Church is going to have an efective ministry, its people are going to have to be knowledgeable of the church and the work we do. i have found that many of our people don’t have a clue as to who we are and what we are about. Most are plugged into the local church in a signifcant way, but beyond the local church, they have no idea of what ministry is done through our denomination and no real zeal to fnd out. this can be illustrated by looking at our denomination’s major publication, The Associate Reformed Presbyterian. three fourths of the members of our denomination do not take the Magazine. half of our ministers do not receive the Magazine. some churches have no subscribers at all. to simply put it, / of our members and 1/2 of our ministers do not know what is going on in our denomination, because they don’t receive the one publication that tells them about it. you might conclude that i am over emphasizing the value of our Magazine as it relates to the loyalty of our people to our denomina- tion and its ministry, but i don’t think i am. i see a real breakdown in communication when our people aren’t informed and simply don’t care what we are doing through our General synod. you might say Minutes of the General synod 7 we live in a day of high technology, and people can get what they want to know from other sources. you might tell me that people just don’t take time to read anymore. you might even say the expense involved prohibits some from receiving our publication. you may even be right about some of this, but can we use it as an excuse to allow such an important work to fall by the wayside? Brothers, we are the leaders in our denomination. if we aren’t leading our people in the very basics, how efective is our leadership? How will our people ever get plugged into the ministries of the arP Church if we, the leadership, are not leading? sometime during every year, we receive encouragement to con- tribute to our Denominational Ministries Fund. How ofen the phrase is utered in our local churches, “We can’t give more. We have too much we need to do here.” so the work of our synod continues to struggle along, and budgets have to be cut every year, because the work of our synod is underfunded. if our churches don’t support the work of our denomination, who will? We have to get serious about funding the work of our General synod.