Pastor Ray's Blog

Dear Friends,

As you know I recently was given the opportunity to preach to a congregation of homeless men at the North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. It was a great experience. My sermon title was, “The God of Second Chances.” I tried to focus on how God never gives up on us no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done. Most of these guys show up for church at 1 pm each Sunday and also go to Bible Study on Wednesday evening. You can continue to pray with me that God’s word of affirmation somehow seeped into their hearts in a way that will encourage them in the love of the Christ who died for them.

After preaching at this service, we walked a few short blocks to what is perhaps the largest homeless shelter in the southeast. My son’s church was responsible for providing a brief worship service and lunch at this facility on the particular Sunday I happened to be there. We, of course, see homeless people around us nearly every day, but usually only a few people at certain intersections that we frequent. In this case we walked into a rundown facility that houses 600 to 1000 men every night. It was a bit overwhelming, as we were given a tour by one of the residents, to see a room with over 300 metal bunk beds. After what I witnessed in Atlanta, I was grateful for the good work that I see being done through Housing for New Hope, a ministry we support here in Durham, to end homelessness as they say, “One valuable person at a time.”

On a completely different note, our denomination took a significant step recently through the Presbyteries to support our orthodox convictions by voting to defeat an amendment to our constitution which would have weakened our standards of ordination to the offices of elder, deacon and minister of Word and Sacrament. The amendment that had been proposed would have removed a section of our Book of Order that says,

“Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.”

The replacement language would have opened the door for the ordination of unrepentant homosexuals as well as others who are unwilling to repent of other sexual sin. This marks the fourth time in twelve years that our denomination has voted to uphold our historic biblical standards of ordination.

I was an alternate to the last General Assembly which means I will most likely be elected by our Presbytery to be a commissioner to the next General Assembly that will take place in the summer of 2010. I would not be surprised if this same issue comes up again. I would therefore urge you to pray for our denomination and especially for those who remain committed to the authority of Scripture in our lives and in the life of our church.

Together with you in Christ’s service,