A Great Meeting

"Great", "meeting" and "presbytery" are not words you'll often find strung together by Presbyterian elders and pastors. But we sure had one today. And I'm very happy to have heard from Martha in her comment on the post below, that she and our other friend who attended for the first time agreed. These two are so enterprising that they cadged a tour of Tall Steeple's kitchen and serving areas from the manager and the child care facilities in addition to attending the workshops and worship. You can bet they took notes, too. Way to go, ladies!

The day was focused on getting us all back to the basics of our faith: worship, prayer, Bible study, fellowship and stewardship. There were a number of high points, but I want to single out the workshop that I attended on stewardship. Not one word about money or pledging was mentioned. Instead the emphasis was on stewardship of our lives and our relationship with God.

I've heard the speaker before--in fact I had him come to my church last summer to talk about a new ministry of planting new churches that he is involved in. This morning he urged us to think about the "mental models" that keep us from giving space to God and whether or not your prayer life is opening you to God's revealing to you who you really are. His own experience as a partner of Arthur Anderson, who was personally affected by its downfall in connection with the Enron scandal, and as a cancer survivor is so familiar to me and many Houstonians. His faithful response to God's call on his life is a true inspiration.

I can't repeat his message, much as I would like to. In the short time he gave us at the end to write down what keeps us from giving space to God I found myself writing a longer list than I anticipated and learning a lot about myself that I had not thought about before.

We had an inspiring worship service with awesome music (Tall Steeple Church's fabulous pipe organ, choir and an incredible violinist), a sermon that expanded on the theme of the day without being repetitious, and the best use of projection screens I have ever seen in worship.

So I must confess that I fell into the sin of coveting Tall Steeple's violinist, pipe organ, graphic artists AND their bookstore. I would love to have a bookstore in our church since the offerings at the local Barnes and Noble and Family Christian Bookstores are each problematic in their own way and the closest Cokesbury is a 40 mile round-trip to central Houston.

Best of all today there was no wrangling over polity. I was appointed as a teller and thrilled that I didn't need to serve. No one monopolized the mike with tedious "public service" announcements. The atmosphere was collegial and upbeat as a result. Well, done, everyone!