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When I started two years ago as the Organizing Pastor of Chain of Lakes I would often

get asked whether we needed another church in Blaine/Lino Lakes. That wasn’t a hard question

to answer. I would guess that less than one/third of the community attends worship on a

weekend. As long as that number is so low, we absolutely need another church.

When I started two years ago as the Organizing Pastor of Chain of Lakes I would

sometimes get asked whether we needed a Presbyterian church in Blaine/Lino Lakes.

It’s not hard for me to say that we need another Presbyterian church. I’ve been a

Presbyterian all my life. If you cut me open, I would bleed Presbyterian. When I meet a long-

time Presbyterian I feel like I have a natural connection to that person.

I think we need Presbyterian churches everywhere. I believe that every town of at least

5,000 people in the United States should have a Presbyterian church. I believe that being

Presbyterian is special.

However for many people being a Presbyterian—or a Lutheran, or a Methodist, or any

other denomination really isn’t that special any more. Forty years ago if a person moved into a

neighborhood and that person was a Presbyterian, he or she would open a phone book, find the

Presbyterian church and become a member there. Today when people move into a neighborhood

they often don’t go to church for three or four months. Then they don’t pick a church because of

its denomination. A church’s denominational status is not important to people.

In starting Chain of Lakes our ultimate task is not to make a lot of people Presbyterian;

our task is to help individuals become the people God desires for them to be. As a church our

ultimate task is not be the Presbyterian franchise in Blaine/Lino Lakes. Our task at Chain of

Lakes is to live out the Purpose Statement and the Core Values that God gave to us.

We’re not indoctrinating people into Presbyterianism.

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However we are a Presbyterian Church. It’s important for us to have an understanding of

why it’s special to be Presbyterian. This is what I’m going to do today. I want to share why

being Presbyterian is important.

This sermon might seem a bit tribal, so I want everyone to know that I have great respect

for all denominations. I’m married to a Catholic, I go to Catholic Mass on Saturday afternoons, I

was a cantor yesterday afternoon at 5:00 Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. So when I share

the special qualities about being Presbyterian I’m not at all criticizing other denominations. I’m

just sharing what is distinctive about being Presbyterian.

I’m going to share 2 ½ points today. The first point is a half-point. The other half of the

first point is contained in this brochure. I encourage you to get it out. On this brochure you’ll

find a place for daily devotional readings. This week I shared a devotion on what it means to be

an elder. You’ll find a place to take notes. I believe that I might say something today that you’ll

want to write down; and you’ll find a place for prayer requests. Please take this brochure home

and put it in a special place. Use it every day.

In the story we heard from Acts the church in Jerusalem was having a disagreement.

Some people argued that a person had to be circumcised in order to be saved. Others disagreed.

A dispute arose. To settle the dispute the elders and the apostles gathered to come up with a

solution.

The first half point is Presbyterians take the role of elders seriously. The word

Presbyterian comes from the Greek word, Presbyteros. Another way to translate Presbyteros is

elder. An elder is not an old person. An elder is a person who has been called by God through

the community to be a leader for that community. An elder could be a young person. Our Book

of Order says that elders are to be people of faith, of dedication, and of good judgment.
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In the Presbyterian church, the clergy don’t run the church. As a pastor of a Presbyterian

church I really have no established power. I can’t come to the congregation on a Sunday

morning and say we’re going to have a special offering for a special cause. I can’t decide during

the week that we’re going to celebrate Communion the following Sunday. The power I have is I

get to serve on our Steering Committee or Session, and work together with the other elders.

Because in a Presbyterian Church the pastors and elders work together to run the church.

This is a powerful and special model. It’s hard at times—for it requires leaders to

cultivate the skills of collaboration and process; it’s challenging. When we disagree we have to

do all we can to stay healthy. One of the reasons that Healthy Disagreement is a Core Value of

Chain of Lakes is I believe this value is crucial to lift up constantly before us. When we work

well together the Spirit can come alive. The power of our working together is much greater than

the sum of our individual parts.

Besides—pastors come and go. I served a Presbyterian Church in Plainview, Minneosta

for 16 years. That’s a long time to serve a church. We took in hundreds of members during

those 16 years. Every time I led a new members class I shared that pastors come and go, but the

people stay. Ultimately the health and success of a church depends on the quality of leadership

that the elders provide. I would like to serve Chain of Lakes Church until I retire at the age of

70. Though I plan on being here for a long time, our ultimate health and success will depend on

the quality of leadership that our elders provide.

1st half point—Presbyterians are special because elders and pastors work together.

As I get into the second point I want to teach you a word. I encourage you to write it

down. The word is subscriptionist. It’s spelled,

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Let me teach you the word by sharing a story in history. In the early 1700’s Presbyterian

churches were getting started in the American colonies. The United States was not even a nation

at that time. Many Presbyterians who lived in the American colonies were British. They wanted

all pastors to subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith. What that meant is a person

could not become ordained unless they believed everything in the Westminster Confession of

Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith was a statement of belief drawn up by the Church of

England in 1646. It contained the basic creed of John Calvin, the ancestor of the Presbyterian

Church.

To be subscriptionist means you have to agree with all the doctrines of a community.

You have to believe what the community believes about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and

baptism and Communion and other doctrines. We have subscriptionist churches in our area.

The Catholic church, the Missouri-Synod Lutherans, Eagle Brook—there are others. What that

means is that if you want to become a member of that church you have to agree to all the

doctrines of the community.

In the 1700’s some pastors didn’t agree to everything in the Westminster Confession of

Faith. This didn’t at all make them heretics. It’s just there were some nuances they couldn’t

accept.

A very serious disagreement arose in the Presbyterian Church.

A compromise was developed. It was called the Adapting Act. You might want to write

that down. The Adapting Act of 1729. It was developed by a man by the name of Jonathan

Dickinson. He later became president of Princeton University. In the Adapting Act said that a

candidate to be a minister had to belief in the essential and necessary articles of the Westminister

Confession. If there were any parts of these standards that a person could not accept, then the
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person would declare a scruple. A scruple wasn’t a game where someone had to share their

moral dilemmas. A scruple was when a person shared a disagreement with the Westminster

Confession of Faith.

When a person declared a scruple, then the community—pastors and elders—would

decide if the Scruple was acceptable.

This was a marvelous compromise. The compromise didn’t throw out the essentials of

faith. At that time a person still had to believe in the essential and necessary articles of the

Westminster Confession. But it prevented the Presbyterian Church from being subscriptionist.

We Presbyterians have a phrase that God alone is Lord of the conscience. What we mean

by that is we in the church can’t compel you to believe something that you don’t believe. You

have freedom to in the Presbyterian Church develop your own beliefs. To be a Presbyterian

doesn’t mean you have to subscribe to every part of Presbyterian theology.

Let me give an example of how this plays out.

Today we celebrated the baptism of Taylor Neeley. Taylor’s parents, Tia and David live

in Princeton. They haven’t been attending a congregation. After Taylor was born they wanted to

have her baptized. They started calling churches. They received a rude response from some

churches. Some churches hung up on Tia when she made the call.

It wouldn’t surprise me if those churches are subscriptionist. They have the belief that

you can’t be baptized unless you are a member of the church and that you subscribe to all of their

beliefs. They don’t allow people on the outside of the church to be baptized..

I think it’s quite startling to refuse to baptize a baby. I always believed that baptism is a

gift that we do nothing to earn.

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In the Presbyterian Church a person doesn’t have to subscribe to the beliefs of the

Presbyterian church to have a baby baptized. We don’t put conditions on baptism. These

beliefs are biblical. When John the Baptist was baptizing people in the Jordan he wasn’t asking

people about their membership status. He was sharing a free gift that God had given.

We don’t own or control a baptism. We don’t have the authority to deny a baptism

because when we deny a baptism we are telling God that we know better than God about who

should be baptized.

I’m deeply proud that Presbyterians are not subscriptionist. I believe in the core of my

being that this is what Jesus wants. Jesus lived in a day when all sorts of theologies were being

crammed down people’s throat. Jesus said the best way to follow him was to love—God,

neighbor, and self. That’s what we try to do as Presbyterians.

Finally Presbyterians are special because we care about the world in an unique way. We

are completely devoted to social ethics and in particular acts of justice..

My nephew, Matthew, came to visit me this weekend. I preached at his baptism service a

number of years ago. When I preached that day I encouraged the congregation to live out their

vow to help him grow to be the person God wants him to be. I encouraged them to live out their

vow of helping Matthew grow in the faith. That is a vow that most churches would take when an

infant is baptized. Because of distance Tia most likely won’t grow up to be a part of Chain of

Lakes Church. But we will do everything we can to encourage their family to find a church

where Tia can grow in the faith.

In that sermon I encouraged Matthew’s church to take another vow. I encouraged them

to be a community that ended poverty in their town. I encouraged them to be the type of

community where Matthew would grow up and say, “my church helped end poverty.”
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How does that relate to a baptism? It has everything to do with a baptism. Presbyterians

are concerned about personal ethics and we’re deeply concerned about social ethics. We want to

make a huge impact in the world. We want to help end poverty and racial discrimination and

create a world that doesn’t know war. We believe that this is the Kingdom.

Today we as a congregation took a vow to help Taylor grow in the faith. That vow

involved her personal faith. I think it would be cool if every time we baptized an infant we took

a vow of social ethics. That during baptism we would take a vow to end poverty in the area.

Some people would argue that the role of the church is to be a charitable institution. We

deliver direct help to people who need it. They would argue that the work of justice is not a

ministry of the church. We Presbyterians don’t believe that at all. We believe that justice is part

of our calling. We are going to help people who are hurting. And we are going to do everything

in our power to remove the conditions that are causing their pain. That’s what people in the

Bible did. Think about all the people in the Bible who spoke out against injustice—Moses,

Miriam, Deborah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, and many others.

Speaking out on issues of justice can be controversial. Already we at Chain of Lakes

have shared ministries that some folks thought were controversial. Last fall we invited a Kashif

Saroya to talk about being a Muslim; I know that some people thought that a Christian church

shouldn’t invite a Muslim to speak. Last summer I spoke out strongly against the English only

politcy that was passed by the Lino Lakes City Council. I know that some people thought that I

should have kept my thoughts to myself. Working on issues of social justice are controversial.

When I served in Plainview we had a migrant council. It would not have happened

without the Presbyterian Church. We found out that migrants who came to work in the summer

were sleeping in their cars. We developed an organization that hired a social worker who
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provided resources to these migrants and encouraged them to stay in the community year round;

We had a Youth Center. The Youth Center would not have happened without the Presbyterian

Church. Plainview had a huge sports program through the school. Not every kid got connected

to sports. Over the course of four years we started a Youth Center where kids could hang out

after school. We also offered other programs for youth. We started a clergy exchange every

January. It would not have happened without the Presbyterian Church. We had a Sunday where

all the clergy would preach in a different church. Over the years I preached from every pulpit in

town except one. We offered on-site counseling resources. These resources would not have

happened without the Presbyterian church. We found out that many people did not go to

counseling because of the distance it took to get there. We contracted with a local agency to

bring counseling services to the community. Then our church hired a counselor on our staff and

offered the only faith-based counseling services in the area. We started a House of Hope

Ministry. The Presbyterian Church—one of the smaller churches in town—bought a residential

house next and turned it into a house where support groups based on the needs of the community

would meet. Because of the House of Hope two AA groups were started—alcoholics had a

chance to be part of a group who would help them on their daily challenge of staying sober.

The community is healthier when Presbyterian Churches exist.

Even in this age when denominations have lost their status. Let’s still cling to the

qualities that make us special.