Ordination Council

Many of you are already aware that the church undertook the process of ordaining me to the ministry during June. The council of pastors that examined me occurred on the 19th and the ceremony itself on the 29th. The council lasted over three hours, at times grueling and pointed in the questions, and at times even a little passionate in the debate. These sorts of councils are supposed to be like this after a fashion, to test the mettle of the person being examined. While I admit that I have no problem with the debate itself there was one aspect of the discussion that I feel the need to address here briefly. The focus of much of the discussion that night was Ecumenism (church unity) as it relates to the Catholic Church. Most reasonable Protestants have little difficulty feeling Christian brotherhood toward a Methodist or a Reformed Christian, but we tend to get a little nervous when it comes to Orthodox or Catholic Christians. The phrase that was brought up during the council was, “unity for unity’s sake”. I would certainly not advocate that we claim brotherhood for its own sake, far from it. I actually feel compelled to foster Christian brotherhood because of the repeated teachings of Scripture (John 17:20-23 for one) in spite of all of the difficulties of the past and in spite of the ongoing doctrinal difficulties we have. If we fail to achieve Christian brotherhood (and history shows we’ve done poorly), it is certainly not the fault of our Lord or his Church, it must be that we are to blame because the foolishness and sinfulness of Christians has allowed us to become this divided. I’m not saying that we should seek total unity, we still have a lot of things to discuss (and we may never achieve the unity the church had prior to the East-West split in 1054), but we certainly need to start NOW with the attitude and the love that should be there. Let love come first so that we do not sin by denouncing someone whom God calls his own child. (Doctrinal divides do not have to equal hatred, we can still show the world the love we have for our brothers and sisters in the Lord especially when we disagree about important things. What a Gospel witness that is!)
I want to end with a word of thanks to those who participated in the council and the ceremony, especially the help that my wife Nicole was to me and the words she spoke from the heart on both occasions. It was amazing for me to have my family, my old church family from Galilee, and my new church family from Palo all there at the same time. I love you all and appreciate so much the support you’ve given me as I strive to make the most of the ministry opportunity that God has placed before me at the First Baptist Church of Palo. Thank you.