Never "Just" an Elder

One of the features of Presbyterianism that may seem strange to Christians of other traditions is that the highest official in our denomination is not necessarily a Minister of the Word and Sacrament. Sometimes that person is an Elder.

That's who we have right now, as our General Assembly Moderator. Cynthia Bolbach, an Elder from National Capital Presbytery, was elected by last summer's General Assembly to serve until the next meeting of the Assembly, in the summer of 2012.

And a great job she's doing, too!

One of the things Cindy's been doing, during her time of moderatorial service, is writing an occasional column on the denominational website. In a recent posting, she spoke of a certain sense of inferioriy some elders feel, compared to ministers.

"I’m just an elder,” some may say. Often, this is in response to a request to do something, something ministers very often do themselves - like preaching or hospital visitation.

Listen to what Cindy says:

"Our Presbyterian polity doesn’t recognize the statement, 'I’m just an elder.' In our polity, ruling elders and teaching elders (also known as Ministers of the Word and Sacrament) share equally in the governance and spiritual leadership of the church. Our calls to ministry encompass different functions and tasks, but we are called equally to ministry and to leadership in the church.

For too long the ministry of ruling elder has been diminished, equated with serving on a non-profit board of directors. Yes, the session does perform tasks like hiring nursery attendants and deciding whether the amount of insurance coverage is adequate. But that is not the primary task of the session or of the ruling elders who serve on it."

She's right about that, I'm convinced. Here, we've got a wonderful office of spiritual leadership to which church members can aspire, an office that even requires ordination, and we've managed to let it degenerate into something little more demanding than, say, P.T.A. membership. (I've got nothing against the P.T.A.; they do good work. It's just that eldership is meant to be so much more).

Our Moderator goes on to say:

"Ruling elders have the awesome task of measuring our community of faith’s fidelity to the Word of God. As the proposed new Form of Government puts it, 'Ruling elders, together with teaching elders, exercise leadership, government, spiritual discernment, and discipline and have responsibilities for the life of a congregation as well as the whole church, including ecumenical relationships' (G-2.0301)."

That phrase, "measuring out," is significant. It gets at the true meaning of the word "ruling," as in "ruling elder."

Most people, when they hear the adjective "ruling," think governance. They think power. They think decision-making. They think something like what former President George W. Bush meant when he adopted for himself the label, "The Decider." Ruling elders are the church's deciders, right?

Wrong. True, sessions (comprised mostly of elders) do, in fact, make a lot of decisions in their meetings. But that's not the point the good old Presbyterian word "ruling" is trying to get across.

It's a bit of an archaic meaning, but - as Cindy accurately points out, but doesn't really explain - it's the sort of ruling a ruler (the measuring-stick, not the monarch) does. The job of elders is to lay their spiritual judgment up against some aspect of the church or other, and try to measure out what God may be doing there.

Ruling elders really do what they're meant to do when, individually or together, they...

- discern that a particular church member may need some special, caring attention from the church leadership;

- identify an area of need in the community that the church ought to be addressing;

- assess the budding faith of a Confirmation Class member they're examining;

- explore the question of whether offering worship in a new musical style, or in a new setting, may be just the thing for involving more young people;

- pray with a newly widowed person, serving as a sounding-board as he or she tries to figure out what's next;

- and, the list could go on and on.

The point is, all of these involve that measuring function, which could perhaps better be described as spiritual discernment.

Maybe elders aren't so much "the deciders" as "the discerners." I say Amen to that!

View from South of the Border

In an excerpt from a blog posting, below, a PC(USA) woman minister tells of an oddly troubling experience she had. She was visiting a Mexican presbytery meeting for the day, at which a guest speaker from the Presbyterian Church of America made an hour-long presentation on why women should not be ordained to the ministry.

I don't expect that everyone reading this will draw the same theological conclusions she does, with respect to the current debate in our denomination about the ordination of GLBT people. I do think it's worthwhile, though, to reflect on the feelings she so eloquently puts into words:

"Unfortunately my Spanish is good enough that I caught pretty much all of the presentation, about how the speaker did not hate women – 'I love my wife and my daughters' – but that he was simply trying to obey the Bible, which 'clearly states that there are different roles for men and for women' and that was all he was asking of the men gathered....

But what struck me almost immediately and stayed with me throughout the duration of his presentation was how much it reminded me of something I had heard recently in my own presbytery, only there it was the ‘Biblical case against the ordination of homosexuals’ rather than the ‘Biblical case against the ordination of women.’ As I sat in that Baja church (called 'Dios es Amor' or 'God is Love') listening, I couldn’t help but feel that I was in some sort of odd time/space warp between their presbytery meeting and my own recent presbytery meeting.

During that February gathering in Los Ranchos, Richard Mouw, who has had a key role as a reconciler between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ in the ongoing debate/conversation regarding homosexuality, similarly made the point that he was not against homosexuals – 'I love homosexuals' – but that, at the end of the day, he had to be true to Scripture which makes the clear case against the ordination of homosexuals.

He spoke of his desire not to put down gay people or to hate them, but the greater conviction to uphold the authority of the Scripture. It was almost apologetic, in the 'I’m sorry' kind of way, as in 'I’m really sorry I have to believe this, but I just can’t do anything else and be true to who I am, who God is, and who God calls me to be'....

But sitting in that Baja church, listening, in Spanish, to an hour long presentation of why I, as a woman, was unworthy to be called by God as a minister, what I was struck by, in addition to how similar these arguments seemed to those used regarding ordination of homosexuals, was how painful it was to be the subject and focus of that argument being discussed around me....

In the distance, beyond the variety of dwelling structures, one can see the ‘border fence’ between the US and Mexico, cutting its path through the hills. One of the Mexican pastors saw me looking at it and said 'Otro lado esta muy cerca pero muy lejo' – more or less, 'the other side is so close and yet so far.'

The other side is so close, but yet so far....

The morning’s debate really had nothing directly to do with me, and yet it was still painful and uncomfortable to be, in a sense, its focus. As I was driving through the hills of northern Baja, along the Blvd 2000, I picked up my phone (while using my headset, of course) and called a gay minister friend of mine, apologizing to her for not really ever realizing how much she had to sit through as other people discussed whether or not God might call someone like her."

In these tender times, may we take to heart these words from The Presbyterian Hymnal:

Help us accept each other
As Christ accepted us;
Teach us as sister, brother,
Each person to embrace.
Be present, Lord, among us
And bring us to believe
We are ourselves accepted
And meant to love and live.

Doomsday? Not Likely

This item is a bit far afield from what I usually post here, but with the thought that it may be of general interest, I'm sending it along.

The other day, Christine Scheller, a reporter from Jersey Shore Patch, an online local news site, asked me to comment on the current news story about Family Radio owner Harold Camping's prediction that Jesus Christ will return this Saturday. Here's what I sent to her, some of which she excerpts in her article:

*****

When Jesus’ own disciples ask him to slip them some insider information on when he will return, his first response is to sternly warn them about false prophets who traffic in just that sort of hot tip: “Beware that no one leads you astray” (Matthew 24:4). Rather astoundingly to our ears, Jesus goes on to admit that not even he is privy to that information (“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” - v. 36).

In light of Jesus’ firm and unequivocal instruction to lay off the end-times prognosticating, it continues to amaze me how many Christian leaders down through the centuries cave in to the temptation to do precisely that.

Harold Camping is but one in a long line of hopeful aspirants to the position of person-who-knows-more-than-Jesus-and-the-angels. He’s a civil engineer and religious-broadcasting entrepreneur who’s lacking any formal theological training. In recent years, Mr. Camping has distanced himself from any denominational affiliation, which means he’s also shed all accountability to any religious authority larger than himself, who might restrain his wild imaginings.

A self-taught Bible “expert,” Mr. Camping specializes in the obscure interpretative method known as numerology – a field without standards or discipline, that sets aside the main message of the scriptures to concentrate on otherwise-insignificant peripheral details, such as numbers. It’s rather like throwing away the popsicle to chew on the stick. Did God inspire ancient authors of scripture to embed within their message a nearly-invisible trail of numerical breadcrumbs, for the sole purpose of warning people yet unborn – and who wouldn’t be born for thousands of years – that Jesus is coming soon? What sort of God would do that, anyway: burying the good news of salvation, instead of proclaiming it (as Jesus himself instructs his disciples to do)?

We’ve seen false prophets like Mr. Camping before. Christian history is rife with sad stories of magnetic but narcissistic personalities, who gather a crowd of hopeful believers around themselves to await the Lord’s coming. It always ends badly. When the sun rises not only on the appointed day, but on the following day as well, their followers shrink away in embarrassment. Mr. Camping can deploy some additional marketing assets that would have been the envy of his predecessors in the questionable trade of end-time prediction: a chain of radio stations and plenty of cash to rent billboards. How else could he continue to command headlines, when this is in fact not the first, but the second time he has attempted such a stunt (he last predicted Christ would return in September, 1994)?

Could Mr. Camping be right in seeing the 21st of May as the day of Jesus Christ’s return? Of course he could. Jesus says no one knows the day or the hour. If I claimed to know otherwise, I’d be just as guilty of narcissism as he.

I prefer to take my stand with Martin Luther. When asked by a student what he would do, were he to learn the world was going to end the next day, the great Reformer and Bible scholar is said to have replied with a smile: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

*****

The PCUS General Assembly (the Southern Presbyterian church that reunited with us Yankees to form the PCUSA in 1983) adopted a study paper on eschatology (the doctrine of the last things) in 1978. It's a great resource, for anyone who'd like to delve deeper into this subject.

This statement, one of 12 "Theses" on eschatology included on the paper, pretty well sums up the Presbyterian take on attempts to predict the date of Christ's return:

"Following the Westminster Standards, we insist that God holds the time of the Consummation unknown in order to preserve in us a sense of immediacy and urgent watchfulness, and we refuse to tame that hope into a set of speculative predictions."

So, let's not "tame our hope." I like that turn of phrase.

Disorganized Religion?

Somebody sent me a link to a web page today that includes a snappy comeback to that comment we've all heard umpteen times: "I don't believe in organized religion." It's written from the Roman Catholic perspective, but it could easily be adapted to the Presbyterian Church:

***

"I'm very spiritual. But I'm not comfortable with 'organized' religion."

Ever heard this gem? I've been listening to it for decades. It's pretty incoherent, but—inexplicably—it sends religious people into a hasty, blushing retreat. That should never be the case.

Here's my smiling response: "Yes, well, I like organized religion. I'm a Catholic. And the Catholic church is so organized that we advocate for, educate, clothe, house, rescue, and heal more people worldwide than any other single organization on earth. You have to be organized to do that."

***

Ever take a look at some of the things Presbyterian Disaster Assistance does in tornado and flood relief? Or Church World Service, helping sustain the millions around the world who live in refugee camps?

Guess what, folks? That's ORGANIZED RELIGION that does that.

I suppose another way of putting it would be... "Oh, is that so? Do you think you'd still feel that way if you were a Haitian earthquake victim, waiting for a shipment of Church World Service food and medicine?"

Sometimes we Presbyterians sell ourselves short. The mission work we accomplish together, through organized religion, is pretty awesome.

Carl

Ordination Standards Have Changed

It's official. A news bulletin from the Office of the General Assembly reports:

"It appears that a majority of the 173 presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have approved a change in PC(USA) ordination standards.

At its meeting on Tuesday, May 10, 2011, the Presbytery of Twin Cities Area became the 87th presbytery to approve an amendment that will remove the constitutional requirement that all ministers, elders, and deacons live in 'fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness' (G-6.0106b in the church’s Book of Order)."

Those who read the new constitutional language carefully will discover it's really an affirmation of the historic freedom of local congregations (in the case of deacons and elders) and presbyteries (in the case of ministers) to seek to discern God's will as they choose their own leaders.

Now we'll see if the media is capable of reporting that nuance.

Hold onto the FAQ list related to this issue, that I posted in the previous blog entry. It just may come in handy.

We may be in for a rough ride. Or not. Some in the church will be predictably outraged by this decision, while others - especially a large majority of the younger generation of Presbyterians - will likely say: "What's the big deal? We just hope the church is finally done fighting over this change, which just seems like common sense to us."

Here's the perspective of the General Assembly Moderator, Elder Cynthia Bolbach:



Wherever on the theological spectrum readers of this blog may find themselves, let's all pray for the peace, unity and purity of the church. The prayer offered by our denominational leadership in their pastoral letter (cited in the OGA's article) puts it beautifully:

Almighty God, we give thanks for a rich heritage of faithful witnesses to the gospel throughout the ages. We offer gratitude not only for those who have gone before us, but for General Assembly commissioners and presbyters across the church who have sought diligently to discern the mind of Christ for the church in every time and place, and especially in this present time.

May your Spirit of peace be present with us in difficult decisions, especially where relationships are strained and the future is unclear. Open our ears and our hearts to listen to and hear those with whom we differ. Most of all, we give thanks for Jesus Christ, our risen Savior and Lord, who called the Church into being and who continues to call us to follow his example of loving our neighbor and working for the reconciliation of the world. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

FAQ - Change in Ordination Standards

Recently I came upon a FAQ list for the proposed new language of the church's ordination standards, developed by another presbytery. Because 80 of the required 87 presbyteries have already approved the new G-6.0106b, it now appears likely that the new language will become a part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Constitution. With a few minor adaptations, I'm presenting the FAQs here:

Frequently Asked Questions
The Change in Ordination Standards of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

1. How is the change in ordination standards happening?
It appears likely that a majority of the 173 presbyteries will approve the change in language for ordination standards recommended by The General Assembly in 2010. In all, since the General Assembly met, 55% of the total number of ministers and elder commissioners voting in presbyteries have voted to approve the amendment.

2. What does the change in ordination standards mean?
The ordination standards have changed from “to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness” - wording that was added to the Constitution in 1997 - to: “to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life.” This removes a national standard categorically prohibiting the ordination of persons in sexual relationships outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

3. What does the change in ordination standards represent?
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has shifted the authority for applying its ordination standards from the national level to the local presbytery and session level. This represents a decentralization of the church and puts more discernment in the hands of people at the local level.

4. May congregations now ordain people who are openly gay?
The previous standards were never based on a person’s orientation, but on his or her behavior. The new standards do not list specific behaviors that automatically exclude someone for consideration for ordination. Each examining body is responsible to look at all possible factors to determine if someone is being called into ordained ministry.

5. Specifically, what was changed?
The primary change is the removal of language requiring those ordained “to live either in fidelity in the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.” It also adds language referring to obedience to Christ, and indicates that fidelity to church standards is judged case-by-case by the examining body.

6. What practical changes will we see?
As ministers, elders and deacons move to another location, and are examined by the new presbytery or session, that body may choose to apply ordination standards differently than the officer’s previous governing body. In that event, such a person could be prevented from being installed.

7. Is the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians mandated?
No, it is not required, but it is no longer prohibited by specific Constitutional language.

8. Will a congregation be required to change anything?
A congregation cannot be forced to ordain or receive pastors or elders or deacons of whom they do not approve. The congregation retains the right to determine who will serve as officers.

9. May a congregation continue to consider sexual activity outside marriage between a man and a woman as impermissible for its officers?
Yes, as long as the application is on a case-by-case basis. The authority for ordaining elders and deacons is fully vested in the local congregation. The new language calls the ordaining body to be guided by Scripture and the Confessions in applying ordination standards to individual candidates.

10. May a congregation or presbytery now ordain or install a sexually active homosexual?
Yes, if after a thorough examination, the congregation or presbytery believes the person to be called by God to serve as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament, elder or deacon and not to be living in violation of the PCUSA's ordination standards, its Confessions, or Scripture.

11. Does the new language give candidates who are sexually active outside the covenant of marriage between a woman and a man the “right” to be ordained?
Nobody has a “right” to be ordained. Ordination is based on a sense of God’s call as confirmed by the ordaining body.

12. May a presbytery continue to function with the standard of “fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness” when examining candidates for ordination?
Yes, as long as the application is on a case-by-case basis. The new language calls the ordaining body to be guided by Scripture and the Confessions in applying ordination standards to each candidate.

13. Is a presbytery required to receive, by transfer of membership, an ordained sexually active gay or lesbian minister?
No, each presbytery retains its existing right to examination, by which it determines which ministers to receive into its membership.

14. May questions about a candidate’s sexuality be asked or are such questions forbidden?
All questions are allowed during an examination. The acknowledgment of being sexually active outside the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman does not automatically disqualify a person from being ordained.

15. Is a congregation required to call a pastor who is openly gay or lesbian?
No.

For further discussion of these or any other questions, please call Interim Executive Presbyter Eric Springsted, or Stated Clerk Carl Wilton, who will be glad to speak with you.

Proposed new text of G-6.0106b:

Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000). The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G.14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003). Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.

Original text of G-6.0106b:

Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and 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 (W-4.9001), 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.

Remembering the Rev. Omar Maren Turcaz

In our worship service at the March Presbytery meeting, we prayed for the family and friends of the Rev. Omar Maren Turcaz, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Santa Clara, Cuba, who died recently in a tragic automobile accident. He was personally known to members of our Cuba Partnership Group, who had visited with him during recent trips to Cuba.

Omar Maren was one of the rising young leaders of the Presbyterian and Reformed Church of Cuba, and will be sorely missed.

Here are two personal reflections on his life: the first from a colleague, Professor Carlos Molina Rodgriguez, and the second by the former Chair of our Cuba Partnership Group, the Rev. Shannan Vance-Ocampo (now Pastor of the Watchung Avenue Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth Presbytery).

Thanks to John Walter of Baltimore Presbytery for translating and posting the first item. John maintains a very informative website on his presbytery's Cuba partnership, which is of great interest to all presbyteries with similar partnerships.

OMAR MAREN: THE INTENSITY OF A LIFE
Written by Carlos Molina Rodgriguez
Matanzas, Cuba
March 25, 2011
Translation by John Walter

To Omar Maren, in memory of his life.

"Death opened its wings too early."
- Miguel Hernandez

Ultimately, the month of March has been a painful date for Cuban Presbyterians, and by extension, for the entire church on the island. A year ago on Thursday, March 11, 2010, Isaac Jorge Oropesa, the illustrious and famous teacher died. This year March has carried away one of his dearest disciples, Omar Marén, a natural leader and renowned pastor. His life, consecrated to active leadership in his church in recent years, was inexplicably cut short when it had scarcely borne its first fruits. His sudden death has filled many with dismay both inside and outside Cuba. For years - perhaps decades - the affairs of a young leader didn’t stir the Cuban Church a great deal. Chance has willed that his death take place with circumstances similar to those of Jacobo Reyes, also a young leader and President of the National Union of Christian, who passed away as a result of a tragic accident on the 28th of July, 1935 in the densely populated area of Matanzas called Coliseo.

Born in Guantanamo on the 30th of October 1976, [Omar] moved at an early age with his family to Havana, where he grew up and studied telecommunications engineering at Jose Antonio Echeverria University Center – but he didn’t graduate. Then still in his youth, he came into contact with Presbyterianism; and in the year 2000, as the Presbyterian Youth of Cuba (JUPRECU) was reviving, he was nominated for the presidency of the National Executive Committee. The following year he entered the Evangelical Seminary in Matanzas (SET), where in 2004 he was awarded a degree in theology. On June 25, 2005, he was ordained as Presbyter, and on that same date was installed as pastor in the Presbyterian Church in Santa Clara. During his brief and concentrated ministry he discharged, among other responsibilities, President of the Commission on Ecumenical Policy of the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Cuba (IPRC); member of the General Council; President of the Directing Committee for the National Presbyterian Camp (CANIP); and Executive Secretary of El Centro Presbytery. Therefore, It’s clear that both his denominational leadership and contributions in the ecumenical sphere are irrefutable. At heart, the success of his prolific ministry consisted in knowing how to combine the best of the reformed tradition with the noble lineage of his church, anchored by such exemplary igures as: Evaristo Collazo, Ezequiel Torres, Ferrerol J. Gomez, Edelmira Cuesta, Francisco Garcia, Alfonzo Rodriguez Hidalgo, Carlos Camps Sierra, Elsa Hernandez as well as others. All of them, through their enduring efforts and constancy, dreamed of and succeeded building a better church.

I met Omar in mid 1998 on the campus of the First Presbyterian Church of Havana. Since then, and up to the time of his death, we maintained an affectionate but not intimate relationship characterized by hopes and dreams, doubts and uncertainties, silences and marked distance. As I appeal to memory, an image of that young man whose intense gaze and unfounded haste - someone who was always disposed to blurt out a guffaw - pops up. I seem to see him arriving at Master Isaac’s office all sweaty, or talking with Hector Mendez, his pastor, or gently placing in my hands the most recent issue of Palabra Nueva (New Word, Roman Catholic magazine). Years later we were classmates in the halls of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas. There, sharing our books, we grew closer in our passion for historical subjects and were united by our devotion to Rafael Cepeda. As a prerequisite for graduation, Omar later wrote an investigative essay about this great man of the church.

Omar impressed me because of his perspicacity and maturity. He was notably more ambitious and resolved than some of the contemporary pastors; and with his determination and creative mentality, he achieved much of what he proposed; however, he was never the archetype of ambition in the church today. I was impressed by his critical thinking, his nonconformity with Cuba’s present state, and the force of his most intimate convictions. For such reasons I alerted him to the ever present danger that hangs over our generation: To repeat the errors of those who preceded us, making concessions in exchange for privileges, and to be accommodating of civil and ecclesiastic power for a handful of promises.

Since the beginning of our relationship I continued both directly and indirectly following the evolution of his ministry. I found him doing about as I had expected: In our own way each of us was suffering the stings of criticisms and reproaches. Through that we became conscious that that is the price paid when one is not indifferent, when one does not live in perennial self-censorship. I was also impressed that , together with the immediacy of his exertion, hat at times his thirst for knowledge, his eagerness to stay informed, and his unlimited capacity to struggle impeded him rom reviewing his pastorate (obra). For such reasons, if it was within my power, I would always delightedly share books and ideas with him.

On occasion I remember expressing to him that it made me uncomfortable that some of our colleagues told lies to obtain truths. We also spoke with bewilderment about Cuba and the church: that they shared aspects of the Yoruba fable in the film Guantanamera “No one dies, the old don’t yield control and the young are being asphyxiated.” He always laughed loudly, spitting out a harangue that I should not and care not to repeat here. On the other hand I have a grateful memory of him which I will carry as long as I’m alive: In these last years Omar knew how to be my family’s selfless and conscientious pastor, whose love and understanding was always evident during the best and worst of times. With his pastorate the church In Santa Clara experienced a renaissance, beginning a new epoch with its spirits renewed. It will be difficult [for the church] to accept his absence; far easier [for us] to remember him.

In these bitter days, those who knew him will remember him as an intimate and courageous friend. Surely we will hold him in our hearts for both his wise deeds as well as for his errors; for his childish capacity for astonishment; for his passing bouts of arrogance; for his sense of ease and contagious laugh, and also for his occasional inappropriate manners. We may not be able to understand this last incident for a long time; we will continue thinking he was simply up to his old tricks and we will be able to console ourselves. Above all, because there still remains so much to do, and because f and despite his death, life will continue, even for him.

- Carlos R. Molina Rodríguez (Santa Clara, Cuba, 1976) is a professor of Church History at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas. His investigatory and editorial activities have centered in historical themes of Cuban Protestantism, especially in missionary work, ecumenical t Theological education, and Protestant thought of the Twentieth Century.

____________________________________________________________________

A PERSONAL REFLECTION
by the Rev. Shannan Vance-Ocampo

The Reverend Omar Maren Turcaz was the Pastor of the Santa Clara Presbyterian Church in Santa Clara, Cuba, right in the middle of the Central Presbytery. Omar was a deeply dedicated, faithful, and fun-loving servant of Jesus Christ and of the Cuban people. He transformed the ministry of the Santa Clara church, developing innovative partnerships with congregations outside of Cuba to help fund the much needed ministries of the local church he served. In Cuba, the oldest members of the Cuban society are among the most impoverished, oftentimes living alone, without family to help them. Many of the elderly in Cuba struggle to maintain basic dignities and services in their homes, and so congregations in Cuba developed "laundry ministries" where they would go to the homes of elderly members of their communities, pick up their laundry, take it to their churches, wash their clothes and return it to them clean and folded, without charge. Omar's congregation had a large and vibrant laundry ministry. The Santa Clara church also has a feeding ministry, a strong presence with the children and youth of its community, and under Omar's leadership was able to expand and grow the physical plant to meet the needs of its growing community. Right in the heart of downtown Santa Clara the church stands as a testimony to the inventiveness of the ministry of Omar, and to the resilience of the Cuban people and their faithful following of the leading of God's Spirit. Thanks to Omar the church was growing, thriving, and offering ministry that touched the lives of the people around it, offering to them the Good News of Jesus Christ where it intersected with their deepest held needs, both physical and spiritual. Omar was one of the best Pastors I have ever encountered.

Omar was only 34 years old, and he was one of the most driven leaders of the church I have ever met. He developed a website for his congregation, to tell its story to the world, even when it was dangerous in Cuba to do so. He was a leader in his Presbytery and church, serving as Moderator. I will never forget a moment nearly three years ago sitting in a room with Omar, other leaders of the church in Cuba, and US partners as we had conversations with some members of the Cuban government. Omar was unflinching in challenging his government and their policies that were hurting the people he served, advocating for their basic needs. I remember sitting in the room listening to his testimony, awestruck by his bravery and prophetic words, and humbled by his dedication with his life to the ministry to which he was called. I am honored that I knew Omar, that I was blessed enough to see his ministry, it has always encouraged me. I am so sad I never got to see him again. We were just a few months apart in age, I feel his loss profoundly. The Cuban church struggles deeply to retain young, innovative, and strong pastoral leadership. The Central Presbytery has suffered a number of these losses over the years, stressing it. The loss of Omar is unimaginable for this Presbytery and their important ministry.

The Cuban church has lost one of its most important leaders, one of its most gifted pastors. May we in these times surround the church with our solidarity and our prayers. May we especially pray for his family, his collegues in ministry who feel his loss in the deepest of ways.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord says the Spirit. They rest from their labors, and their works follow them."

- The Rev. Shannan Vance-Ocampo