Grace and Peace, Jerry Tankersley

2009 is the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birthday.  The World Reformed Churches are having many remembrances and celebrations.  Calvin was the leader of the Protestant Refomation in the Swiss canton in which Geneva was located.  The City of Geneva  has had great influence upon the larger world. Certainly, one of its chief persons was John Calvin, the French lawyer and theologian whose writings shaped the intellectual life and piety of the western world.  

I remember my first visit to Geneva in 1969. As it happened Pope Paul VI was visiting Geneva at the same time.  A pope had not visited the city since before the 16th century Refomation.  It was a historic visit.  I was glad to be there and at least to watch the outdoor mass in the public park via television.  My wife and I had just come from Rome and our first visit to St. Peter’s Basilica at the center of the Vatican.  Calvin’s church in Geneva was named St. Peter’s.  It is a beautiful small church compared to St. Peter’s in Rome.  It had been transformed into a lecture hall in which John Calvin daily taught the Word of God, the Scriptures, to his assembled congregation. Every vestige of Roman Catholicism had been stripped from the building.  After seeing St. Peter’s in Rome it was a let down for some one looking for great religious art.  Yet, the building had its own simple integrity and theological witness.  From there Calvin sought to transform Geneva into a holy commonwealth.  His passion for the the living Word, witnessed to by the Holy Spirit, through the written Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, was Calvin’s signature contribution.  With Martin Luther he stood upon the Word of God in the midst of a troubled Europe.  He could do no other.  What amazed me was that John Knox was pastoring an English speaking congregation of international refugees just across the square.  As a Presbyterian pastor I felt like I was at ground zero of my theological heritage.

During 2009 many are systematically reading Calvin’s Insitutues of the Christian Religion.  Five pages a day makes it possible to work through both large volumes in a year.  I have embraced this daily discipline.  I am finding it to be enriching for my spiritual formation and life in Christ. 

Calvin possessed an in-depth understanding of human nature and the human condition based upon the authority of the Bible.  In Book III. 7. 8.  he wrote,

“In seeking either the convenience or the tranquillity of the present life, Scripture calls us to resign ourselves and all our possessions to the Lord’s will, and to yield to him the desires of our hearts to be tamed and subjugated.” 

Why? because  humans are basically covetous and greedy.  We covet wealth, honors, authority,  and riches.  Our lust is mad and our desires are boundless.  On the other hand, we are motivated by the fear of falling into poverty and a lowly condition.  Therefore, we anxiously strive for prosperity and happiness.  Whatever the outcome, Calvin counseled,  the Christian disciple must deal with these desires and fears.  Self-denial and surrender to God’s providence and provision, Calvin argued, are the pathway to true spiritual happiness.  The believer comes to trust that God’s good purpose is at  work conforming us to the image of Christ.  God provides, not fortune!  So in prosperous or meager times the disciple trusts that God is good.  Out of this comes peace of mind and heart.

During the economic recession of 2009 Christian disciples are learning to trust God’s providence.  Perhaps it is a time of trial or testing that God is graciously using to shape our character so as to prepare us for the New Creation.  Calvin had to learn this over and over again during his long ministry in Geneva.  All was not always smooth.  There was suffering and testing.  He taught his congregation  to patiently endure and to faithfully live, whatever the circumstances.  Reformed Christians need very much to reconsider what Calvin teaches us of this biblical truth.   Peace to us all.

Dr. Jerry Tankersley

Over the years his parish became predominately Latino.  Now he finds himself as an Irish priest seeking to reconcile African Americans and Latinos who look with suspicion upon each other and who have even been at war.  So Father Banks seeks to build bridges for the sake of making peace, of deepening understanding, and of simply getting to known one another as members of the human race.

This is the challenge faced by the church in modern America.  We live in the context of many tribes, languages, nationalities, and cultures.  Continuing to live in our own camps with xenophophia  ruling our souls will lead to the building of higher walls of hostility, gang warfare, and loss of life.  Surely, there must be some way for us to find common ground, to come to know each other, and to spiritually connect with those who are different.

The mission of the early church was faced with exactly the same issues.  There were dividing walls of hostility between Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, male and female, slave and free.  The gospel tells us that Jesus broke down these dividing walls at the cross.  Through his blood God made peace and reconciled us.  Through Christ one new humanity came into being.  (Ephesians 2)  As in all centuries the church has still to live into the reconciliation established by Jesus. 

This is not easy.  There are many barriers both within and without.  Father Banks is a model of Christ’s reconciling work.  We could all learn from him, Catholic or Protestant. 

Jerry Tankersley

There have been various explanations of why this has occured.  Was it leadership failure?  Was it greed?  Was it government spending?  The list of possible explanations have expanded.  I do not know the answer.  I’m not sure that anyone does.  What seems to be true is that this is one of the most serious downturns the world economy has seen since the 1930′s.  Nevertheless, every century has seen the ups and downs of economic fluctuation. Always we have recovered.  That is my hope this time.

How do we cope?  Coping begins with acceptance.  This is what is!  Out of acceptance comes collective efforts to address problems.  Soon solutions emerge.  They may not be satisfying for everyone, but they represent the best thinking of leaders in a time and place.  Pulling together; praying together; giving together; serving together; dreaming together; determining together; and trusting together in the power of God to sustain us and to empower us are at the heart of coming through a time of testing.

Last November 2008 there was a national election.  Political leadership changed.  We elected our first African American President.  Many rejoiced; others grieved.  All of us should be praying that the new administration succeed in restoring not just the economy, but also demonstrate integrity in pulling our fragmented, diverse population together. 

Last summer 2008 we had a General Assembly in San Jose.  A number of proposals were passed and sent to the 173 presbyteries for majority confirmation.  The most publicized was the amendment to remove G.6.0106b from the Book of Order and to replace it with another paragraph.  As of last week, a majority of the voting presbyteries had rejected the amendment.  Many are disappointed.  Others are happy that we have maintained our ordinations standards.  Most are deeply frustrated and angry that the G.A. has repeatedly caused the presbyteries to vote on this issue with the same results.  Well, this is the way democracy  works.  It is always messy.  Somehow in the give and take of the years the truth has a way of prevailing and orthodoxy established and reaffirmed.  Spiritual maturity accepts and participates in an ever changing church and world that seeks to preserve the truth of the scriptures as they are illumined by the Holy Spirit in each time and place.

As Presbyterians we do not live in a perfect church.  We have a pluralism of truths vying for acceptance.  The church is reformed and always being reformed by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.  It took the early church nearly 500 years to hammer out the doctrine of the Trinity.  Who knows how long our debates will be when it comes to human sexual identity and behavior.  I believe that God intends human sexual behavior to occur within the covenant marriage between a man and a woman.  I believe this on the basis of biblical revelation and truth.  But I am not willing to separate from sisters and brothers who interpret the scriptures differently than me.    Somehow we must find the grace to keep loving this church for which Jesus died, even though it be so very conflicted and storm tossed.  I plead with you to pray for the Church of Jesus Christ in all of its contradictions and controversies.  God is yet sovereign and Jesus Christ is Lord.

I will continue to address this theme in weeks to come. 

Grace and Peace,

Dr. Jerry Tankersley

Dear friends,

The PCUSA has been on the way to the General Assembly in San Jose, California, for many years. In the 1960′s our church embraced the Confession of 1967 and added it to our Book of Confessions. That Confession was organized around the theme of reconciliation. You may remember that during the 1960′s our church and nation became very much aware of the need for reconciliation. Trapped behind the dividing walls of race, war, economic injustice, and sexual anarchy, we faced a world that lived with the constant pain or fear of injustice, self-destruction, and disease.

The good news was that God had taken the initiative in Jesus Christ to heal us and to bring us into the fellowship of love that was at the heart of the Holy One of Israel, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. Having made peace through the blood of Christ, God welcomed us into the spiritual fellowship of the people of God. The General Assembly of 2002 in Columbus, Ohio, chose as its theme, “Ambassadors of Christ”. The emphasis came from 2 Corinthians 5. I was grateful that I had the privilege of standing for Moderator of that G.A. with that message to proclaim and to seek to live within and through the church in its mission to the world.

Reconciliation is not a static idea. Rather, it is a spiritual dynamic into which we are daily called to live. It is not a passive state of being. Reconciliation is active work. Relationships are subject to stress, misunderstanding, failure, and sin. Each day we become more aware that we live in relationship with God and with others by the forgiveness of sins. Our life together is a gift of grace rooted in the character of God’s amazing grace revealed in Jesus Christ.

The PCUSA comes out of the San Jose Assembly with need for God’s reconciling love. As an observer or commissioner at a number of General Assemblies, I have not missed the fact that the meetings are political conventions, not unlike the United Nations, or some other national representative body. We Presbyterians believe in representative democracy. We like to witness to our convictions before the world in word and deed and in the process usually manage to anger a good part of the listening church. Often pastors return to their church’s after a G.A. wondering how much damage control will be required this year. By in large, the surrounding world takes little notice of our conflicts and must be somewhat amused by our efforts to impact it. More and more it seems we are seen as irrelevant to this post-modern, post-Christian, secular, materialistic, and sex-crazed world. Things have not change much since 1967.

The 218th Assembly in San Jose seemed more than ever a demonstration of the church’s political dysfunction. It was a political event in which one party came loaded for bear and determined to have its way on issues related to human sexuality, i.e., marriage, sexual relationships, and ordination standards. It was realized that a strategy for change would be required to eliminate the church’s historic positions.

It is clear to me that we Presbyterians have major problems with control. The need to have our party’s way, whether we are to the left or to the right on the theological spectrum witnesses to the mixture of the flesh and the spirit that eats at every human heart. I wish I could say it is different with me. I like to win. In this Assembly, my part of the church took a beating, and might have suffered a devastating lose if former Moderator Marj Carpenter had not pleaded with the Assembly not to endorse the redefinition of marriage. While the vote was heavily in the negative to that proposal, the debate on the floor indicated that the power players behind the scene knew they had the votes, but decided they had already done enough earlier in the day to blow the ark of the church out of the water.

The way from San Jose does not seem clear to me. It appears to me that we are living in two separate camps with very different world views when it comes to the issues that divide us now. I have worked hard to be a bridge builder and a peace maker. I do not intend to leave the table around which we all gather. Not one of us have earned the right to be at this table. It is Christ’s table and we are Christ’s church. Right now I am embarrassed by how we have treated one another in this family and profoundly troubled by how we now reflect the ways of a spiritually and morally confused culture and world.

It will take a while for us to heal and to try anew to come together. The fight will now move into all 172 presbyteries. Who knows how we will emerge. By the time the voting is over and the dust settles I pray that the PCUSA will still be representative of its many parts and fully engaged in the mission of Christ, to the glory of God.

Grace and Peace,
Dr. Jerry Tankersly

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1

In the fall of 1972 I arrived in Laguna Beach, California, to begin my work as pastor of the Community Presbyterian Church of Laguna Beach. A fellow pastor told me before I arrived that I would find a physical building and a small budget with which to build, but the work would primarily be new church development. On the books there were 950 members, but many of them had fallen into inactivity, moved away, or simply lost interest. The first year we removed 200 names from our membership roll and reduced the number to around 700. The budget for 1973 was $158 thousand, half of which was to come from the preschool income. The church owned a huge piece of property at the center of the city and it was in disrepair. Some utility bills had not been paid. To make matters more challenging, I was 35 and my wife was 31. We were the youngest members of the church, with the vast majority being over 70. I did not know whether I had come to build a church or to bury one. I soon realized the magnitude of the task. It was staggering!

As I analyzed the situation I came to the conviction that the first building I needed to do was of people. To do that we needed to develop a shared vision of what God desired for us to do at the center of Laguna Beach and ultimately to ever expanding circles of influence. There would be no chance of restoring the church facilities without a converted and transformed people who would supply the gifts and resources we would need.

I slowly accepted the truth that if the Lord did not build a dwelling place for himself at the center of Laguna Beach, that it would be humanly impossible for me to do it. Like King David in 2 Samuel 7, the word I received from the Lord was that he was going to build his own house. Like the Apostle Paul in Corinth, I began to more fully understand that I was simply a servant of the Lord, totally dependent upon God to do what only God can do. I was called, like Paul, Peter, and Apollos to be a faithful steward and servant of the good news of the gospel. (1 Corinthians 3 & 4) Repeatedly, I was drawn to the Apostle Paul’s description of himself and his work,

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 3:10-11)

For nearly 36 years I have labored together with other pastors and many gifted people to faithfully build upon this foundation laid by Raymond Brahams and Dallas Turner. I have developed great admiration for these two servants who pastored this congregation from 1925 to 1971. Without the labors, prayers, and giving of a multitude of committed Christian disciples we would not have inherited our mission, our people, our land, or our buildings.

The members of Laguna Presbyterian Church are about 700 in 2008. A number of years ago an expert in church development and redevelopment told me that the staff and lay leaders of LPC would need to work twice as hard as any other church in the Presbytery of Los Ranchos just to maintain. He identified the geography, the people, the culture, and the diversity of this south coast of Orange County as the reason. He reminded me that this was not the Bible Belt. He also affirmed me and said that if he could place me and our staff in a parish inland from Laguna Beach that we would build a large congregation. I confess, he took the wind out of my sails, but also helped me to focus on the work at hand, the coastal parish of our congregation.

I learned that it is the pastor’s calling to hold the vision of the congregation on behalf of the people and to use every opportunity to interpret it. To this end we have engaged in mission studies every five years to make sure that we stayed on track with where God was leading us. Our vision has been to build the people of God into the temple of God.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you. God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

To the church in Ephesus, Paul wrote, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” (Ephesians 2:19-22)

The Apostle Peter issued this invitation,

“Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:4-9)

So here we are at the corner of 2nd and Forest Ave. in downtown Laguna Beach, Ca. in 2008. How time flies when one is busy with meaningful work and love! Our operating budget is nearly $2 million per year. We have worked to disciple hundreds of adults, youth, and children. Our mission outreach extends around the world. And at long last we have developed the courage to face the foundational needs of our land and buildings. They represent our mission base. They are the buildings and grounds upon which and in which the living temple of God gathers to worship the Lord, to be taught the Bible, to join in fellowship, and to be trained for mission outreach in Laguna Beach and to the ends of the earth. What would our city be like without the presence of LPC at the center? What would the implications be for the work of God’s kingdom?

Four years ago we began to study the needs of our buildings and to develop a master plan for their restoration and rebuilding. At first we believed the sanctuary only needed cosmetic work. Then we faced the truth. Our beloved and beautiful house of God, in which the living stones of God’s temple have worshiped since 1928, needed major fixing. This means a new foundation, new steel, new sealing from water, a new roof, a new bell tower, a new infra-structure for electricity, lights, heating, cooling, sound, pews, etc. Our task force has progressively labored with awe at what we discovered and what this is going to cost to establish LPC at the center of this needy city for the next 100 years.

It is going to cost somewhere between 10 and 12 million dollars to do what must be done for us to save and to preserve our sanctuary building. I decided some time ago to take this journey with this congregation and to not pass on to the next generation of pastoral leadership a building that was uninhabitable and inadequate for the worship needs of a new generation. I see this building upon the foundation of Jesus Christ as one of the defining moments of LPC’s history. The children, youth, and adult members of LPC of the 21st century will look back and celebrate our generations stepping up to the challenge for their sake.

But it is not just for the sake of the next generation that we act. We build and give in obedience to the claims of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is no accident that we have come to this moment. The Spirit of Jesus desires to dwell at the center of our city in the hearts of the living stones of the temple of God. This house of God is made up of people whose life together is symbolized by the sanctuary building in which they worship the living God. Here God dwells among us. What this means is that our building together is a sacred obligation of Christian discipleship in obedience to the Lord to whom we belong.

I believe that before 2008 is finished we will have received approximately $5 million toward our goal. That leaves a goal of $7 million. The greater challenge is that we need to receive the additional $7 million over the next year and a half. If we do not, the interest payments on our line of credit for $7 million will so stress our operating budget that our entire local program and mission could be compromised and severely weakened. We do not want this to happen!

I invite you to open our church website at www.lagunapreschurch.org and to see the Open Door restoration pictures. They reveal the magnitude of this project and its necessity. Each time I look at those pictures of the deconstruction of our sanctuary for the sake of its reconstruction, I think of Jesus’ words in Luke 14:

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” Luke 14:27-35

This is our vision and our challenge. We will need the gifts of members and non-members to make this happen. We do not know from where the resources will come. Both large and small gifts will be important. I believe that there are persons in our community who have been ministered to at a wedding, a memorial service, or counseling, or through worship, who if they were moved by the Spirit, could make a major gift of $1 million +. Could it be that you are that person, family, estate, foundation, or corporation? To meet our goal it will take equal sacrifice by every one, rich or poor. Let me ask you to ask yourself the question of how important it is for the south coast of Orange County to have a lighthouse of God’s love, truth, and justice at its center?

I would love to have the privilege of visiting with you about this challenge and to explore how you might be the answer to the call of Jesus Christ.

Grace and Peace,
Dr. Jerry Tankersley

We travel to Israel/Palestine with the awareness of this troubled past, with a longing for peace and justice, and with not a little hope that this promised land may fulfill the prophets vision of a day when the instruments of warfare are beaten into plowshares and pruning hooks.

This will be the fifth time I have taken a group of people to the Holy Land. The geography and the history are worth the trip in itself. But what makes this land special to me is that it was in this small place that the spiritual journey of humanity had its origin. Patriarchs and matriarchs, judges, prophets, visionaries, and a pilgrim people gave hope to the promise that they had received from the Creator God. The dusty roads of this land were marked by the footprints of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah/Son of God, the Savior and Lord of the cosmos. It is Israel’s story, Jesus’ story, and the church’s story that draws me back to this distant land.

Indeed, the hopes and fears of all the years are still centered in Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity. But that church points north to the walls of the old city outside of which Jesus died for the sins of humanity in order to heal us of our sins, to reconcile us to God and to one another. This was the place where the old and the new creation kissed. This was the city in which the new humanity had its beginning in the Spirit of the Crucified God.

To experience a brief glimpse of this meaning and this reality is worth the cost, the preparation, and long flight to see and to hear the good news in a new way. This year Jerusalem! Jerry Tankersley

Even in the deconstruction phase, the inside of the sanctuary is beautiful.  I love the light and shadows of the pictures.  They have been taken by Rick Lang, our member photographer.  We hope to have the project completed by Easter 2009.  The outside and inside of the building will look much the same as before, except with the infrastructure redone, with light, sound, and liturgical integrity renewed and reformed.  We are all so grateful to those who have given to make this possible. 

This preservation work is very expensive, but for the sake of preserving and saving our sanctuary for the future mission of our church, we have develped the plan over the past five years, received all the approvals we have needed and are moving forward.  If you would like to help us do this, please send a contribution to Laguna Presbyterian Church, Open Door fund.

Happy New Year, Jerry Tankersley

Some of the secrets of longevity must be genetic, but most of it has to do with developing a spirituality that  informs and inspires one’s life.  God is good.  I only wish that I had learned to trust God more fully with all the details of my life.  Loving the God revealed in the Bible and especially in the person Jesus of Nazarath has made all the difference.  Knowing that we are loved and that the Creator has a plan for our lives that is a part of the cosmic plan allows one to relax, to live more and more without anxiety about past, present, or future.  About the time I think my faith is strong I find myself in a new time of testing with worry, anxiety, and fear haunting my soul.  So each day I find it neccessary to bring myself to attention before God, to listen to God’s Word, to pray the psalms, and to surrender in faith to the One who loves me beyond my comprehension.

I hope you will appreciate some of my ruminations on the issues that matter to me.  God Bless!