Today in the Mission Yearbook - A wily serpent and God in three persons lay out the Genesis story of sin and banishment during Synod School

The attendees are also serenaded by the music many grew up to

September 28, 2023

Synod School musicians rehearse Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On.” 

(Photo by Mike Ferguson)

“Hey,” a middle school improv class member playing the serpent in the Genesis 3 account told the Garden of Eden’s first female inhabitant during Synod School worship, “I see you’re interested in that tree over there.”

The serpent soon struck up a conversation with the woman who would soon be called Eve, and eventually a trio of players portraying the members of the trinity banished the woman and man from the Garden.

“That was painful,” the trinity declared together.

Evening worship at the 69th Annual Synod School, held each summer at Buena Vista University by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, took a more creative turn each day. One day, the excellent Synod School band delivered a pair of stellar renditions of Baby Boomer favorites: The Beatles’ “Let It Be” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On.”

“It starts here, at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” said Synod School preacher the Rev. DeEtte Decker, communications director for the Presbyterian Mission Agency, her hand on the tree on stage at Schaller Memorial Chapel. The two are clearly told: “This tree is off limits, and if you eat from this tree, you will surely die.”

Although “nothing else is explained, the interesting thing is that humanity is given three things: vocation, permission and prohibition,” according to Decker.

From the very beginning, “we’ve been given a job. Humans were expected to care and tend the garden. They are given permission to freely eat from any tree except this one,” which is the prohibition. It’s the primary task of the first humans “to find a way to hold these three facets of divine purpose together.”

But we make “much ado” over the prohibition because “we humans don’t like to be told no,” she said.

The serpent twists God’s words slightly, and in response Eve also misrepresents God’s warning, telling the serpent God instructed them not to even touch the tree or they’ll die.

The Rev. DeEtte Decker

Decker said the woman decides, “I could do with a little wisdom,” and so she takes the fruit and eats. She gives some to the man, he takes a bite, and “they take their lives into their own hands.” Instantly, the prohibition has been violated, the permission has been perverted and the vocation has been vacated.

God asks the man the same question Marvin Gaye asks: What’s going on? Adam’s replies “are all I’s,” Decker noted. “I heard. I was afraid. I was naked. I hid. I ate. Now the preoccupation is I, and therein lies the primary offense. Gone is the interconnectedness; instead, it’s now about self-interest, control and perceived freedom.”

But God surprises the reader with God’s final action. “Everyone knows what follows the guilt of eating from the tree: death,” Decker said. “This is a capital offense, and they were clearly told, ‘Surely you will die.’ That sentence is heavy, but it’s not what they got. They were simply exiled from the Garden. … The miracle is not that they were punished, but that they lived.”

Even when the facts warrant death, “God insists on life for God’s beloved,” Decker said. “We take into our own hands choices and perceived freedoms and make it about me instead of we.”

“We are created for connection with God and one another, but we often find ourselves in the midst of crisis,” she said. “Still, God chases after us, calling out, ‘Where are you? Where have you gone?’”

“What about we instead of me?” she asked. “Thanks be to God.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Rev. DeEtte Decker preaching on the Genesis story during Synod School

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
John McFayden, Executive Vice President, Board of Pensions
Jim McGill, Mission co-worker serving in Niger/South Sudan,  Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

God of us all, help us to work for peace in every area on Earth. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Taking her cue from 29,000 cycling enthusiasts

The Rev. DeEtte Decker leads Synod School’s opening worship after pedaling down the center aisle

September 23, 2023

To the surprise of more than 500 people, the Rev. DeEtte Decker 

entered Schaller Memorial Chapel on a borrowed bicycle Sunday. 

(Photo by Mike Ferguson)

With a nod to the 29,000 or so RAGBRAI riders who’d arrived in Storm Lake, Iowa, hours earlier, the Rev. DeEtte Decker showed up for opening worship at the 69th Annual Synod School on a borrowed bicycle that she pedaled down the center aisle of Buena Vista University’s Schaller Memorial Chapel.

Decker, communications director for the Presbyterian Mission Agency, led worship all week at the event held annually by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies. More than 500 people attended Synod School. This year’s theme was “Our Family Story.”

“What would you say if I told you the Holy Bible is a library?” Decker told children gathered to think and learn along with the adults who brought them. “Some folks think of the Bible as a library of our family stories.”

With 2 Timothy 3:14–17 as her selected text, Decker went back to a cherished memory from childhood, spending time with her maternal grandmother.

“She told me stories of her faith and how it had transformed her life,” Decker said. “She was always sure to let me know our family story included Jesus, about our faith family as found in the Bible — stories of justice, love, mercy and forgiveness.”

When we’re wondering where we came from or why anything matters, “our answers come from this uniquely human thing we do, and that’s telling stories,” Decker said. “When we tell stories, especially to groups, we get collective agency, a shared understanding of who we are and where we came from and what we can do together.”

The Rev. DeEtte Decker, communications director for the Presbyterian 

Mission Agency, turned up for opening worship at Synod School 

Sunday on a borrowed bicycle. (Photo by Mike Ferguson)

Decker knows people who read the Bible through different lenses: like it’s a history book, an inkblot “as a means of affirming who they are,” as a law book laying down what we can and cannot do, and “as a collection of myths and fables that doesn’t have a lot of relevance in my life today.”

“For me, it can feel like a puzzle. I’m trying to figure out the missing piece so I can make sense of the whole picture,” Decker said.

Decker wondered: Rather than reading the Bible like it’s a puzzle, what if we read it as a mystery? “We have plenty of information on hand. The problem is how to figure out what it all means. … When we read the Bible and reflect on our family stories, it can provoke us to see the kin-dom of heaven and propel us on how we are to live our lives here on Earth.”

Decker’s seminary adviser taught her that family stories can be interpreted using three chairs, which Decker used as props.

The first chair, the historical chair, stands behind the text. We ask, who is the author? What was the cultural and political climate? What were the family dynamics? Using this model, we stand behind the text looking through a historical lens.

High-energy music under the direction of the Rev. Burns Stanfield 

helped drive worship forward Sunday at Synod School. (Photo by 

Mike Ferguson)

The second chair is the literary chair, a model we’re actually sitting in the text, Decker said, looking at its type: poetry, a letter, wisdom literature, the priestly code. “Who is speaking and who’s not speaking?” she asked. “We look at the rhythm and the metaphors. We are in the text.”

The third chair is the theological chair. Here we’re standing in front of the text. Meaning is based on how the audience receives the text. You’ll receive the text differently if you’re a liberation theologian or a womanist theologian.

“A lot of folks have a favorite chair. My adviser taught me it’s OK to have a favorite, but what we really need to get the most out of the text, to really understand the mystery,” she said, is to lie down on all three at the same time, which Decker did.

Decker offered a pair of questions for reflection Sunday evening:

• What would it look like for you to approach Scripture using the three chairs to interpret the meaning behind the mystery?
• When was the last time our faith story propelled you to live out the kin-dom of heaven here on Earth?

“Our family story has a lot to tell us about our past, a whole lot to tell us about our present and how we can order our steps into the future,” she said.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Rev. DeEtte Decker leads Synod School’s opening worship

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Jessica Maudlin, Mission Associate II, Sustainable Living & Earth Care Concerns, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterian Mission Agency
David Maxwell, VP/Geneva Press & Church Relations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray

Heavenly Father, help us to become more formative, so we may introduce more people to your loving grace. Amen.