Today in the Mission Yearbook - A Worship and Music Conference with plenty of both on display

The Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson shines her light from the pulpit during opening worship

October 25, 2022

The Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson

When one of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s most gifted preachers stands before an auditorium full of the denomination’s most talented musicians, you’d expect beautiful worship that uplifts and edifies.

Welcome to the hybrid portion of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference, recently presented to the lucky Presbyterians who gathered at Montreat Conference Center in Montreat, North Carolina, and also those who joined in the comfort of their own homes. The Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson, executive presbyter for the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, was the conference preacher. The Rev. Sudie Niesen Thompson, associate pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware, provided inspired liturgy throughout the week.

The opening worship, held in a nearly full Anderson Auditorium, included dozens of candles, handbell players and Scripture readers scattered throughout the auditorium, and — as one might expect — glorious music.

With Genesis 1:1–27 and John 1:1–14, 18 as her scriptural basis, Brooks-Johnson said Jesus enters the world “like a slice of light entering a pitch-dark room … Jesus became light to shine in and through our very lives, and he invites us to be the light for others. Cue the last hymn,” she said with a smile.

“It would be so easy to wrap up the sermon here,” Brooks-Johnson said. “But let’s be honest: We lose sight of the light of Christ. We forget our role as people called to testify that Jesus is the light of the world. We sing ‘This Little Light of Mine,’” and as she started singing, her voice cracked and trailed off.

“It’s hard to testify to the light when the world feels so tender and painful,” she said. “Sometimes we feel like our own lamps are low on fuel. Sometimes it’s easy to become emotionally numb to the beauty, wonder, mystery and light that Christ brings to us.”

The Rev. Sudie Niesen Thompson

Brooks-Johnson recalled the Bible stories she enjoyed as a 10-year-old. “I loved the stories where Jesus didn’t quite get along with the religious leaders of the day,” she said. “Ten-year-old Aisha really liked snarky Jesus.”

The one story that stuck in her head was the parable of the sheep and goats found in Matthew 25. The version she liked best was a musical one, Keith Green’s “The Sheep and the Goats.”

“I played that record over and over and over with one thought: Could I live my life as a Christian and miss Jesus living as a stranger, hidden in plain sight in the hungry and lonely and the lost?” she said. Her prayer has evolved over the years: “Don’t let me be too educated, too sophisticated, too numb or too busy to miss seeing you in plain sight.”

“Let us see your light in your presence,” she now prays, “reflected in the lives of those oppressed and outcast and overlooked.”

Just how do we do that? “I believe we must practice,” Brooks-Johnson said, offering up three ideas for “bearing witness to the light”:

• Look up. Take a photo of the sunrise. “With every new morning, there is new mercy,” she said.
• Look out. “See God’s presence in those cast out to the side. Christ is there, and Christ invites us to care for them and walk alongside them.”
• Look in. “See Christ at work in your own life. The one thing I wish we had more time for during our well-crafted one hour of worship is a little testimony time. Recall your own story of Christ’s presence during the hard times, the time you felt lost. Remember the people who cheered you on. Tell your stories to someone. It may be the flicker of light they need.”

“May we hold our flames for all to see, whether full or flickering,” Brooks-Johnson said. “And may the light of Christ always shine, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the mother of us all. May all God’s people say, ‘Amen.’” And indeed, they did.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Matt Hinkle, Information Specialist, Presbyterian Foundation
Lee Hinson-Hasty, Senior Director for Theological Education Funds Development, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

God of the universe, we thank you for all that you have created and called good. We thank you for placing us in the midst of your Creation and for blessing us as your own. May we be all that you have called us to be, and may we follow you each and every day with excellence and in faithfulness. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘We are free’

Conference preacher: Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead was meant to help us ‘to take our grave clothes off’

December 4, 2021

Conference preacher the Rev. CeCe Armstrong says that Jesus’s friend Lazarus had to die so that we might know we are free. (Screenshot)

During a worship service at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference, the Rev. Cecilia (Ce Ce) Armstrong told those gathered in person and online that she was not going to preach a devotional sermon.

“It’s not only to warm the heart,” she said, “but to promote devotion to God.”

Preaching from John 11:32–44, Armstrong, of St. James Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, said she wanted to see something different in this familiar story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead — even as Mary rushes to Jesus saying, “Lord if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

“We say that under our breath sometimes, don’t we?” Armstrong said. “But sometimes God makes stuff die, so that we can be free.”

 Armstrong pointed out that in this biblical account, freedom can be obtained only after the stone to Lazarus’s tomb is removed.

“Sometimes life is a stinking mess,” she said, “where you have to uncover hard truths about yourself or others.”

For Armstrong, the real power in this story is when Jesus speaks to those around the one who was dead, saying, “Come and take his grave clothes off.”

“Notice that his hands and feet are bound,” she said.

Armstrong believes that because we get so caught up — and shocked — about a dead man coming to life, we sometimes forget this command that Jesus has for us.  As a result, she said many people get turned away from Jesus because we don’t help those who don’t “look, walk, talk or smell like us.”

“But could it be they’re so bound by what they’re wrecked in? It is the church’s responsibility take their grave clothes off,” she said as applause rippled throughout Anderson Auditorium at Montreat Conference Center.

“Beloved child of God, what in your life has to die?” she asked. “What has to die when you go to church?  What permission do you need? What is the prayer you are you praying that grants assurance?  How are you helping others take the grave clothes off that bind us all?”

After each question, Anderson repeated the phrase, “You are free.”  And then, as Phillip Morgan played, conference adult choir director Phillip Shoultz and Armstrong sang these words from “I’m Free” by the Rev. Milton Brunson:

“I am free
Praise the Lord, I’m free
No longer bound
No more chains holding me
Soul is resting
And it’s just another blessing
Praise the Lord
Hallelujah, I’m free”

 The Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary continued her study of Matthew 18, looking at verses 15–22, where Jesus gives guidelines on what to do if a member of the church sins against you.

“This text is about the church itself,” she said. “It’s how to deal with people in your group to determine if you can do ministry together.”

By giving guidelines that include going to the one who offends you first; then, if they won’t listen, to go again with two or three witnesses; and then to the whole church if necessary, Aymer said that Jesus is after restoration instead of resentment.

“The call to reconciliation isn’t to make nice,” she said. “It’s a call to not slander, to not bear a grudge.”

A woman in the room talked about how hard it is to go to a person who hurt you.

“I mean, people talk in the parking lot,” she said. “What if you go that person to pray and find they don’t like you anymore. What if the person has power, and I lose power?”

Aymer said it’s really about trusting one’s community.

“That’s the hard part,” she said. “It goes back to the call [in Matthew 18:1–5] to become like vulnerable children.”

Paul Seebeck, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Amy Dusatko, 1001 Apprentice, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Chad Dusatko, 1001 Apprentice, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Lord, help us to care for those in need. May we offer hope in the face of chaos, confidence in the face of uncertainty and joy in service to you. May all who endure loss be filled with your presence and confidence in your love. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.