Mission Yearbook: Rev. Tony Larson explores ministry beyond the walls of a church

Some of the most meaningful ministry the Rev. Tony Larson engages in is well outside the walls of the church he serves, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.

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The Rev. Tony Larson

Larson, Co-Moderator of the 226th General Assembly (2024), recently delivered the second part of the Woods Lecture Series in Blades Chapel at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. View Larson’s talk, “The Church’s Witness in the World,” delivered as part of a worship service, here. The Co-Moderator’s remarks begin at the 21:05 mark.

He told about “how I ended up on the front page of the local newspaper” in the early years in ministry with the first church he served, Springs Community Presbyterian Church in East Hampton, New York.

Larson discovered he could rent a fishing boat every Thursday from a couple named Buck and Bernice, who operated a boat and fishing gear rental business at the nearby marina. After he’d fish, Larson would join others at the marina to catch up on the local news. Eventually, he became a pastor to people who weren’t about to attend any church, Buck and Bernice included.

Larson grew close to Buck and Bernice. “By the alchemy of faith, I was becoming their pastor,” he said. One day, Buck brought over a bottle of whiskey rather than the cold beers he usually served. “This will be the last drink we have —at least for a while,” Buck told Larson. “Bernice is pregnant, and so we won’t be drinking for a while.” Hugs were exchanged, and then Buck asked, “Would it be possible for you to baptize our baby?”

“As your friend, I’d be hard-pressed to turn down that request,” Larson told the expectant parents. But as a Presbyterian pastor, he’d have to ask them to make promises on behalf of their child — promises to God and to those gathered for the baptism. Come to church one Sunday and check it, Larson suggested.

Two weeks later, Buck and Bernice surprised everyone by walking through the church doors. A few months later, they made professions of faith and joined the church.

They named their baby Bailey. A few weeks after her birth, Larson stopped by to prepare the family for baptism. When you give her a bath, remind her of her baptism, he suggested. When someone tells her what she can and cannot do, remind her of her baptism, and her belovedness. Springs Community Presbyterian Church will help you and Bailey, he said, and Buck and Bernice told him, “That is exactly what we wanted.

“They wanted Bailey to know she was God’s beloved child,” Larson said.

No matter how many theological arguments Larson made, the parents were convinced one bowl of water would not be enough for their big event. They got permission to hold the baptism at low tide near the marina, where the church gathered.

Despite the baptism occurring in July, Larson showed up in his robe. “We began to draw onlookers,” he said. Buck and Bernice confessed their faith, and the four of them waded out into the water. Larson took a clamshell from his pocket, dipped it into the water, and baptized the baby in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Bailey, you are held in love that will never let you go,” he told the child.

The next Wednesday, the newspaper published the story of the unusual baptism on its front page. “There was other news in the world that week, but that news was important for that community,” Larson said. Early on in his ministry, “I had the notion I could take off my [clergy] collar and not be identifiable as a disciple of Jesus Christ. I learned from that relationship with Buck and Bernice that’s not really an option.”

Twenty-three times in the gospel accounts, Christ invites people to “follow me,” Larson noted.

“Make your life look like my life” is the way Larson puts Jesus’ invitation. “The invitation is to follow, and the commandment is to love. It really is as simple as that, and oh so challenging.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Stephen Smith, Business Analyst, Trust Services, The Presbyterian Foundation
Katie Snyder, Project Manager for Digital Fundraising, Annual Giving, Administrative Services Group                              

Let us pray:

Lord of illumination, use us to reflect your light, so that your radiant grace may be shared with the world, and all people may be blessed with your life-giving love, through Jesus Christ, the Light of the world. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) vigil raises gun violence awareness, honors lives lost

The Rev. Tony Larson, co-moderator of the 226th General Assembly (2024), brings words of hope and encouragement during event held as part of the Young Adult Advocacy Conference

The Rev. Christina Cosby of the Office of Public Witness, second from
right, speaks during a gun violence prevention vigil held as part of the
Young Adult Advocacy Conference. (Photo by Darla Carter)

T-shirts emblazoned with the names of local victims of fatal gun violence encircled a cross at Union Presbyterian Seminary on a recent afternoon.

The T-shirts, placed on the ground at the base of the cross, called attention to a problem that is all too common, not only in Mecklenburg County but the nation as a whole.

“We recognize the names of individuals no longer with us, lives taken (prematurely) … by a form of violence — gun violence — an epidemic in this country that impacts this soil, in this place,” said the Rev. Christina Cosby, representative for Domestic Issues and Environmental Justice for the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness (OPW). “Lord, in your mercy, hear their names in our prayer.”

The social justice action was the final activity of the Young Adult Advocacy Conference, “Jesus and Justice,” which was held on the Charlotte campus Oct. 18–20 by OPW and the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations.

PC(USA) has a long history of speaking out against gun violence and has declared 2022–2032 to be the Decade to End Gun Violence.

The T-shirts represented just a fraction of people who’ve lost their lives to gun violence in the local area.

The Charlotte Observer reported that 61 people were killed in Charlotte in the first half of 2024 (at least 50 victims having been shot to death). That’s more than in the first six months of any year since at least 2015, the newspaper noted in July. And the state as a whole averages more than 1,300 gun deaths a year.

But “today, we say no to gun violence,” said the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, PC(USA) advocacy director.

The Rev. Tony Larson, co-moderator of the 226th General Assembly (2024) of the PC(USA), was present to support the event, which included Scripture, song, and an opportunity to speak the names of victims, either someone local listed on a T-shirt or someone on the heart of a vigil participant.

“May this action, may this symbolic rite remind us and those who pass by that we have been blessed with voices that we might use them, that we are connected, all of us, one to another, that while we are resurrection people, all of these deaths that come too soon break our communities and keep us from being all that God would dream that we could be,” Larson said. “Bless this brokenness and bless us to be repairers of the breach.”

Earlier this year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis in America, noting that more than half (54%) of U.S. adults or their family members have experienced a firearm-related incident in their lives.

And, as pointed out by recent OPW Summer Fellow Olivia Phelps, firearm-related injury is the leading cause of death for U.S. children and adolescents.

Hawkins said young people have inherited a culture of gun violence that includes living under the specter of school shootings.

Last  year, there were more than 2,300 victims of firearm-related violent crime in Charlotte as of early June, according to local police.

To change society, it’s time “to love one another,” he said, and to recognize “that we are truly the children of God.”

Though the vigil had a local focus, Hawkins also asked attendees to remember people experiencing war overseas, including those in Gaza and Sudan, noting, “only through our sorrow will we have the power (and) the energy to move and act and to speak” to bring about peace.

Recalling the words of previous speakers at the conference, Larson reminded attendees to have courage as they return to their communities and to never let anyone despise them because of their youth since their voices are needed and there is work to be done.

Until swords are turned into plowshares, “give them Jesus,” he said. “Let him abide in you and take care of one another on that work, for it is good when siblings can gather, even with broken hearts and hopeful hearts in unity.”

The Presbyterian Office of Public Witness and the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations are among the Compassion, Peace & Justice ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.

Darla Carter, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Let us join in prayer for:

• César Carhuachîn, Mission co-worker serving in Colombia, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency
• Olanda Carr, Senior Ministry Relations Officer, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

O God of love greater than we can imagine, teach us how to love all your children as you have loved us, especially those who suffer unnecessarily. Give us boldness to argue and plead for your reign, especially in your house. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘If I showed up at your church, somebody other than Jesus would be happy to see me’

Co-Moderators, Stated Clerk team up to share their insights during worship at the Presbyterian Center Chapel

October 13, 2024

From left, the Rev. Jihyun Oh, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong and 

the Rev. Tony Larson sing a hymn during worship Wednesday 

in the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky. 

(photo by Rich Copley)

With Ephesians 2:10 as their scriptural basis, the co-moderators of the 226th General Assembly, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong and the Rev. Tony Larson, joined the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Rev. Jihyun Oh, to lead a recent hybrid worship service in the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville. One by one, the three recently elected denominational leaders spoke on “Created,” “Called” and “Commissioned.”

Created

Put your hand in front of your face, Armstrong suggested. Inhale and then exhale, blowing air at the hand. “Do you feel anything? That means you have breath in you, and breath means you’ve been created by God,” she said.

Genesis 1 tells us that everything God created is good. “When we consider being created by God, it’s all right if we declare, ‘That’s good!’” Armstrong said. “Friends, I want you to acknowledge that you have been fearfully and wonderfully made and to acknowledge that you have been made good. That ought to make you walk different.”

“I encourage you to be a good creation of God and wear the smile that proves that’s so,” she said. “To God be the glory for the great things God is doing.”

Called

Larson spoke about a recent time and an unlikely place to which he and his wife, Heather, were called: a dive bar in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where a trivia night had been organized.

During the two hours of the trivia contest, people would walk in and out of the bar, Larson said. Some hadn’t had particularly good days. One person told him, “I’m Catholic. I go to Mass every Sunday. People fuss at me all the time. They say, ‘but we see what you’re doing on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.’”

“I go every Sunday, and I get forgiven, but the only person happy to see me there is Jesus.” Then he asked Larson, “Would I be welcome in your church?”

“I said, ‘Of course you’d be welcomed at our church,’” Larson said, telling the man about the ministry of Trinity Presbyterian Church of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, including “our ministry for those in recovery, our ministry to children and families, and our fundamental ministry to people who pick up from some place on the map at this stage of their life and come here and generally have no connections, no roots. They have left their roots behind, and we help those rootless people find roots in the church.”

“I just really get the sense talking to the two of you,” the man replied, “that if I showed up at your church, somebody other than Jesus would be happy to see me.”

“We don’t know,” Larson said of why we are called. “We are called to be in spaces where we are, and to be the very presence of Christ to whoever might be there. Thanks be to God.”

Commissioned

For many people in the worship, the term “commission” has a specific meaning, said Oh, who started her duties as Stated Clerk on Aug. 5. There are commissions, both judicial and administrative, and commissioners to assemblies “who have been given power and authority to speak on and act on behalf of a particular body of people.”

We can think of “commissioned” as “being given the power and authority to speak on and act on behalf of Christ Jesus our Lord, who has called us to be salt and light in the world,” the Stated Clerk said.

Being commissioned can also mean “being taken off of standby, being taken off the sidelines to places where God is calling us.” Ephesians 2:10 calls us “God’s handiwork,” which got Oh to thinking about “what it means to be commissioned to that work. The person creating that handiwork is thinking about a particular context or purpose when the work is commissioned. There is a particular thing we are to be doing in the world.” There can be “a sense of joy that emerges from that commission.”

“We are created, called and commissioned. Thanks be to God. Amen.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Co-Moderators, Stated Clerk team up to share their insights during worship at the Presbyterian Center Chapel

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Larry, and Inge Sthreshley, Mission Co-workers serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency 
Mindi Stivers, Financial Assistant, Presbyterian Women 

Let us pray

Mighty God, we bless you for the rich soil in which your church is nourishing the seed of your gospel. Continue to transform our lives, congregations and communities so that all will know us by the fruit we bear. Amen.