Heeding the call

From the Presbyterian News Service: Heeding the call (Your GAC mission dollars at work!)

LOUISVILLE — The Rev. Lee Hinson-Hasty recalled  a parking lot discussion he had with a young man who had become an Inquirer after exploring his call with his church’s session for five years.

“Full of a feeling of support by his church community,” Hinson-Hasty told the General Assembly Council (GAC) during its fall meeting here, “he said to me, ‘Lee, wouldn’t it be great if every single youth at our church went through a similar process?’”

Hinson-Hasty, reporting to the GAC on behalf of a Mission Work Plan team addressing “Discerning Christian Vocation: Recapturing a Culture of Call in the PC(USA),” said he smiled, and in a response that has stuck with him to this day said, “Wouldn’t it be great!”

The ultimate goal of the team, said Hinson-Hasty — who’s coordinator for theological education and seminary relations — is that every Presbyterian be invited to answer two questions:

• “Who is God calling me to be in Christ in all that I am and all that I do?”
• “How am I to use the gifts and talents that God has given me for building up the body of Christ and witness to Christ’s presence in all of life?”

…..

“But much more than a programmatic response is required,” Hinson-Hasty said. “The PC(USA) is being called to recover a culture of call that we believe is sacramentally grounded in baptism.

“No program the GAC created could fully resource a restoration of Presbyterian church culture of call in baptism.”

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To carry the work forward, the team presented a series of recommendations for 2007-2008, including:

• expansion of discernment and service opportunities;
• connection and coordination of those already involved in Christian vocation discernment ministries;
• incorporation of vocational discernment into all educational programming for Presbyterians of all ages;
• presentation of vocational discernment from a variety of ethnic and cultural perspectives;
• reinforcement of the idea that when Presbyterians participate in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper they are remembering and nurturing their call as Christians; and
• technological support for all these efforts.