Following is part one of an edited transcript of Bishop Jeremiah J. Park’s Opening Celebration address at the 2018 Susquehanna Annual Conference, held May 31 through June 2 in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Scripture references: John 17:20-26; Colossians 1:15-20
I would like you to know that I feel so privileged to serve our beloved church with the committed, dedicated, mission-minded, and generous people of the Susquehanna Conference. Under many challenging circumstances, God’s people of the Susquehanna Conference, laity and clergy alike, continue to provide so many amazing, exhilarating, and powerful testimonies to what discipleship is about as they constantly extend themselves to offer so freely their gifts and graces to serve and love God and God’s people in the world. The heart-warming evidence of your faithfulness and fruitfulness is all over the place. Thanks be to God for you!
Indeed, the Susquehanna Conference is a church alive in Christ together! So I say this out of my heart: I love Pennsylvania! I love the Susquehanna Conference!
Your bishop and Cabinet have a renewed sense of excitement to share with you a refined expression of what our mission is as an annual conference.
You need to remember three words about the mission of our conference:
Grow! Equip! Connect!
The mission of Susquehanna Conference is to:
- GROW spiritual transformational leaders,
- EQUIP vital congregations and create new places for new people, and
- CONNECT with each other and the world
so that (our vision) alive in Christ together, the Susquehanna Conference will embody the beloved community of disciple-making congregations.
That’s who we are and what we are about.
The beloved community is a window for the world to see what the reign of God is like where all live in peace and justice and harmony. It’s the vision of the shalom of God. The prophets envisioned it. Martin Luther King Jr. described it. Jesus proclaimed, taught, lived, died, and was resurrected for it.
The Cabinet and I will do our best to communicate the conference mission with clarity and implement it with clear goals in mind. Accordingly, we will continue to explore the ways to align our resources and structure with this understanding of our mission and vision. The Cabinet and I are enthused as we imagine and envision what this mission-driven focus of the conference will help our churches accomplish.
Thanks and praises be to God that we have many thriving churches, highly vital congregations, and effective leaders among us. But we realize that many of our churches are either barely maintaining or declining, some of them at a rapid pace. Under an unfavorable cultural environment for the church, we are continuously losing worship attenders and members, and we are confirming fewer new disciples. The rate of decline seems to be accelerating, causing some significant concerns regarding human, financial, and programmatic resources for ministry. Our future journey will be very challenging.
Besides, we as a local church and as an annual conference, are not immune to the potential impact that may come from the uncertainty of our current denominational situation regarding the question of human sexuality. The unity of our church is at stake.
When people on both sides of the matter are so passionate and resolved in their position, there seems to be no good or right way forward for all. A certain way forward may please some, but dissatisfy others, causing disillusion and even anger. Whatever I say for the sake of a way forward in unity may gratify some and disappoint others — doomed to say, and doomed not to say. However, in the midst of uncertainty, with many unanswered questions and no easy way forward in sight, I continue to feel God calling me to lead the church to unity as best as I can.
Knowing that the unity of our church is under serious threat, but also recognizing that unity is Jesus’ ardent prayer and aspiration for his followers, we started our quadrennial journey last year as a conference with the theme of unity: “Better Together: Make Us One.” Today we gather once again as the Susquehanna Annual Conference in the spirit of unity under the theme: “Better Together: One With Christ.”
Jesus’ prayer in John 17 will continue to be our biblical foundation for unity.
Unity is a biblical mandate for the Body of Christ. However, we realize that unity is a challenging agenda for the church. The fact of the matter is that unity doesn’t have a chance until we acknowledge that “our way or the highway” is not a way at all, and that breakthroughs can only be made when we are willing and ready to create room for others. It means a change of heart on our part.
Hear me clearly, changing our hearts does not mean to change our core values, beliefs, and convictions or compromising our conscience. It means changing from a heart at war to a heart at peace.
A heart at war sees the other side as an object to overcome. It does not recognize that the other side has as many rights, privileges, and validity as it does. It leaves no room for the other side.
A heart at peace sees the other side as a person who deserves to be of equal worth. It allows the other side to have a space and thus seeks coexistence without demanding or requiring my way or no way at all.
But we know that changing a heart is the most challenging agenda of all, particularly when it comes to examining if our own heart needs to change, let alone changing another person’s heart. Changing our heart is beyond what we can do by ourselves. It’s what the Holy Spirit does. So we have to depend on prayer. “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord.” (Zechariah 4:6)
One of the most intriguing and helpful insights for unity comes from A.W. Tozer: “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.”
His point? Seek first to be one with Christ then unity will follow.
What Tozer said connected me to the Colossians’ passage known as “The Supremacy of Christ.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “supreme” as “highest in rank or authority” or “highest in degree or quality.” In essence, there is none better. The supreme of something is its ultimate. So what is the supremacy of Christ and what are its implications? What do these words evoke? What happens inside of you when you hear them?
One of the Cabinet members shared with us this quote about the supremacy of Christ from Sam Storms: “Jesus Christ is the reason, the goal, the aim, the intent, the point, the purpose, the end, the terminus, the consummation, and [the] culmination of every molecule that moves.”
And he added, “For me, the supremacy of Christ is a powerful reminder that: Christ is before all, as in him all things were created.
Christ is for all, in that he died for us while we were yet sinners, proving God’s love toward us.
Christ is over all, in that one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.
Christ is after all, the One who is Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
“Lived out, it means that Jesus Christ is not just the means by which we find our life — He is our life!”
The point of the supremacy of Christ can be expressed in many other words. Simply put: Jesus Christ is the One. Whatever we are to be and are to do as disciples, God’s people, and the church, Jesus Christ is our ultimate reason and purpose. It’s about Jesus Christ.
The unity we seek is about Jesus Christ. Unity without Christ, unity outside of Christ, unity that has little or nothing to do with Christ is not the unity we seek. The unity of the Body of Christ is unity with Christ, of Christ, for Christ, and in Christ. It’s about Jesus Christ.
Tozer’s metaphor of the tuning fork for unity comes alive when we realize that Jesus Christ is supreme — He is the primary, standard, and ultimate tuning fork for all of us to tune ourselves to.
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Watch for the next installment of Bishop Park’s Opening Celebration address in the September issue of Susquehanna LINK. You can view the 2018 Susquehanna Annual Conference Opening Celebration service, including Bishop Park’s address, at tinyurl.com/susumcAC2018video.
