e.monarch: Charlotte Powers

From Charlotte Powers

New Presbytery Moderator

Connecting to God and Each Other

I’m so honored and humbled to be elected your Moderator at the November Presbytery meeting and so embarrassed that I was unable to be there. I do apologize. Serving as Moderator is such an honor, but also has a deeper meaning for me as well. My father served as the first lay Moderator of the Santa Barbara Presbytery in 1953. To follow in his footsteps is indeed a privilege.

I’m an Elder at the First Presbyterian Church in downtown San Jose, an urban church. I have been attending this church since 1963 when my late husband and I moved with our four children to San Jose. In 2008 I was also a Deacon, have taught Sunday School, and served as the Youth Leader of our High School Youth Group. Most recently I served as the Executive Coordinator of the Committee on Local Arrangements for the 2008 General Assembly held in San Jose. There were so many volunteers that gave of their time from all over the San Francisco and San Jose Presbyteries, but I found that most of us did not feel connected with each other at all.

I reflected on this for quite some time after GA and came to the conclusion that we, as churches and congregations and even pastors, are not connected. We aren’t aware of each other’s celebrations or our needs, or our connections to each other as the Body of Christ in the Presbytery. I was reminded of my days as a school teacher, working side by side with other educators, with the same goals and objectives, but really all alone in our individual classrooms, like individual silos. We never seemed to have time to share ideas, etc with our colleagues.

Churches are similar. Individual pastors and congregations are so busy with day-to-day activities that we don’t seem to have time to celebrate being one with another or connected in the Body of Christ, to share our celebrations, needs and individual lives or to pray with and for one another.

The church is called to be the Body of Christ. When has the church or presbytery best resembled the Body of Christ for you? Has there been a happening in the life of your congregation that you would like the Presbytery to share with you? And lastly, how could the Presbytery be more helpful to you and your congregation? How could prayer play a more central in our support of one another?

We are all so very busy. There never seems to be enough time to complete the business at hand before the Presbytery. Each committee or task force has so many important items to bring before the Body, each very critical to the ongoing mission of the Presbytery.
So how can we share our faith journeys, celebrations, etc. on a more personal and individual level with each other? To pray for each other? Feel more connected with each other? How can we develop Presbytery Partnerships with each other? What opportunities can we find, ways to grow our churches, how to support existing congregations through good and as well as difficult times or to share something as mundane as how we use technology in our churches?

One of my favorite books is titled “If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat” by John Ortberg. To me the title says it all, but how does this relate to our Presbytery meetings? The author reflects on Peter’s story found in Matthew and then applies it to our lives today. He helps us to recognize what we are in – our comfort zone. Opening our lives and the stories of our congregations to each other enables us to get out of our boats and walk together to experience the power of God in our lives and to create an active and connected Presbytery we would not be capable of achieving on our own.

Your thoughts and ideas are important to me. I am interested in your feedback and your ideas of ways to help us get out of the boat to pray and walk together, to share with each other our lives, the lives of our congregations, and our lives as the Body of Christ. I can be reached at cbpdis2@aol.com or at 408-398-0332.

See you in January in Salinas - Charlotte