Stated clerk, moderator
address ‘wave’ of change
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman, February 26, 2010
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In his report to the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC), Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons spoke about “The wave of the future: Surfers vs. spectators.”
Gradye Parsons
Bruce Reyes-Chow
He told the council about Maverick’s Surf Contest, an international surfing contest for elite surfers who compete for big prizes. At the contest, the surfers were riding the big waves, but a rogue wave hit the beach and injured many of the spectators.
The point of the story, he said, was “no one surfing was hurt, only the spectators got hurt.”
“The wave of the future is coming and there is no stopping it,” Parsons said. “Perhaps surfing is an apt metaphor” for the church.
“In the end we are not able to control the movement of the ocean,” he said. “It is our duty to surf and ride with it, in hopes that we arrive safely and with a little luck gracefully.”
He ended with the advice: Be as surfers and take risks, don’t just be spectators.
Following Parsons, Bruce Reyes-Chow, moderator of the 218th General Assembly, also addressed the council.
Reyes-Chow said he had been on a wonderful journey since being elected moderator in 2008, and is “still learning things every day about who we are as a denomination.”
Reyes-Chow echoed Parsons’ imagery, saying there’s a wave “everyone knows is coming, or is here, or at least they know that something is going on.” He said very few people say that things are the same as they have always been.
Related Articles
ACSWP co-chair: Gun violence focus of paper
GAMC not mentioned in proposed nFOG
Council sends report of review of advisory/advocacy committees to GA
He spoke of the ways people respond to the wave: “Some of us thrive – our imaginations are released and all possibilities are before us,” he said. There are those who in face of the waves cling to what they have always known, and those who feel so overwhelmed all they can do is “just be.”
He said that the denomination needs to find a place where those three groups can gather to further the kingdom – a place where the tensions meet and God is made known.