Pastoral Reflections Rev. Dr. Jack Haberer


It’s 2020. Te year of clear vision! Will it be that for you and yours?


Speaking of vision, what’s your life vision? Could you boil that vision down to 20 words? Better yet, could you trim it to a dozen words? Or to seven? How about three words? If someone were to ask me to do that, I’d resist. I’m not a fan of simplistic mission statements, pat slogans, or bumper sticker theology.


My life and my values are a lot bigger than a few words. So are yours. Boiling and summarizing “don’t come easy,” as Ringo Starr might put it. I figure if God’s mission statement takes up about 800 pages—the Holy Bible—that’s good enough for me.


Ten again, all of us count on summary values, personal mottos, and clear sightlines to guide our way. Tink about highway signs. Tree words: CEDAR CREST BLVD. Two words: CONSTRUCTION ZONE. Even one word: EXIT.


A task force of our Session (the board of elders) is taking a look at tweaking or rewriting our existing mission statement. Tey also are aiming to develop a vision statement and a values statement. Our present mission statement has 39 words:


“First Presbyterian Church of Allentown is a diverse body of faith living God’s love in the way of Jesus Christ. We do this through worship, study, service, and relationships for the common good of our community and the world.”


Tat’s not really short and concise, but it’s good. Ten again, in the search for simplicity, I’m happy to say “Living God’s love in the way of Jesus Christ.” Nine words.


Further, for greater simplicity, the staff and I defined our year’s discipleship theme as “Living Christ’s Love.” Tree words.


Tis past September, we introduced that three-word theme with four methods, four action steps by which we live Christ’s love: Caring, Outreach, Devotion and Empowerment—the Ministry CODE. We then considered the theme through the lens of stewardship. And then again through the lens of the Parable of the Prodigals—the wild child, the perfect child, and the extravagantly, recklessly loving parent. And in Advent we lived Christ’s love by finding ways to add straw to Christ’s manger.


In this January and February, we return to discussions around the first two methods for action: Caring and Outreach.


To be specific, January’s topic is “caring for one another.” As we learned in September, in biblical Greek, “one another” is one word: allelon (pronounced ah-lay’-lone). In general, it meant “our family” or “our clan”; to the early believers it meant, “our church family.” How earnest are we about loving one another? Is that something we take for granted, like the husband who once said to his wife, “Of course, I love you; I told you so on our wedding day, and I haven’t told you otherwise since.” We need to hear “I love you” more than once in a lifetime!


With help from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, we do well to ask ourselves together, “How do we love us? Let us count the ways.”


February’s topic is the flip side of caring for one another; namely, reaching out to our neighbors. In biblical terms, “neighbors” are “all the rest”; that is, everybody who is not a member of our family, clan, or church family. Frankly, we often are so focused on our own people that we neglect the others, case in point being the prayer requests we


verbalize: “Please pray for my mother/ father/daughter/son/sister/brother/ etc.” Our prayers seldom extend even to the next-door neighbors, no less the immigrants down the street, the persons experiencing homelessness in center city, the patients in LVHN or St. Luke’s, the elderly in memory care units, or the inmates in the county jail.


Caring. Outreach. So go these two months.


Te topic of Devotion will come into focus through the season of Lent (March-April). And Empowerment will fittingly fill the season between Easter and Pentecost (carrying into June).


Hence, the Ministry CODE … by which we are Living Christ’s Love.


Too simplistic? Actually, quite thoroughly complete. May the CODE be with you. And may your life’s vision be 20/20 in 2020.


Grace and Peace to you and yours,


Jack Haberer Lead Pastor


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