Tonight, I was approved by the Presbytery of the Northern Plains to serve as Stated Supply Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hallock, Minn.  Yay!  I’m really excited to be working with the good folks of FPC Hallock, looking forward to getting to know the community, and pretty darn pumped for the annual Pie Social.  It’s a great call for me and for Megan, and I’m grateful for the support of so many through the process — including, tonight, the many prayers through Twitter connections.  I’ll be ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament on Sept 6th in Tallahassee.

I’ll wait for another day — and more lucidity — to say any more specifics about the exam or the call, but I will say it went very well.  Instead, I’ll include below my address to the presbytery.   If you’re interested in that sort of thing, read on:

Address to the Presbytery of the Northern Plains on My Commitment to the Ministry

Adam J. Copeland

August 26, 2009

Madam Moderator, it is with a deep sense of joy and a great hope for the future that I speak tonight on what the Book of Order (G-14.0482) terms ‘the candidate’s’ “commitment to the ministry of Word and Sacrament.”

I became an Inquirer in the Presbytery of Florida back in February of 2003, when I was a junior at St. Olaf College. I still remember writing to my pastor from a computer in an internet cafe in Seoul, Korea where I was studying on the college’s Global Semester program, to say that I was interested in beginning the discernment process. Then, I had no idea where I might be called, but I knew that my gifts might be suited for ordained ministry, that that path was one I was called to at least explore.

Over the next six years from Seoul back to St. Olaf; from St. Olaf to Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Georgia; from Columbia to serving as an Assistant Minister in Ayr, Scotland; and now to Hallock, Minnesota, I have explored my gifts for ministry and been supported by many. I have learned from the best and the brightest at Columbia, but also from those other Atlantans whom society forgets, from the homeless and diseased, the battered and the down-hearted. I have served the national church in several capacities, but also been active in a local church choir. I have been through the rigors of ordination exams, been immersed in the Bible, survived Church History and now, if the body is willing, might be called to serve as Stated Supply pastor in Hallock.

In Hallock, I think I know (and I surely have been told) the ministry of Word and Sacrament will not be as simple as it is made out to be in the seminary classroom. Storms will come; at many-a-time no book will supply the answer. But so too will joy come in the morning. Just as the wind blows on those northern plains, I trust the Spirit of God will make a way clear. And with the support of the congregation, the session, and this presbytery God’s work might be done.

And so, I assure you, my commitment to the ministry of Word and Sacrament is strong for I rest my faith and hope not in my experiences or education–though they are solid — but in Jesus Christ, the rock of our salvation.

As I was unpacking this week I came across a passage in the Second Helvetic Confession that speaks exactly to this commitment — true story, I found some old ordination exam study cards. Section 5.155 of the Second Helvetic Confession describes ministers as “Stewards of the Mysteries of God.” The passage builds on 1 Cor. 4 to say that ministers are like rowers of a boat who must always follow the lead of the captain, Jesus Christ. Only with their eyes fixed on the captain might ministers know whose command to follow, for whom to care, and that all the affairs of ministry are subject to Christ’s ways and will.

If this presbytery concurs, it would be a great honor to fix my eyes on Christ in the beautiful corner of God’s creation that is Hallock. Then, with the good folks at First Presbyterian Church, I might row a ship with eyes fixed on Christ, energized by Holy Spirit, and supported by God the Father, sharing this Trinity of Love with those of this presbytery and beyond. To that ministry of Word and Sacrament, I assure you, I am deeply committed. Thank you Madam Moderator.

image by Kateřina Štěpánková