{"id":255,"date":"2006-11-16T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-16T13:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marktime.org\/?p=255"},"modified":"2009-01-22T15:17:16","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T20:17:16","slug":"i-am-a-presbyterian-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marktime.org\/?p=255","title":{"rendered":"I am a Presbyterian, again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, the session of the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville<\/a>, NJ voted to receive me as a member by Reaffirmation of Faith.\u00a0 This ends my nearly 20 year departure from the church (and at least a few years off the rolls anywhere).<\/p>\n

I wasn’t alone – there were 15 others joining at this time.\u00a0 Three by Profession of Faith, Six by Reaffirmation of Faith and 7 by Letter of Transfer.\u00a0 As I’ve said before, this was a very diverse group on everything but age.\u00a0 The new members live as far away from Lawrenceville as Lahaska, PA and Bensalem, PA.\u00a0 There are two first-year students at Princeton Seminary.\u00a0 The ages run from early 20’s to “I don’t want to even guess” retired.\u00a0 When you add the non-member spouses (like mine) and young children, the group ends up being more like 25 people.<\/p>\n

In fact, we outnumbered the elder members of the session.\u00a0 Because the group was so large, the session had to start their meeting in the chapel and move to their usual spot after the new member portion was complete.<\/p>\n

We got started about 7pm with new members and session members filtering into the room.\u00a0 The chairs were arranged in a big circle that just barely fit in the room, and the new members and session members were interspersed throughout the circle.<\/p>\n

The idea behind this is that this way the blood stays sale on viagra<\/a> on for long time in the penis, which results to the improvement in erection. Apart from tablets, a patient can use http:\/\/www.devensec.com\/sustain\/eidis-updates\/IndustrialSymbiosisupdateAug_Nov2011.pdf<\/a> cheapest viagra generic the simplest form of genuine drug if getting issues to swallow a pill. It is possible to generic tadalafil tablets<\/a> produce positive results in their erections. This course we offer is one of the best cheap viagra in india<\/a> herbal remedies to prevent and treat ED completely. <\/span>The main portion of the meeting was taken up by the introductions.\u00a0 Each new member was asked to give some information on themselves, their families, their faith journey and why they chose Lawrenceville.\u00a0 Each session member did the same, substituting what membership means for them for their faith journey.\u00a0 Due to the size of the group, this took over 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

After that, the session voted to receive us into membership and to authorize the baptism of one of us.\u00a0 We then said a common prayer and passed the peace.\u00a0 The session then left the room to continue their meeting (being 1\/2 hour behind schedule due to our group’s size) and the rest of us headed home.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, we will be recognized during the service and one of us will be baptized.\u00a0 We’ve been instructed to sit up front in the reserved pews (along with family) and that we will be called to stand in front of the congregation at some point.\u00a0 During the final hymn we will be escorted out to form a receiving line in Fellowship Hall.<\/p>\n

The one funny point of the evening came when one of the new members talked about the music program and choir being part of his reason for choosing Lawrenceville.\u00a0 An elder who is in choir (and who was still jet-lagged from the mission trip to Israel) leaned over and told him when the choir meets.\u00a0 He then informed her that he’s been in the choir for six months!\u00a0 Apparently short women in the soprano section up front can’t see the big guys in the baritone section in back.