Let us worship God, that which we have seen and heard. We proclaim also to you so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father and with his Son. Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord and pray. Let us join in the processional hymn. It is found in the hymnal in the pew in front of you on page 132. All Hail the Power of Jesus Name. And. If we believe ourselves to be sunless, we only deceive ourselves and become more and more strangers to the truth that God would have us know. With that in mind, let us look at the prayer of confession printed in the service of installation. And let us repeat now that prayer together. Oh, God. You know how we think. You know what we've done? You know what motivates our actions? It is not possible to hide anything from you. Forgive us all that we have imposed on your creation. Forgive our self-righteous judgment of others. Forgive our inability to get along with our neighbors. Help us get turned over our friends, our minds. Deliver us from evil. What does the greatest? A lot of people, man, who is in a position to condemn only Christ and Christ died for us. Christ rose for us. Christ reigns in power for us. God's mercy never ends. I tell you, in the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Please be seated. The Psalm from the Old Testament. Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. All the lands serve the Lord with gladness. Come into His presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is He that made us. And we are. He is. We are His people. And the sheep of his pasture enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his court with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name for the Lord is good. He is steadfast. Love endures forever and His faithfulness to all generations.

The Gospel reading is from Mark Chapter six Beginning to read at first seven Listen for the Word of the Lord. Jesus called the 12 and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except the staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And Jesus said to them, Where you enter a house. Stay there until you leave the place, and if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you when you leave. Shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them. So they went out and preached that people should repent and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil, many that were sick and healed them. May the Lord add a blessing to the hearing of these words through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Listen as God seeks to speak to us through His word. That is recorded in Second Timothy, the first chapter reading basis three through 48, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, as did my fathers. When I remember you constantly in my prayers, as I remember your tears, I long night and day to see you that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that drove first in your grandmother, lawyers and your mother, Eunice, and now I'm sure dwells in you. Hence, I remind you, you too, can rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and love and self-control. Do not be ashamed, then, of testifying to our Lord. Nor of me, his prisoner. But take your share of suffering for the Gospel in the power of God who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works, but in venture of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus eight years ago. And now He has manifested through the appearing of Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. For this gospel, I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, and therefore I suffer as I do. But I'm not ashamed. But I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to God. Until that day, what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound of words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ. Jesus, God, the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Here ended the reading from God's only Word.

Our guest speaker this afternoon for the service of installation is Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon. Dr. Canon is a 1971 honors graduate of Barber Scotia College in Concord, North Carolina. In 1974, she graduated with honors from Johnson C. Smith Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, where she obtained the Master of Divinity degree. In 1983. She obtained a master of Philosophy degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and also in the same year received a doctor of philosophy degree in Christian Ethics from Union Seminary in New York City. She has been the pastor of the Presbyterian Church of the Ascension in New York City. She has served on the faculty of New York Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary in New York and Harvard Divinity School. At present, she serves as associate professor of Christian ethics, the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Cannon has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards. They include membership in Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society. In 1970, the recipient of the Rockefeller Protestant Fellowship, 1972 274, the Rockefeller Doctoral Fellowship, 74 to 75, The Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship for Black Americans 75 through 77, and the Mary Ingraham Botting Fellowship of Radcliffe College in 87 and 88. Dr. Canon is the author of many publications. They include The Black Woman Ethics 1988, Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick, The Womanist Dilemma and the Development of a Black Liberation Ethic the annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, published in 1987. Dr. Cannon also serves on many professional boards and holds several committee memberships. She is a member of Boston Presbytery in Boston, Massachusetts. After the anthem by our Chancel choir, we will listen to Dr. Cannon.

I'd like to begin by thanking the choir for that beautiful music, not only at this service but at the service earlier today. One of the first things my friends said to me when I decided to go to seminary was, Katie, whatever you do, don't ever get happy and try to sing. I just do not have that ability at all. I just admire people who can sing.

Today is truly a historic moment. I think Jerry, now the first brother sister team in the Presbyterian Church among clergy. In 1962, when my mother and father brought Jerry home from the hospital, I was 12 years old and I said, That's my baby. At that time, I didn't know children had children. And my mother said, Don't tell anybody else that, that's my baby. So but in many ways, it always felt like Jerry was my baby before I went off to college. I just have always been connected to him. And as an older sister. Our oldest sister is not here today, nor our oldest brother. But they're here in spirit. One lives in San Diego and the other one's at home in North Carolina. And I think this is the first family event we've ever had where my sister Sarah hasn't been present. It's also a historical moment, I think, because when I was ordained in 1974 Catawba Presbytery, when they ordained me, they said, We're really ordained in your mother, Corine. And I think when Jerry got ordained in December, if they said it or if they didn't, they were really ordaining our father Esau. My parents believed every time the doors of the church opened, we were supposed to be there. So being in the ministry, I don't think we had any other choice. And even though I have three other brothers and sisters. Other people have said that they feel like some of my sisters are more of a minister than I am, but I was the one who ended up in seminary, so they had to deal with this one. So I might have might have to leave before the service is over to get a flight back to Boston. I have to be at work in the morning at 8:00. So if I tip out, you can. And if the sermon goes well, you can give the credit to my mother. She says, I've stolen all my sermons from her anyway. So at the reception, if you see and you want to comment about the sermon you can give, see Corine Cannon and say that was one sermon she preached in the kitchen that I eventually stole from her. Also, Reverend Green was my tutor in seminary in homiletics at ITCare year ahead of me and it just goes to show that it's a small world that he would tutor me in homiletics and now Jerry would be being installed here today as the associate pastor.

If I had been able to preach the ordination sermon, I was going to call it the first woman and the last man, because I was the first black woman ordained in Chicago. Presbyterian Jerry was the last man ordained in Catawba Presbyterian. But since this is the installation and not the ordination, the sermon is a different title. And the title I'd like to use today is Keeping the Covenant Alive. Keeping the Covenant Alive. I greet you on this fifth Sunday of Lent in the name of our Creator and sustainer from the Gospel. According to Matthew, the 16th chapter verses 13 through 17. Not a story that is found in this particular scripture began with Jesus withdrawing from the crowd the end of his life within the year, and Jesus wanted to be alone with his disciples as much as possible. Apparently there was a lot more that Jesus wanted to say. There was a great deal more. They didn't want to teach his disciples. And even though Jesus wanted to share more of his teaching, he was fully aware of the disciples inability to comprehend or understand all that he was trying to say. So as our scripture opens up, we find Jesus was drawn to the District of Sorcery of Philip II. So let us listen to an amplified version of the Scripture found in Matthew 16 verses 13 to 17. And this is what it said that when Jesus came to the District of Cetera, Philip, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that I am? And the disciples answered. Some say that you're John the Baptist, others say that you are largely a few people say that you, Jeremiah, one of the other prophet. Then Jesus turned against his disciples and asked, But who do you say that I am? And Simon, Peter replied, You are the Christ, the one who comes from the living God. And Jesus asked, and blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but our got our creator sustainer, who is in heaven. Being a Christian in today's world is not only difficult, but at times it seems almost impossible. But this I mean, that is church women and church men as Christian girls and Christian boys. Someone is. And reminding us someone is forever challenging us. Someone is still teaching us what we need to do in order to be authentic Christian and these latter days of the 20th century. In other words, the mandate of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that all of us who intend to the covenant relationship when we say Yes, God will be our God and we will be God's people. We are then required to free the captive, to preach good news to the poor, to recover sight, to blind, to set in liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of our Lord. And again, we find over and over in the Scripture how we must be born again, how Christians must lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. And that and there's that age old scripture saying, what does it profit any of us if we gain the whole world but lose our souls? And even when we look at the picture of the eschaton that Jesus painted, this is in part symbolic picture in the last chapter of Matthew. It is made clear that the nobody determining the vision between the sheep and the goats will be deeds done for others. For on the day of judgment, we will not be asked about our academic degrees, nor will we ask about how much money we acquired, nor about our real estate investments. But rather we ask one by one Do we feed the hungry? Do we give a cup of water to the thirsty? They were close to the neck and we visited the sick. They were administered to the imprisoned. And the question we're asking today in the installation service, did we keep the covenant alive? Did we hold fast to the mutual relationship we made with our God to be faithful followers in God's name? And the tendency of so many Christians is that we forsake the New Covenant, where we get so where we try to do the many tasks that we think God has called us to do, that we end up following the trade winds of our time and we in turn lose sight of Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone of our faith. In other words, too many women and men in the church have become lukewarm Christians in terms of our inability to answer the question in our own lives that Jesus posed to his disciples. Who do we say that Jesus is, in essence, in order for us to keep the covenant alive? We must know who Jesus is and what Jesus is to us. Now we go back and examine our Scripture. For the afternoon. We will find that Jesus asked this specific question Who do people say that I am for a particular reason? Jesus knew that that special moment in history was crucial. He knew that his time was running out here on Earth. He knew that it would not be long before the hour would come, when he would have to drink the bitter cup and die on the cross on Calvary. That's the problem that Jesus was addressing when he asked the question about his identity. Well, the genes wondered if there were any of the followers who understood him. Were they any who were willing to keep the covenant alive? Just who would be the disciples to carry on his work after he ascended? Obviously, what Jesus was asking was a most critical question. The very survival of the Christian faith was at stake. And not only is this question of Jesus's identity crucial, but the geographical place where the question is posed is of utmost importance. There have been few places with more diverse and pronounced religious association than sets a real fell apart that Jesus did not raise the question of his identity in Jerusalem, nor in Bethlehem, nor Nazareth. But he went instead to the area that was crowded with temples of the ancient bell worship. There were at least 15 temples in a nearby neighborhood for idol worship. Idolatry and hypocrisy breathed in the very air of this particular city. It was here in Bell's territory that Jesus asked the question, Who do people say that I am? And not only were Bill God's worship in this neighborhood, but also the Rose Hill in which there was a lot of deep caves, and one of the caverns was said to be the birthplace of the great god of the City of Serfs, a real Philip II, whose original name was Panis. And to this day, the place is known as Banyas here, surrounded by the gods of Greece. Jesus asked the question, Who do people say that I am? But there was something more for right in the heart of the city accessory of Philip II. There was a great white marble temple built to the Godhead of Caesar. No one can look at this city even from a distance, without seeing the powerless shiny marble that was used in worshiping and praying, paying tribute to the mighty Roman Empire. So here then, we have a dramatic picture of a homeless, penniless carpenter from Galilee. With 12 ordinary disciples around him. And at a time in history when the power brokers of his day or actually plotting and planning to destroy him as a dangerous heretic, Jesus dance in this area stands in this place that is littered with temples. The other God, a place where the ancient Greek God supposedly looked out there in the middle of the city, where the marble splendor of the worship of Caesar dominated the landscape. And here, of all places, this amazing carpenter stands and asks his disciples, Who do they believe him to be? It is as if Jesus deliberately set himself against the background of the world's religions in all their history and in all their marvelous splendor and demands to have a verdict, give it in his favor. That truly Jesus is the one who comes from the living God. There's drama also in the answer to Jesus's question Who do people say that I am? Notice how the disciples are very gentle. They do not begin by reporting the gospel, but the evil mind is slander of the day. For there are some critics who said that Jesus was no more than a glutton and a one viper. Many mob chief is a friend of publicans and sinners. Some sneered at him as a carpenter who turned into a jack leg preacher. Other surmised that Jesus was a political enthusiast who knows, use a lot of cheap psychology on the people to build up a following. Still, others gossip that Jesus was a simple minded Roman mystic who believed in love, peace and justice. But the disciples, when asked the question, did not begin with the gossip in their day, or ignored these ill judged and oppressive characterizations of Jesus. And rather they reported only the serious talk that they had heard in the marketplace, that which it heard at the supper table, that which they had heard at the door of the synagogue. And brothers and sisters in Christ. What I'm saying to you this afternoon is that Jesus poses the same question to ask each and every day. Who do we say that Jesus is in our lives? What are we teaching in our churches about Jesus? What are we saying in our living? For we cannot answer these questions of who is Jesus in our own lives from the very core of our being. Then our religious faith becomes like quicksand. When we too, we get swallowed up in everybody else's beliefs, we will be forced to live in a tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next. But we do live in cities. We live in counties. We live in a nation with various religions and numerous interpretations of Christianity exist. And if we don't strengthen our understanding of our covenant with Jesus Christ, we will get easily co-opted. We will easily get trapped without being torn asunder, and our lives will be no more than noisy gongs and clanging cymbals full of sound and fury that signify nothing. Therefore, therefore forced. We see how remaining unclear of the meaning of Jesus in our lives will hamper our Christian commitment to. We see our calls, both our youth and our adults, to be carried down the road to evil and destruction that has embraced three answers to the question of who is Jesus in order to be true Christian disciple who can courageously keep the covenant alive. Morning by morning and day by day. Now, according to our text, the first answer related to keeping the covenant alive is to remember the first answer that the disciples gave when Jesus asked, Who do people say that I am? And the disciples answered. Some say that Jesus is John the Baptist. This was the understanding of a lot of the men and women who had heard John the Baptist and they remembered their own baptism and their own conversion as a result of John's preaching. In other words, what the people found common to both Jesus and John the Baptist was their fearlessness and their sincerity in proclaiming the Fifth the Lord. John the Baptist was a preacher, and he lived in the desert eating locusts and wild honey, announcing to the people that we must repent, that we must be baptized so our sins would be forgiven. John was a voice that cried in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord. Make the pathway straight. And what the people appeared to be saying when they said that Jesus was John the Baptist, was that both Jesus and John were preachers of the good news. And when the question is posed to us, who do we say that Jesus is? The first answer we can embrace is that Jesus was a preacher. From his lives came words of healing and words of life. Jesus preached messages of comfort and sermons of cheer and. Told the people about the good news of God's Commonwealth and in our own lives, we must grow now, understanding what that means that Jesus prayed so that our sins would be forgiven and our lives would be made whole. Yes, Jesus was a preacher. Jesus preached a lame. Women and men got up and walked and scales fell from the eyes of the blind. Jesus preached so that people, through a weather crutches and a bed got up out of their graves. And this preaching is something that every Christian ought to have in common with Jesus Christ. As ministers in the and if laity, as offices and as leaders, as choir members, and as ushers of the church, all of us who have come forward and said that we want to be disciples of Christ, then our whole life should be a sermon. Our entire life should be a testimony that says we have met the man from Galilee, the one who steal the water, the one who come the sea. And one of the most serious and dangerous charges that can be brought against any Christian. We are so busy in ecclesiastical politics that we're so busy making a name for ourselves among the social climbers of this world that we lose our ability to tell the story of the gospel and all that we say and do. What a tragedy and what a denial of the Ministry of Jesus Christ. So the first after the we must embrace is that Jesus was a preacher. And even though we ourselves may not be able to preach, life's our and we may not be able to pray like Paul, each of us can tell the love of Jesus and say that Jesus died for us all. So let us grow in our understanding of Jesus as a preacher so that our lives can become living sermons of God's love and our day to day commitment to keep the covenant alive. Now, according to our text, the second answer related to keeping the covenant alive is to remember the second answer the disciples gave when Jesus f Who do people say that I am? The second answer that the disciples gave is that Jesus is Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other Prophet. The purpose of Jesus was plainly to call men and women to a new faith in Almighty God so that all of us might have life and have life more abundantly. Like the other prophets, Jesus was also a teacher who came from God. The disciples. After the Jesus was Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the of the Prophet, because they remember that Jesus claimed the coming of God's kingdom. Jesus claimed the temple. He healed the widows. He fiercely rebuked the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees. And he did not fear the pass verdict on those who said in high places, Yes, Jesus was a prophet and Jesus in enlarged did have a lot in common for Mt. Carmel. Elijah confronted the people with a decision. Elijah said to the crowd, If y'all won't be God, then follow your way. And if get bail, be God and follow bail, put the matter to attack the God that answers by fire. Let that God be the true and living God. For how long can we continue leaping between two opinions? And just like Elijah confronted the people with a decision about God, Jesus confronts us. Likewise, Jesus challenges each and every one of us to make a decision. We cannot remain the same old person that we used to be. Once we've had a real encounter with Christ. According to our symbolic text for this afternoon, Jesus appears to be saying to the world, If the God of Greece is God, or if the gods of Caesar and bail in Rome, then follow them, put the matter to the test. But if you want to know what God is and who God is and what God is doing, look at Jesus's ministry. And Jesus is concerned for the poor and the oppressed of the Earth. Yes, Jesus had this in common with the Prophet Elijah, and still others said that Jesus was not Elijah, but Jesus was Jeremiah. And it is easy to understand why many people pass the verdict that Jesus was a second Jeremiah because they saw that Jesus was a prophet of great love and compassion. Jesus concerned himself with the misery and the troubles of the people. He constantly protested against powers and principalities, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Jesus wept the grave of Lazarus and his disciples because he saw in his eyes when folks turned his back on him. And Mark fun is his prophecy. This was a prophet who identified himself with everybody who has a burden to bear. Jesus message goes out to the nobodies of the world, to the men and women, to the boys and girls who are written off by society. People who do not count. People are pushed to the limits of their existence, people who have become desperate, people who do desperate things. Jesus takes on those of us who are weak, those of us who have heartaches and sorrows, those of us who feel as if our backs are penned against the wall. And it gives us hope to keep on keeping on. And then the disciple said that Jesus was not Elijah. Jeremiah. Maybe Jesus was one of the other prophets, but a prophet nevertheless. And by this, they meant that the way that Jesus carried himself, he was from a long line of succession of great names like Moses and Samuel, the name of a lot of holy people like Hammond, Deborah and Ruth, and all the other heroic people who met, who spoke the liberating word of the Lord to both people in and outside of the church. Jesus is understood to be the prophet of humanity. Jesus was a person of wisdom and a person of truth, a person of insight and a person of depth. A person who yields unique simplicity in his teaching in order to fill the holes in our souls. For the second answer that we can embrace as Jesus was a prophet, a prophet that walks with lots of prophets, talks with us. A prophet that tells us that we are God's own and our day to day commitment to keep the covenant alive. Now, according to the text, the third and final answer related to keeping the covenant alive is the answer that was given when Jesus tells his disciples and asked, But who do you say that I am? And Sam and Peter answered, You are the Christ, the one who come from the living God. And when Peter replied, You are the Christ, Jesus said, And blessed are you, Simon, for neither flesh, not blood has revealed this to you, but God who is in heaven. The only true way that we can know that Jesus is the Christ is when we can surrender ourselves before the throne of grace and learn to let go and let God. There are some who say that what it means to let go and let God means that we are grasp and ultimate concern. There are others who say that when we do this, we have a reorientation of our personalities and a few define this type of letting go as a transformation of our matter motives. The New Testament writers simply say that we will be born again. In other words, this type of faith transformation means that we have humbled ourselves before Almighty God, and we have a strong enough faith to believe that God can deliver us. We have a strong enough faith to believe that God can redeem us. That God has the power to heal us through Jesus Christ. The work of Jesus cannot be separated from the person of Jesus. To be able to talk about Jesus Christ means that we can give our own testimony, that we can know deep within our heart of hearts what it means to say that Jesus gave us freedom when we were unfree, that Jesus redeemed us when we were enslaved. That Jesus acquitted us when we were convicted and deliver us from our own captivity. To put it another way to say, like the gospel singer James Cleveland, to know Jesus as the Christ means that we can call and recall time and time again in our prayer when Jesus was our burden, bearing a heavy load share, when Jesus was our mountain movement, our home chief, when Jesus was our lawyer and our doctor in need, when this was the only one, the only one who cared for us. So whenever we are asked who is Jesus and what is Jesus to us? We must realize that these questions are not just philosophical questions, nor are they simply academic questions. Rather, these questions demand an existential answer. I answer that comes from our own experiences. I am here to say that we haven't forgotten from whence we have come. I answer that says We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in God's Holy Word. God has never failed us yet. But dearly beloved, it is made of flesh, not blood, that can reveal to us the Jesus Christ, but only the true and living God who is in heaven. So I closing. I invite you during this installation service to renew your commitment to keep the covenant alive by remembering that Jesus is a preacher. I invite you to renew your commitment to keep the covenant lie by remembering that Jesus is a prophet and by you to renew your commitment to keep the covenant alive. But remember that Jesus Christ, the one who comes from the living God, now has fulfilled forevermore. At the church day, a man. And.

Now, friends, we lift our offering to God. The offering that we lift right now will go to support the Clergy Crisis Fund of the Presbytery of National Capital. Let us pray. God, we thank you for this installation and serve us here at Northeastern Presbyterian Church this day. We ask now that the gifts that are given by your children will go to the building of your kingdoms around the world, to Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen. Oh, no, no, no, no.

MAN All nations involved. Oh, there is no dog. Bob is really supposed to say this is, you know, And with this. Oh, by the end of this whole month. No, that'll reverse for him. Oh, I'm so a reverse. Oh, my Lord. Now, that was a man of horrors whose name was nicotine, but they didn't deserve to deprive Bob Knight. But talk about it. You made it so they could do it for a man who didn't know how. One man could be bold with his or price. Told us I was a free man. You must be for the good of the people of the past. Repair and the law. Be a witness for the Lord to be a witness for Martin, or you'll be acquitted. Form or say is over in the and I'll read about some sort of problem is very small just burned that up or lived on a word about John but I didn't talk about the till 10,000 on the other side of the doors. So when I heard about the things I saw spread and was never found to, is was still a positive thing to say to him. You were just running last week, You know, that's why I called the service and said, Oh, come on, Sam. I had just had a friend will come back. And I told him that all sounds and was a witness for law service and was a witness for Bob, but I wasn't really that small. So he is a friend of mine. Doesn't know when.

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Let us pray. Oh, God. We thank you for these gifts that have been given by your children on this special day for us here at the Northeastern Presbyterian Church. We pray that, as we've said, they will support the urgent crisis formed in our presbytery. They will call those who are in the room, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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And what a privilege to be the presiding officer at such a historic occasion, an occasion that really has been in the making for quite a while, probably as long as you've been alive, Jerry. And I know that there are many here who are going to want to just have a sense of how this all came about. So the first thing I want to have happen is for all of Jerry's family to stand. So you all can have a sense of where the family is and who they are. Everyone in the family stand up. I think you are, too. Yes. We welcome you here and we're grateful to you for Jerry. Having finished his seminary training, this congregation was in search of someone to be an associate pastor. And over a long period of time and many dossiers and many interviews, the pastoral nominating committee was finally led to bring to this congregation the candidate. Jerry Cannon are the pastor nominating committee here. Who's on the pastor nominating committee. Let's have them stand, because this is a part of the coming together in this process. Thank you for your good work. And then all of you who are members here at Northeastern said, yes, we think you've done a good job, PNC, and we would like to have this young man come and be our associate pastor. Will all of you who are members of Northeastern stand. Good. What a wonderful future you have, as well as a celebrated past. Thank you. And then the presbytery said, Well, we'll have to take a look at this young man and we'll have to ask some questions. There are many colleagues from the presbytery here. I can see you out there. Will all of those who come representing the presbytery. Please stand. Look at all of these good folk. We're glad the presbytery concurred. I know that there are also some folk here, probably from some other presbytery, who know Jerry and his family and have been involved with them. Are there other Presbyters here? Yes. Thank you, Bob. We're glad you came in and far to the St Patrick's Day parade to get across town. I'd like you to know also that in spirit, the church Universal is here. The charitable that I wear on occasions like this is a very special one. It's one that had its origin in Alsace-lorraine at the beginning of this century. And when we were at war in the first Great War, the congregation that owned this charitable gave it after the the facility had been bombed out, gave it to one of our U.S. soldiers, and he brought it home and took it to his Episcopalian priest to wear. And pretty soon that Episcopalian priest said, I really think I should give it back to you because it's getting very worn where my belly bumps up against the altar. And so it was given back to this man. He retired out to California and died very shortly after moving there. And his wife took it to her Methodist minister. And the Methodist minister wore it for a while. And then it really did get to look sort of ratty. And so she decided to sell it to an antique dealer. Three years ago, a couple in my congregation saw it enclosed in glass in this antique store in California, and they decided, no, it does not belong encased in glass, it belongs being worn. And they brought it home for me with the story. And I wear it to help us feel connected with occasions similar to this one that have been going on now for a long period of time, back into the beginnings of our faith. Will you join me as we proceed now to install Jerry Cannon as associate pastor of this church? Reading responsibly. The people of God say there are different gifts.

Yeah.

There are different ways of serving God.

And.

God works through different persons in different ways.

These characters.

Each one is given a gift by the spirit to. Together we are the body of Christ and the individual matters. Though we have different gifts. Together, we are a Ministry of reconciliation led by the risen Christ. We work and pray to make Christ Church useful in the world, and we call men and women of faith so that in the end, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. Within our common ministry, some members are chosen for particular work as ministers of the word ruling elders or deacons in ordination. We recognize these special ministries, remembering that our Lord Jesus said, Whoever among you wants to be great must become the servant of all. And if he wants you to be first among you, you must be the slave of all of you.

And if you. This is. What? We are. L Yeah.

Hearing the call by Voice of God and his congregation.

To this position. And so I asked you now the required constitutional question.

Do you trust in Jesus Christ your savior? Acknowledge him laudable and part of the church and through him believe in one God creator, Redeemer and Holy Spirit. I do. Do you accept the Scripture, the Old and New Testament, be by the Holy Spirit, a unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church, Universal and God's Word to you. Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reform Party, as expressed in the confessions of our Church as authentic and reliable expositions of what the future leads us to believe and do? And will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you leave the people of God?

I do, and I will.

Will you be a minister of the world in obedience to Jesus Christ under the authority of Scripture and continually guided by.

Our confession of.