Today, September 1, 2005, marks my 23rd anniversary as a member of Tenth Church Staff. It amazes me that I've lasted this long. When I joines staff I had returned from missionary service in Florence, Italy, and I had a three year plan to go back to Italy. One of God's great surprises to me has been that I'm still here.
When I returned from Italy for missions conference in autumn of 1981, Glenn McDowell asked me to have lunch with him the next week, during which he extended an invitation to join the Pastoral Staff at Tenth. Jim Boice had the vision of having a woman on pastoral staff and eventually to have a board of deaconesses. He certainly had great vision for the role of women in ministry! When Tenth left the United Presbyterian Church, USA, in 1978 or 79, the factor that precipitated that departure was the edict declaring that we were to have women elders. Since there was an underlying issue of the authority of Scipture involved here, Tenth Church parted ways with the parent denomination. The result of leaving a denominaton over the issue of having women elders made some people think that Dr. Boice was something of a misogynist. However, I have never met anyone more gracious and supportive of women ministering in the church along Scriptural guidelines.
In 23 years I've seen a lot of growth and change at Tenth Church. During my first year on staff we had a court trial with the Presbytery of the UPCUSA over posession of the church building and the manse, located at 1827 Delancey Place. Lots of prayer went into that struggle, in which both sides felt that they were clearly in the right. When the two parties settled out of court, the Presbytery decided to give us the church buildings provided we occupy them for 49 years. At the end of that time, there will be a jubilee, and the building will be Tenth Church's free and clear. The Presbytery got the manse, a very desirable piece of real estate that has been sold and resold since then and was recently on the market for over a million dollars. We continue to worship in our sanctuary and are grateful to God for giving us this venue!
WhenI first joined Tenth Church a committee was working on setting up Alpha Pregnancy Services, which is now an independent ministry, located 2 or 3 blocks from the church. During my first year on staff, we discussed the need to reach out to the gay community around us, and plans were laid for what would become Harvest, USA, which has also become an independent ministry and is still doing great work. My contribution? A ministry to older singles called "Phase II", which went on for about 12 years before it outlived its usefulness.
The following year, 1983, the building at 1701 was put up for sale by the lawyers who occupied it, and that summer, the sale was finalized. Since we now had a new building, we also added a new minstry: City Center Academy, which began that year with a ninth grade class, adding a grade year by year until they had a complete high school. 1701 Delancey Place became a busy spot, with the minsitries of Tenth Church, Alpha Pregnancy Services and City Center Academy all working in the same location!
In the next year or so a grass roots group within the congregation decided that we needed to be reaching out to the poor and needy in the community in practical ways, and they formed ACTS: Active Compassion Through Service, which began as a food closet and a clothing closet. Priscilla Blair Strapp, the first director of ACTS, also added literacy training to their ministries.
Meanwhile, I finished graduate school and realized that the Lord was not calling me back to Italy, and settled into new phases of minsitry here. I had been visiting all the small group Bible studies in the church and encouraging their growth, I took on the Adult Bible School, searching for gifted teachers to teach challenging classes, and rejoiced at God's provision of a range of teachers like Mark Talbot and Harvie Conn and Dorcas Eppright.
In 1987 we began the Preparation for Marriage Class as a pilot project for equipping our engaged couples with skills and tools for building a marriage to last a lifetime. About this time the Lord began bringing many Chinese students to us, as the People's Republic of China seemed to lift it's surveillance of students in this country and these peole were free to try to satisfy their spiritual hunger. Our already diverse congregation was becoming even more diverse as the Lord brought many of these people into His Kingdom.
In 1988 Harvest decided to expand its ministry to people suffering with AIDS and founded HOPE, calling Ken and Evelyn Larter from Scotland to head up this minsitry. David Apple came to be the new head of ACTS Ministries. My great adventure that year was a trip to Kenya to visit my friend, Joyce Scott in Nairobi. Since Joyce was planning to retire the next year, this was her year to travel all over the country visiting pastors and other Christian workers whom she had trained in Bible School over the last 26 years. I was given the amazing privilege of meeting the ones she visited in the weeks I was with her, some of whom are still on my prayer list!
Over the course of the next couple of years, we had an Executive Pastor for the first time and changed the way we did small groups, moving to a very structured model, with "coaches" for every 10 groups and monthly meetings for Vision, Huddles and Training in some aspect of running a successful small group.
In 1991 I returned to Europe on my vacation, partly to lead a short term missions team to help distribute Scripture in Brussels as part of a campaign called, "Brussels, Jesus Loves You" or "Bruxelles, Jesus T'Aime." For two weeks prior to our project in Brussels, I visited friends in Italy, where I became very much aware that my work there was over. That alone was worth the plane fare to Europe! It wasn't what I expected to learn or what I wanted to find out, but it was very helpful as I looked forward to the years to come.
In 1992 I celebrated 10 years with Tenth Church. It had already been an amazing time. I think, however, that I ought to consider the remaining time on another blog.
When I returned from Italy for missions conference in autumn of 1981, Glenn McDowell asked me to have lunch with him the next week, during which he extended an invitation to join the Pastoral Staff at Tenth. Jim Boice had the vision of having a woman on pastoral staff and eventually to have a board of deaconesses. He certainly had great vision for the role of women in ministry! When Tenth left the United Presbyterian Church, USA, in 1978 or 79, the factor that precipitated that departure was the edict declaring that we were to have women elders. Since there was an underlying issue of the authority of Scipture involved here, Tenth Church parted ways with the parent denomination. The result of leaving a denominaton over the issue of having women elders made some people think that Dr. Boice was something of a misogynist. However, I have never met anyone more gracious and supportive of women ministering in the church along Scriptural guidelines.
In 23 years I've seen a lot of growth and change at Tenth Church. During my first year on staff we had a court trial with the Presbytery of the UPCUSA over posession of the church building and the manse, located at 1827 Delancey Place. Lots of prayer went into that struggle, in which both sides felt that they were clearly in the right. When the two parties settled out of court, the Presbytery decided to give us the church buildings provided we occupy them for 49 years. At the end of that time, there will be a jubilee, and the building will be Tenth Church's free and clear. The Presbytery got the manse, a very desirable piece of real estate that has been sold and resold since then and was recently on the market for over a million dollars. We continue to worship in our sanctuary and are grateful to God for giving us this venue!
WhenI first joined Tenth Church a committee was working on setting up Alpha Pregnancy Services, which is now an independent ministry, located 2 or 3 blocks from the church. During my first year on staff, we discussed the need to reach out to the gay community around us, and plans were laid for what would become Harvest, USA, which has also become an independent ministry and is still doing great work. My contribution? A ministry to older singles called "Phase II", which went on for about 12 years before it outlived its usefulness.
The following year, 1983, the building at 1701 was put up for sale by the lawyers who occupied it, and that summer, the sale was finalized. Since we now had a new building, we also added a new minstry: City Center Academy, which began that year with a ninth grade class, adding a grade year by year until they had a complete high school. 1701 Delancey Place became a busy spot, with the minsitries of Tenth Church, Alpha Pregnancy Services and City Center Academy all working in the same location!
In the next year or so a grass roots group within the congregation decided that we needed to be reaching out to the poor and needy in the community in practical ways, and they formed ACTS: Active Compassion Through Service, which began as a food closet and a clothing closet. Priscilla Blair Strapp, the first director of ACTS, also added literacy training to their ministries.
Meanwhile, I finished graduate school and realized that the Lord was not calling me back to Italy, and settled into new phases of minsitry here. I had been visiting all the small group Bible studies in the church and encouraging their growth, I took on the Adult Bible School, searching for gifted teachers to teach challenging classes, and rejoiced at God's provision of a range of teachers like Mark Talbot and Harvie Conn and Dorcas Eppright.
In 1987 we began the Preparation for Marriage Class as a pilot project for equipping our engaged couples with skills and tools for building a marriage to last a lifetime. About this time the Lord began bringing many Chinese students to us, as the People's Republic of China seemed to lift it's surveillance of students in this country and these peole were free to try to satisfy their spiritual hunger. Our already diverse congregation was becoming even more diverse as the Lord brought many of these people into His Kingdom.
In 1988 Harvest decided to expand its ministry to people suffering with AIDS and founded HOPE, calling Ken and Evelyn Larter from Scotland to head up this minsitry. David Apple came to be the new head of ACTS Ministries. My great adventure that year was a trip to Kenya to visit my friend, Joyce Scott in Nairobi. Since Joyce was planning to retire the next year, this was her year to travel all over the country visiting pastors and other Christian workers whom she had trained in Bible School over the last 26 years. I was given the amazing privilege of meeting the ones she visited in the weeks I was with her, some of whom are still on my prayer list!
Over the course of the next couple of years, we had an Executive Pastor for the first time and changed the way we did small groups, moving to a very structured model, with "coaches" for every 10 groups and monthly meetings for Vision, Huddles and Training in some aspect of running a successful small group.
In 1991 I returned to Europe on my vacation, partly to lead a short term missions team to help distribute Scripture in Brussels as part of a campaign called, "Brussels, Jesus Loves You" or "Bruxelles, Jesus T'Aime." For two weeks prior to our project in Brussels, I visited friends in Italy, where I became very much aware that my work there was over. That alone was worth the plane fare to Europe! It wasn't what I expected to learn or what I wanted to find out, but it was very helpful as I looked forward to the years to come.
In 1992 I celebrated 10 years with Tenth Church. It had already been an amazing time. I think, however, that I ought to consider the remaining time on another blog.
posted by Hogue Cora at 4:30 PM
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