Three Ultimate Questions

By / January 26, 2017
Caldwell hosted a gathering Wednesday of about 50 church leaders from across the city to hear about what Baltimore has done in response to its uprising over police violence and other issues of inequity. Featured speaker was Rev. Andrew Foster Conners of Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church.
Caldwell hosted a gathering Wednesday of about 50 church leaders from across the city to hear about what Baltimore has done in response to its uprising over police violence and other issues of inequity. Featured speaker was Rev. Andrew Foster Conners of Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Dear Caldwell,

What is timeless? What questions trascend time and space, generation to generation?

At a luncheon today on ministry to college-aged young adults, Rev. Claire George Drumheller, Associate Minister for Campus Ministry, Davidson College Presbyterian Church, offered her thoughts on those questions. While college students today face a vastly different world than many of us knew at their age, not everything is changed. In every time, she proposed, people have always sought to answer three ultimate questions:

  1. Who am I?
  2.  Where do I fit in?
  3. What difference to I make?

In essence, those questions seek understanding about identity, belonging and purpose. Outside the church, people may arrive at a range of answers. Inside the church community, however, we try to answer those questions in reference to God. In one way or another, the answers, respectively, come back to God’s grace for us (who we are), God’s love for us (where we fit in) and God’s mission for us (how we make a difference).

In these volatile days, what a comfort to hear that this pastor to young people sees such enduring journeys that can lead us back to God. Life with God is all about journeys, even those we do not welcome, even those into surroundings where we feel lost and disoriented (as some in our nation feel these days). Come Sunday, I will preach part one of a two-part sermon series on “Lessons From the Wilderness.”

It will be a full and ful-filling day of worship. Read more soon to come in Caldwell This Week. But right now, say a quick prayer of support for Gwen Pearson, who is in the middle of taking her ordination exams!

In Christ,

John