The session will meet again Sunday after worship to receive any others who would like to make Caldwell their church home or inquire about membership.
Dear Caldwell,
As we move from Sunday to Sunday this week, we dangle on the edge of what one member called a “cliffhanger” of a sermon and service last Sunday. We took time to think and pray about how God is always moving us from “Memory to Hope.” That is the arc of God’s story with us, whether we are thinking about our personal lives or the life of humankind through history. God always gives us “hope,” particularly the hope and assurance of new life we have been given in Jesus Christ. But, first, we must “remember.”
The “cliffhanger” of our worship was how we ended Sunday just as we began to “remember.” What we are remembering is not anything any of us personally experienced or lived through. It is, however, the history of the church we now call home and how it got its name. A member of the Caldwell family gave the church a large amount of money, equal to $770,000 in today’s dollars, in 1922. That gift helped build a beautiful sanctuary, where thousands have worshiped through the decades, a space we now cherish as our own. Yet, the source of that financial gift ultimately connects Caldwell to the institution of slavery. We cannot change that history. Nor are we to condemn those who lived it. We can, however, learn from it and submit ourselves to a God who is always leading his people out of darkness and toward the light of his love and justice.
Elder Beth Van Gorp, who became our unofficial historian during our centennial in 2012, has spent hours researching this story of a family, a church and, in some ways, of Mecklenburg County. She will share it in full on Sunday in worship, using as her text Luke 15:1-7 (the parable of the lost sheep) and Jeremiah’s call to justice, 58:6-12. Jeremiah’s powerful words to God’s people include these verses:
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”
So, as we move from Sunday to Sunday this week, I hope you will make every effort to be in worship Sunday as we take this important step in our Discipleship of Race and Class initiative. If you would like to read last Sunday’s sermon framing this journey “From Memory to Hope,” you can click here.
Two important prayer concerns. Member John Crowell travels to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland today where, tomorrow at 9 a.m., he is scheduled to “turn on” the device that has been wired to his brain to end a life-long tremor. We give thanks for this modern-day miracle, we pray for John’s peace in these anxious final hours and we hope for his own new beginning starting tomorrow. Please also pray for Jane Wallwork, whose niece, Carey, died after a long battle with Cystic Fibrosis. Jane’s sister is doing better and I am sure the family would lean on your prayers amids these highs and lows. You can read Carey’s obituary here.
In Christ,
John