The Moderator, Rev Sandy McMillan's address to General Assembly 2011 (edited):

 

What I’d like to do is to share with you something of a vision for our denomination.

Something of what I’d like to see happening among us. Something of where I see, we need to head.

 

I wonder if any of you remember this Olympic moment from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. What a

disaster for the US team.

 

One night – August 24. Both men’s and women’s 4 x 100metre track relays. Within 20 minutes of

each other. Both the best teams on their respective cards. Both looking at potential world

records. And both failing to finish. Because they didn’t pass the baton properly.

We have the best news in the world. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the glorious grace

of God. The Kingdom of his Son. The sure hope of everlasting life. There’s nothing better on offer.

What a tragedy it would be if we failed because we didn’t pass the baton.

I know God won’t fail. I know the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. But I am talking

about our little corner of the vineyard. I’m talking about the Presbyterian Church in NSW. God can

work with us or despite us.

 

There are three spheres in which we are called to pass the baton:

·        in our families;

·        in our churches; and

·        in our leadership.

 

 

 

WHAT IS IT THAT WE NEED TO PASS ON?

The proud history of the Presbyterian Church? Not really. The Presbyterian form of church

government? Not that either. The ‘purity of worship as practiced in this church’, to quote our

ordination vows? No, that’s not what I mean.

 

Not even, dare I say it, the Westminster Confession of Faith, read in the light of the declaratory

statement.

 

As important as those things are and as committed as we are to asserting, maintaining and

defending them, that’s not at the heart of what we need to pass on.

 

No, the baton we need to pass on is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The Bible is full of examples of passing on the baton. From Jacob blessing his sons at the end of

Genesis to Peter exhorting his fellow elders in 1 Peter 5.

 

I think the clearest and most helpful example of passing on the baton in all of Scripture is Paul to

his young ministry trainee Timothy as he faces his own death.

 

“So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in

suffering for the gospel, by the power of God”.  And a chapter further on: “Remember Jesus Christ,

raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the

point of being chained like a criminal.”

 

And as he urges Timothy, do you notice how he articulates what he means by the gospel:

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.”

 

The gospel is the great announcement concerning Jesus. The gospel of God, which Paul had summed

up as he began his letter to the Romans. “regarding his Son, who as to his human nature

was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power

to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”

 

It’s all about Jesus – God’s Son. Taking on human flesh. But shown to be God’s One and Only Son by

his resurrection.

 

The gospel is about life and immortality. It’s about God’s free gift, his grace. Salvation. The forgiveness  of sin. God’s acceptance of us into his eternal purposes. For evangelical Christians in recent times the truth that seems to be universally acknowledged is something along the lines of this

statement: “The first generation proclaims the gospel; the next generation assumes the gospel,

and the third generation denies the gospel.”

 

To some Gen-Xers, it seems to be another way that Baby-Boomers want to blame them for problems

in the church. However, I think we need to grab hold of the main thrust of the warning it carries.

We can never assume the gospel. We need to keep restating it. Each generation needs to be

proclaiming it.

 

The church of which I am a pastor is greatly benefitting at the moment, from the book by Col

Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis & the Vine. The basic premise of this book is that what we are

about as Christians is vine growing. Making disciples. Passing on the gospel.

 

To grow a vine you need a trellis. You need structures. But the trellis isn’t what it’s all about. The

vine is.

 

So as much as our denomination and our ways of doing things helps the vine to grow helps the

gospel to be passed on, then it is valuable.

 

But if ever it should get in the way, and hinder gospel growth, then it is the gospel and not the

system we need to hold on to.

 

Because that is the baton we should not drop.

“Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who

lives in us.”

 

There are three spheres alluded to in 2 Timothy in which we are to pass on the baton.

1. PASSING THE BATON IN THE FAMILY

The first of these is family. That is where Timothy first received the baton. From his mother and

grandmother. Did you notice that in 1:5? As Paul thanks God for Timothy, recalling him in

tears, and longing to see him, he says, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”

Timothy’s faith has been passed down from generation to generation. No assuming the gospel

here. It has been proclaimed in his family.

 

The family is the basic unit through which God works. So in Ephesians 6 God calls on fathers to

“bring [their children] up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

 

This is why attacks on the family are so destructive. Most currently the call to redefine marriage

in the name of so-called equality.

 

We need to take a stand for family. But even more importantly than any political stand FOR the

family, we need to take a stand IN our families.

 

A STAND FOR THE GOOD DEPOSIT

We need to do all we can to pass on the gospel to the next generation.

As I say this I am very aware of the heartache that many of my friends, who are godly, gospel minded

parents, the heartache they know of children who have walked away or are walking away from the

Lord.

 

There is a particular danger here, for both teaching and ruling elders, but I think it is even greater for

we pastors who get paid to do ministry. We can be so absorbed in doing God’s work, that

we neglect our families. We’re never there for them.

 

We’re out more nights than we’re in and leave the children’s spiritual upbringing to our wives.

Or we model, rather than the grace of God, a task oriented grumpiness and a demanding spirit. And our kids see us preaching and running meetings, but they never see us pouring our hearts out in prayer for them.

2. PASSING THE BATON IN OUR CHURCHES

The second sphere in which we are to pass on the baton is in our churches.

Along with our physical family, our church, our spiritual family, is the basic unit through which

God works.

 

And Paul is urging Timothy to minister well, to be a good pastor. If we read on into chapter 4, we read his charge to Timothy, to preach the word in season and out of season, to do the work of an

evangelist, to discharge all the duties of his ministry.

 

Timothy is being called to pass the baton on in the church in which he is pastor. But most interestingly of all, Paul gives him a strategy of baton passing in chapter 2 verse 2.

 

After exhorting him to be strong in the grace of Christ he says, “And the things you have heard me

say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach

others.”

 

Did you hear the process of passing the baton in that? Timothy has heard it from Paul. He is to pass

it on to reliable men. And they in turn will pass it on to others. “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”

 

There’s a strategy for our churches. An effective way of passing on the baton. By focusing on a few

who will have the ability to focus on a few more and so on.

 

So often we are good at the big stuff in ministry, we preach and run church and want to see God

work in the crowd. But we don’t focus on those few who could really help pass on the baton.

 

Or otherwise we have a scatter-gun approach, just focusing on various individuals without any real

strategy involved, or, more likely, we focus on the most needy.

 

Reacting rather than being pro-active. Patching up the cracks rather than building leaders. Or we

spend all our time on the trellis, the ministry structures, the session meetings, and committees

of management, sorting out the newsletter and the budget, timetabling youth group or writing

Bible studies.

 

 And we have no time left for the vine work of investing in people. But Paul’s approach is so different to that. “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”

 

Let me ask you. Not just pastors. I’m talking to ruling elders too. And any Christian really. Who is

there in your church, with whom you could be meeting, spending time with one-to-one, reading

the Bible together, praying, training, equipping, entrusting with the gospel of grace, so that they in

turn can be qualified to teach others?

 

Let’s pass on the baton effectively in our churches.

 

3. PASSING THE BATON IN OUR LEADERSHIP

That 2 Timothy 2:2 strategy also leads us into the main sphere of passing on the baton that the

whole letter is all about.

 

Passing on the baton in our leadership is the thrust of the whole letter, isn’t it? As Paul faces his death

he knows his leadership is coming to an end and he needs to pass on that baton.

 

He has served God, he says in 1:3, as his forefathers did. And he reminds Timothy in 1:6 of how he had already authorised Timothy as a leader, ordained him if you like, by laying on of hands.

Paul is all about the baton passing from one generation of leaders to another.

I have noticed a general generational trend that I think impacts on us as an Assembly.

We baby-boomers, we discovered fairly early on in life that there was strength in numbers. And we

had the numbers, so we used it. As a generation we pushed all the limits and reshaped society

according to our whims. With disastrous results in some cases.

 

But the thing is, we like the power we’ve managed to grab hold of. We’re comfortable with the way

we do things. We’re not that ready to move over and let the younger ones have a go.

 

And Gen-Xers, well they’ve looked on at us, a bit bemused. They know they can’t take us on for

sheer force of numbers. So they don’t try. They just work from different angles. Take the side route.

And I see this dynamic being played out here at Assembly. The baby boomers who have joined the

veterans in fighting the good fight against dry traditionalism and creeping liberalism, and then

either pushed aside or just bided their time for those older ones to move aside…

 

And some are still fighting the old battles. Or are so wounded by them that they react with a kind

of shell-shock to any move from the younger set. And the Gen-Xers, well they’re just not interested

in the baby-boomers’ battles.

 

They just want to get on with ministry in their own context. And unless they can see some direct, ‘it’lleffect-my-people-next-Sunday’ sort of relevance, well they dismiss the whole thing as a waste of

time. And instead throw stones from the outside.

 

Always criticising. Never getting their hands dirty to effect real change. Never wanting to be tainted

by the machinations of the boomers.

 

A bit harsh perhaps, on both generations. And certainly overblown generalisation. But I think

there’s some truth in it.

 

And I want to exhort us all to repent of it. I want to exhort my own generation to be looking for

opportunities to encourage younger leaders in our denomination.

 

Is there a younger minister or elder you could be mentoring? Someone you could encourage and

equip to take on a greater mantle of leadership?

 

I want to encourage us baby boomers to be ready to step aside. To be willing to let younger people

take the lead more and more. And Gen-Xers, if we are going to step aside you guys need to step up.

It may be that Baby boomers dominate the committees, but much of that is because Gen-Xers

aren’t stepping forward to serve in that way.

 We need, over time, to have generational change in our structures. That won’t happen if the next

generation isn’t willing to serve. So there’s my challenge. Passing the baton. Seeing

Gen-X move up, before Gen-Y are  hot on their tails, which isn’t very long at  all.