Final exams this week. What? The school year has just begun!

One of the very last steps in our journey to denominational realignment is the examination of our elders – and of me – by committees of the Presbytery of the East, EPC.  Our elders will be examined by members of the Church Development team at LPC on Wednesday evening, and I am scheduled for a conference call exam by the Ministerial Committee on Monday evening.

It ought to be fun in a way that only final exams can be fun.

Part of our exams will be much more conversational than examinational.  They will allow our friends from the EPC to begin to get to know us and for us to begin to get to know them. Real names, real faces, real partners in mission.  We will be asked to talk some about our own faith journeys and LPC’s sense of call to a new denominational home.  Such conversations are always good.

But part of the exams will be more examinational than conversational.  In ways appropriate to our offices, ruling elders and teaching elder, our understanding and knowledge of Reform theology and Presbyterian polity will be tested.  We need to show that we know the Book of Order, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Seven Essentials of the EPC well enough to allow them to guide and direct the message, mission and ministry of LPC.  We need to commit ourselves to unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials, and charity in all things.

I won’t speak for the ruling elders, but as the teaching elder I am a little nervous in a final exam kind of way.  What if they ask me to defend and prooftext my understanding of supralapsarianism or infrlapsarianism?  In fact, I lean supra, but need to remember the little story they tell about Martin Luther: when some inquisitive theologian asked him what God was doing before he created the world, Luther quipped, “He was busy creating hell for foolish theologians who pry into such questions.”

I think we will do well this week, the teaching elders and I.  Our exams are important, and not just that we pass them.  God is at work in the life of our church. He is, as always, busy about reforming and renewing us more and more into church he desires us to be, a church clear about our message, our ministry, and our mission; a church united in the essentials of theology, Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and missiology – that is, the biblical understanding of the Triune God, salvation, the church, Jesus’ return, and our call to share the Good News in word and in deed.

When finals week is over, the leaders at LPC need to get back to the task of leading our little flock of God’s people. Our job will be all the easier for exams we took. We will better know the questions we need to answer as we declare our message, do our work of ministry, and “enter the mission field” together and one by one.

• Are we proclaiming Christ, the crucified and risen Lord?
• Are we nurturing women and men, children and youth in the ways of biblical discipleship?
• Are we serving our world in the manner of our servant Lord – washing dirty feet and inviting all to take up the cross and follow?
• Are we a community that encourages, and helps, challenges and admonishes?
• Are we following the still more excellent way?

I am not planning on pulling an all-nighter in preparation for my final exam, nor would I encourage our elders to do so.  We take these exams seriously, however; not a final bureaucratic hoop through which to jump, but as an opportunity to more faithfully serve the God who created us, redeemed us, and sustains us day by day.

See you Sunday!