For this series of summer devotionals, the pastoral staff of First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte wishes to frame what is sure to be an interesting and volatile election season. While it is not the job of a church or a pastor to guide anyone’s personal choice or vote, voting is an important way in which we express our faith. Who we vote for has an effect on our friends and neighbors, whom Christ calls us to love.
From Senior Pastor Pen Peery: “What I want to say this election season is that, less the pulpit be an editorial page where we express our opinions, I think that what needs to happen from the pulpit as we lead up to the election season, is preparing the community for how we are going to be together in this season, where there is division and hyper-partisanship and anger and angst. And the church allows us to claim a better way.”
“This month, in August and next month in September, we’re doing two different sermon series with an eye to how we can claim our identity as those who belong, regardless of our political affiliation, to Jesus Christ, through whom we find life. In August, we’re going to preach through the letters of Paul, and we’re going to see how the communities that were Paul’s churches managed their difference and their conflict, and how they managed to live together as the body of Christ.”
“In September, we are going to look at the Old Testament and think about the ways that the God of the Old Testament, who is also the God of the New Testament, claims us and makes our identity in God much higher and more important than any other label that we might be asked to wear in this election season.”
“So I would invite you to participate in worship by coming to church here at First Pres, joining us online or via TV as we prepare our community for how we will live together in the midst of this season. I also want to let you know about an opportunity in August. We will open the chapel before and after worship for a time of guided prayer. You’ll be invited, if you so choose, to come to the chapel, where there are specific prayers for different issues that face our nation this election season. Then after you pray, if you would like, you can take a ribbon and add it to an art installation that will signify the prayers of this community as well as our unity in Christ.”