“It Is I, Lord.”

By John Ivers

…Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Who shall I send….” And I said “Here am I; send me”

-Isaiah 6:8

 

Good Evening.  My name is John Ivers and I am truly honored to be able to share some personal reflections and testimony tonight. I think as I relate my personal life and experience in service to this Presbytery, you will see the thread of my relationship to the scripture this meeting is using.

 

First a brief personal history.  I was  born May 25 1931 in Minneapolis ( yes,  that makes me 80 ) and baptized in the Russian Greek Orthodox church in Northeast Minneapolis (my mother’s church, not my father’s).   I sat, stood and kneeled at the services there which were in the Russian language and the clergy in their fancy robes (pretty hard for a kid to get much spiritual inspiration).

 

We moved to Grantsburg, Wisconsin in 1937 where my folks tried farming and I experienced church in a small one room building with a manual pump organ and pot bellied stove in the center. We walked about 1 ½  miles there and yes,  it was uphill both ways.

 

My brother, who was 2 years older than I, died of polio in 1940 and this raised a lot of questions in my

9 year-old mind and this small church pastor did his best to comfort me.

 

In 1941 my family moved to North Minneapolis and I started going to Highland Park Presbyterian Church and was confirmed there in 1944 (my parents did not join then, I went with a neighborhood family).  Highland Park at that time had a very evangelical youth program and I raised my hand to accept Jesus at a revival meeting as a young teen, a very emotional but confusing time because my friends and I were reveling in the World War II hero movies which were forbidden worldly influences according to my teachers.

 

My Father eventually joined Highland Park but attended sporadically and when he died suddenly at age 64, my questioning mind asked did this church or I prepare him for heaven.

 

I became an engineer and the question of how to show gratitude for my now good life gnawed at me.  In response,   I became a member of the Highland Park Trustee board in the early 1960s and was ordained as an elder in 1967.

 

I experienced the conflicts of pastoral changes, and theological questions of the churches role in the turbulent 60’s and remained in various leadership and teaching roles throughout the years watching  the congregation slowly decline from a vibrant 300 members in the 50’s in a primarily white middle-class neighborhood to a struggling small congregation in a predominantly mixed race community in the 90’s.

 

I served on multiple study and strategy groups attempting to discern our church’s future. Our congregation was part of the of the Urban Waters Parish , an attempt to maintain four individual churches presence in their respective neighborhoods while sharing Pastoral and administrative resources.

 

This prolonged the life of the Highland Park congregation and we eventually petitioned the Presbytery to form a new church in the present building  to better serve the cultural needs and preferences of this changed neighborhood.

 

This process took a several years to be fully implemented and as you know this led to the formation of the Kwanzaa Community Presbyterian Church which chartered in 1999. I commend the Presbytery and those of you here tonight who were part of this, there was a lot of detail and definition with the General Assembly of how this fit into  the support structure.

 

I was proud of this Presbytery to undertake this action and felt extremely privileged to be part of the process. In fact,  I was chosen along with my wife,  Gloria along with Joe and Carole Kilpatrick to accept   national recognition for this radical approach at the General Assembly in San Diego on behalf of this Presbytery.

 

I’ve been a part of various forms Church Development groups of the Presbytery and have participated in several ways where all of you have supported efforts of congregations to discern their roles in their changing worlds.  A few of these have been:

• Shepherd of the Hill in Chaska
• Andrew-Riverside through their building-shattering time
• Shiloh-Bethany who formed into Grace and subsequently merged with Church of All Nations to provide a home for that emerging ministry
• Knox-St. Paul as they reach out to the changing immigrant community
• And  of course the newly forming congregations of  Familia de Fe and Chain of Lakes which are currently under your sponsorship and are fulfilling your vision of going forth to serve new communities, I commend your continued support!

 

So, as you see my church history and service is similar to this Presbytery and to that of the Prophet we are using as a theme of this meeting:

 

• Questioning on how best to serve the changing the world
• Lamenting with those who try but eventually close
• Acting out in service as God puts direction and voice to the searching

 

I congratulate this Presbytery for following your hearts and I am grateful for allowing me to be part of these processes.  It has allowed me to respond to the question: Who shall I send? with  It is I,  Lord.

 

John Ivers is the Chair of the Church Development Team of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area and a member of Presbyterian Church of the Way in Shoreview, MN. The above address was part of three testimonies or “proclaimations” given at the September 13, 2011 Presbytery Meeting at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Austin, MN.

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