Christians must find joy in the cross, an animated and passionate Rick Fee declared in his final sermon as the church's leader. He said Jesus himself came and endured for the joy that lay beyond his suffering. It is at the empty cross where joy can be found. "It is not the emptiness of despair or the loss of meaning," he told the more than 400 parishioners who packed the stifling hot First, Edmonton, for the opening of the 131st General Assembly. "It is the emptiness that holds open the possibility for something amazing, something God-given to emerge."
Fee reminded the commissioners it was their duty to find something amazing. "The joy of this assembly will be in the diversity, the debate, the discussion, the discourse and the dynamic interplay of minds and spirit," he said. "Joy will not be claimed by thinking we must find all the answers nor in thinking we will have all the answers. By being faithful, by wrestling with what God has presented, we will claim the joy of our faith."
Lively hymns and heartfelt prayer echoed inside the red brick walls of First Church as the assembly sang together. They received a taste of the native spirit that would permeate the week when Mary Fontaine, director of Hummingbird Ministries in Vancouver, sang Amazing Grace in Cree accompanied by her drum. Fontaine said she was "proud of the Presbyterian Church" and the grace with which she received the invitation to sing.
Following worship, Fee helped the assembly install its new moderator, Rev. Jean Morris. She thanked her family, friends, co-workers and "the many long-term care residents who are my flock and can't be here." As Director of Spirituality and Pastoral Care at the Bethany Care Society in Calgary, Morris works with seniors and vulnerable adults. It is from this focus that she draws her three themes for the year: ministry with seniors, non-parish ministries and ecumenism. "We believe the work of the church is done through community," she told the assembly. "I will do my best to lead that community as moderator."
Morris' father Harrold was moderator in 1989.
