BMPC Pastor's Column

As we launched a search to find an Interim Associate Pastor for Youth and their Families, dare I say that when we became aware that the Reverend Andy Greenhow was moving back to the area, it felt providential.

Many folks at BMPC know Andy from his time at Broad Street Ministries in downtown Philadelphia, where he served as pastor, administrator, educator, and coordinator of the youth groups on mission and summer immersion trips.

For the past eight years, he has served at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary working as Special Projects Manager and more recently in the President’s office as Chief of Staff. His administrative leadership at the seminary also gave him opportunities for pastoral care for students, preaching in chapel and supply preaching in the presbytery, coordinating special trips, and supporting a Lilly Endowment project in Pittsburgh presbytery by coaching congregations in how to reimagine using their sacred spaces.

When Andy’s wife, the Reverend Karen Rohrer, was called to be the Associate Academic Dean at Princeton Theological Seminary, Andy was exploring his opportunities for ministry while we were looking for an experienced interim to work with our youth and their families. An initial conversation with Rachel Pedersen and me led to Andy’s meeting with BMPC’s leaders of the Youth Ministry Council, parents, and youth. A call to this important work was extended and accepted, and the next thing you know, Andy was on a bus with a crowd of BMPC youth heading to the Montreat Youth Conference!

The Session has called a Congregational Meeting for this Sunday to elect the Associate Pastor Nominating Committee for Youth and their Families, who will begin their search in the coming weeks. In the meantime, how grateful we are that God has led us to Andy Greenhow! We are enthusiastic about the experience, gifts, commitment, and joy he brings to the good work of youth ministry at BMPC.

Recording a CD of favorite hymns and anthems has been a conversation Pastor Rachel and I had been in discussion about a year or two before the pandemic, and our Wednesdays Together program was slowly working its way toward having the numbers and confidence to make it happen.

Though the years following the pandemic have resulted in smaller choirs, the children and youth involved are completely dedicated to our weekly rehearsals, where we come together in community and song. This past fall, it became my goal to ensure that the recording finally happened sometime during the 2023-24 program year, and it did.

“Canticles of Praise” is the culmination of years of working with these groups, with support from staff members, families, leaders, helpers, and all those involved in the Beginners Choir, Children’s Choir, and Youth Chorale ensembles of BMPC.

It was a great joy for me to see the children and youth making music on their own and together, with the support of four of the Sanctuary Choir’s talented Staff Singers. Two of these singers, Kara Goodrich and Jeffrey Wilber, have a special connection to our church. Kara, a child of this church, and Jeffrey, who has been a Staff Singer for forty years and raised his three children as church members, are integral to this recording.

Recordings are a snapshot in time, and this snapshot will always prove to me that a dream is possible—but not without the support and help of everyone who came together to make that dream happen.

If you’re interested in a copy of “Canticles of Praise,” please contact the Music and Fine Arts Department. The CDs are available with a freewill donation towards the Tour Fund for the Sanctuary Choir’s trip to France in June of 2025.

We are more than halfway through our summer preaching series, All Creatures Great and Small, which highlights the animals in scripture that shape the biblical story. As we have moved through the summer, I often find myself pointing out to my colleagues the places where these same animals that appear in our sermons also appear in our stained-glass windows here at the church.

You might be surprised how many animals you can find in our widows, from the Sanctuary to the Chapel. A careful observer can find the animals that populate the Bible, but also a wide variety of animals never mentioned in scripture.

Between the windows depicting Psalm 23 in the east transept and the Good Shepherd Tiffany window in the Chapel, there are more sheep and lambs that can be counted.

In the Sanctuary, you can find the ram God provided Abraham at the sacrifice of Isaac, the fatted calf shared in celebration of the return of the Prodigal Son, the donkey upon which the Good Samaritan places the wounded man as he takes him back to his inn to recover. In a small corner of the Resurrection window, you will find the animals from Peter’s vision in Jaffa lowered down as if on a sheet declared by God to no longer be “unclean.”

Of course, in the windows depicting the creation story in Genesis, there are all kinds of birds, fish and whales, deer and jaguars, and that one problematic snake. Daniel’s lions are in the chapel. Windows celebrating the history of global mission, including both elephants and reindeer, are a little harder to spot. The St. Francis windows in the Narthex of the Chapel include butterflies, a wolf, rabbits, and squirrels. I know many of you consider the church mouse in the Fine Arts window to be the most charming of all our creatures.

My absolute favorite is the dogs. There is one biblical dog – located in the parable window, which tells the story of Lazarus, who sat begging at the gate of a rich man every day where dogs would lick his wounds. But the other two dogs are in the chapel – and they are both with children. In the “home” window of the Chapel, two children, surrounded by the words “kindness, sympathy, affection” and their faithful dog, care for a new litter of puppies.

This Sunday’s featured animal, the mother hen that Jesus evokes in his lament over the city of Jerusalem, is not found anywhere in our windows, but there are just as many birds throughout, maybe more than sheep. In fact, the most prominent animal in all our windows is the dove, which represents the Holy Spirit. This Sunday, as we explore what exactly Jesus was trying to convey when he compared himself to that mother bird, we will continue to celebrate the ways that the presence of God, the glory of God’s creation, and our relationships and care for one another are illuminated by the creatures of the earth.

On your phone, on the internet, and on television, you can constantly check how the stock market is doing, along with getting analysis about the prospects for a bull or a bear market. As someone interested in how my retirement investments are doing, I check on them regularly. However, there are other things we affirm as having value that are harder to measure regarding how they are doing.

This last Sunday, Frank preached about the story of Abraham and Isaac, where Abraham was close to sacrificing his child. Those of us who are parents can’t imagine doing that. In fact, most of us have lovingly made other kinds of sacrifices for the well-being of our own children. And yet, we might not show that we value other children that God loves by checking to see how they are doing and making adjustments for their benefit.

Each year about this time, the Annie E. Casey Foundation releases assessment information on how our nation’s children and youth are doing regarding educational, economic, social, and health outcomes. Their ‘Kids Count’ 2024 annual report has national and state measurements that show where there are improvements and where there are growing challenges that impact the lives of young people. The states in the northeastern part of the country tend to rank pretty high compared to other states, but among the 50 states, Pennsylvania only ranks 23rd on 16 key indicators for the well-being of children and youth. Some of the areas of concern in our state are repercussions from the pandemic: a decrease in the percentage of young children who are in preschool, declines in reading and math scores, and higher death rates for children and teens. Firearm-related deaths are the leading cause of death among teens. There are slightly higher rates for low birth weight babies. There have been some improvements over recent years, with slightly lower child poverty rates and teen births. If you want to check out the information for yourself, here is a link: Interactive 2024 Data Book – The Annie E. Casey Foundation – The Annie E. Casey Foundation (aecf.org)

Occasionally, I will hear someone advocating for policies that would improve the lives of children who say, “We need to do more for children; they are our future.” That statement is true, but it sounds pretty self-centered. The policies and investments we adults put toward all children (not just those in our own families) determine much regarding their present and future well-being. Jesus certainly loved and valued all children. One of the ways we can follow his lead is by at least being aware of and responsive to what affects the overall well-being of those who are so vulnerable in our midst.

When I became a youth pastor, I knew I wanted to treat mission trips differently. I knew missions were more complicated than just going on a trip, doing service work for some poor people, telling people about Jesus, and going home. Rather, there was an opportunity for something genuinely sacred to happen.

This past Wednesday morning, nine youths and five adults from BMPC departed the Philadelphia Airport to go to Peru for the Youth Ministry’s Summer Mission Trip with Joining Hands Peru. This trip is my last with our youth before I depart for Washington to become a solo pastor in the Pacific Northwest. So, perhaps understandably, I’ve put some pressure on myself for this mission trip to be, well, everything.

As a teenager, I went on dozens of mission trips to places as close as Kentucky and as far off as Belize. I helped build houses, ramps, and fences. I led Vacation Bible Camp in bad Spanish and painted a pink fence pink. I toured beautiful places, traveled in a boat to see pyramids, and sang worship songs around a campfire.

Sometimes, the trips were transformative, and sometimes, they were something to pad my college resume. Almost every time, it was me serving a community I saw as “needy,” understanding my coming to serve in their community as me being the hands and feet of Jesus in the world, bringing others the Gospel.

I thought I was Jesus, serving the impoverished when, really, the people I encountered were Jesus, and I was, more likely than not, another rich young ruler searching for their own selfish salvation.

I chewed on this question for years, wondering if I was participating in, at best, religious tourism and, at worst, harmful colonial white saviorism, with an added flavor of American exceptionalism, where the White Americans always knew better than the local people of color.

In undergrad at Rhodes College, where I majored in Religious Studies, I wrote my senior thesis on the experience of “Mission Trips as Rite of Passage Ritual.” Mission trip participants first undergo separation from their everyday lives, followed by initiation or transformation in this liminal-other space where something happens. All of this was concluded by a return to normal, but as some new and different person, forever changed by the experience.

While I respect my 22-year-old self’s attempt to justify her own experience of mission trips and understand what she went through on them, I can’t help but realize that that interpretation of mission is solely around the people who go on the mission trip, leaving aside entirely the question of the people we are supposedly “serving.”

While we’re in Peru, we’ll engage in service with Peruvian teenagers in La Oroya and Callao, working on reforestation, painting murals over graffiti, and participating in a beach clean-up. I have an inkling that working with these Peruvian teenagers will dramatically alter the experience of our teenagers. It’s hard to see someone your exact age, interested in the same things you are, as an “other.” Writing them off as needy and you as non-needy is much more challenging. And, if God acts like I think God does, it’ll be a mutually transformative experience for us and the folks with whom we’ll work. I hope our youth see how, while life is different for people in Peru, much more connects us than divides us. And that God looks at each of us, Peruvian or US American, with a smile and a plan for each of our lives, full of glorious purpose and hope.

I pray this trip to Peru is transformative. I hope it is a rite of passage where we enter that liminal space where we are all between what we were and not quite what we will be because of our experience in Peru. While there, we will work with Joining Hands Peru, a mission partner of BMPC, with whom we have built and are continuing to build a fruitful and faithful relationship. Jed Koball, a mission co-worker of the PCUSA, will lead us. Jed came to BMPC in the fall of 2023 to share his work among the incredible people of Peru, who are fighting daily to save themselves from the disasters of climate change instigated by greed.

While in Peru, our group will daily delve into the call stories of scripture—from the call of the Apostles to the call of Mary—learning together how scripture teaches us that we are called to participate in God’s salvific action in the world, bringing about justice, freedom, and peace to everyone and everything, including the planet entrusted to our care.

I covet your prayers for the next 10 days that we are abroad. I ask you to pray for each of our youth and adults that this experience might transform us more into the people God created us to be. I can’t wait to see and share how God works in us, on us, and in and through the people we encounter on this mission trip to Peru with these amazing young people.

As a five-star general who led the Allies to victory in World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower served two presidential terms before retiring from public office in 1961. In his celebrated Farewell Address of that year, offered just days before John F. Kennedy was sworn in, the outgoing President delivered words of caution to a nation still living in the hubris of armed might and growing Cold War hostilities:

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Those words ring just as true today as they did when Eisenhower offered them well over 60 years ago. On this Fourth of July, when we honor and celebrate the history of this nation we proudly call home, we are also invited to measure how our allegiances ultimately lead us to love or hate. Are we building a bigger table, or are we determined to fight over the chairs? For as Eisenhower goes on to note, “Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”

Decent purpose. Is America only for America? Or do we exist as a citizenry for a more decent purpose? What is the aim of our national ambition? Are the blessings we receive from the hand of Providence for us alone? Is our greatness as a people only defined against the defeat, destruction, or demise of another? The 34th American President cautioned us to see our greatness as an invitation and called for the balance of security and liberty, recognizing that both are needed for a free society.

The First Letter of Peter proclaims, “As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.” The beauty of this nation, even with its tattered and complicated past and our present frustrations, is that our freedoms afford us the capacity to live as a people shaped by the values that point to abundance. Our freedoms afforded us in Christ do the same. We are called to a decent purpose.

Happy Independence Day.

After church on Sunday the 16th, when our volunteers gathered for training, we paused in prayer. Each person offered a hope for our VBC campers. Words like “friendship,” “welcome,” “peace,” “grace,” “joy,” “love,” and “belonging” filled Congregational Hall. The words were a prequel to what would unfold over the next six days as campers and volunteers alike were surrounded by and embodied welcome, belonging, joy, grace, love, and even an occasional second of peace.

Camp is indeed joyful and energetic, sacred and silly, beautiful and messy, all at the same time. For a week, we created a unique church. Our choir was raucous and loved to dance during the quiet parts of a song. Our sermons were delivered in costumes and shared in 2-minute videos. While our members were still learning how to tie shoes, recognize letters, and say goodbye to parents during morning drop-off, they were confident in sharing kindness, bold in trying new things, and positively exploding with creativity.

This year, camp explored how we can use the arts to help tell God’s story and share God’s love. It was only possible because of our volunteers’ love for the project. Incredible guest artists shared their gifts and passion, modeling how our creative work is faithful work. Faithful volunteers created space so campers could try their hands at everything: playing an organ, creating mosaics, directing a play, sculpting, singing, and more. Youth volunteers modeled leadership and faith to our campers. And a host of people filled in, welcomed, prepared snacks, and ensured everything was ready for God to work! Together, adults, youth, and children played, prayed, and explored. In every action, they were sharing God’s love with one another and with anyone who happened to walk through the church or drive past on Montgomery Avenue.

I hope that as you look through the pictures available on Facebook, you will have a hint of what the week looked like. But let me share this memory: I experience VBC from a unique vantage point. Leading our gathering time means I look out on a sea of campers and volunteers, watching as they roll their eyes at silly jokes, giggle with friends, and dive into projects and activities with gusto. There are also sacred moments when we are singing together, and their voices overtake the recording, and they declare in movement and song that God’s love is indeed “wider than my arms can reach, taller than the trees, higher than the stars above, and deeper than the sea.”

Yesterday, we, as a community and a country, once again celebrated Juneteenth, our annual recognition of the day when the very last enslaved people in our country were told that they were free. For several years now, starting even before the pandemic, the BMPC Anti-Racism Committee has been working on ways for our congregation to learn, dialogue, and grow as individuals and as a community around issues of systemic racism and implicit bias.

So, this Juneteenth, we are incredibly hopeful as we share with you a new Statement of Belonging and Inclusion, adopted by the Session this past spring. The statement lives on our website and will guide and encourage the work of all our committees and councils in the years to come. This statement is the product of thoughtful conversation, courageous vision, and loving compassion for the members of our community and the world. I am so grateful to all the members of the Anti-Racism Committee, who each had a part in its creation.

The two overarching values present throughout the statement are these: Our Christian faith compels us to be engaged on issues of belonging and inclusion, and that engagement is not limited to certain parts of our life as a congregation but the whole life of our community.

Over the next year, we will continue to live more fully into these commitments. If you would like to learn more about how you can be directly involved in this work, please contact me directly – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church’s Commitment to Inclusion & Belonging

As members of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and inheritors of the legacy of its preceding denominations, we acknowledge and confront the reality of systemic racism and implicit bias within our community and the broader world. We recognize that these injustices have disproportionately affected marginalized communities, perpetuating inequality. We repent of our complicity and recognize that past wrongdoings have resulted in exclusivity, most notably impacting people of color. Historically, our church has opened our doors and hearts to create a welcoming community. Knowing our journey does not end there, we have a responsibility to further that tradition as we commit to ensuring a place of belonging and inclusion for all. We trust in God’s mercy and capacity to renew our common life.

We understand that addressing these issues requires introspection, education, dialogue, and meaningful action. We commit ourselves to the work of dismantling systemic racism, acknowledging our own biases while promoting inclusivity within our congregation. We will be a church where all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, or background, feel valued, heard, and embraced as part of God’s diverse creation. We can only fully express our identity as the Body of Christ when all are welcomed and recognized as beloved children of God, whose belonging is unquestioned.

We strive to be agents of positive change, creating a more just and compassionate world inspired by the teachings of Jesus Christ, whose words and actions embraced the disenfranchised, crossed cultural and social boundaries, and challenged all to love both neighbor and stranger.

As an outgrowth of our willingness to learn, change, and grow, we commit:

To create a deep understanding of implicit bias and racism through intentional educational initiatives. These include hosting workshops, seminars, and discussions that explore the historical roots of systemic inequalities, the impact of bias on marginalized communities, the role each of us plays in dismantling these structures, and the relevance of these issues for people of faith.

To promote continuous improvement by examining our internal practices to ensure that they are inclusive and equitable, addressing biases and discriminatory decision-making, and nurturing a culture where all feel welcomed and valued.

To ensure that this work embeds every aspect of our church life from welcome and hospitality to programming and fellowship; from financial, stewardship, and mission decisions to pastoral care and worship life. In all that we do and in all the ways we represent ourselves, the work of diversity and inclusion will be obvious.

To serve as a moral compass and voice for change within our larger community: to provide ethical guidance; to emphasize the values of love, compassion, and justice; to embrace diversity and treat everyone with dignity and respect; to advocate for policies and laws which provide for equal treatment of all people.

The Bible teaches about the reconciliation of humanity with God and with each other. Therefore, BMPC and its leadership have a responsibility to address systemic issues that intersect with inequality and injustice in all aspects of our work and society at large. To ensure that our commitment to promoting belonging and inclusion remains a priority, we must be transparent and establish mechanisms for accountability by regularly evaluating our progress.

Glory be to God, who created everyone equal in God’s image, to Jesus Christ, who broke down the walls that divide us, and to the Holy Spirit, who encourages us to work together for justice, freedom, and peace. Amen.

In 1989, the Sanctuary Choir embarked on its first choir tour. That tour, to Austria and communist Czechoslovakia, turned out to be so exciting that the thirst for travel subsequently led the choir to places as diverse as South Africa, Cuba, and Brazil, along with Northern Ireland during the “troubles” and Russia during the chaotic rule of Boris Yeltsin. Some tours have focused on exploring our roots. Tours through the American South and, several years later, through Luther’s Germany whetted that appetite and gave us a context for who we are in this time in history. And, with a war now raging in Gaza, our most recent tour to Israel and Jordan proved to be incredibly poignant, especially considering our profoundly moving encounters with Palestinian children in the West Bank.

We are excited to announce the next choir tour will be to France in June 2025. As many of you know, France has been a particular passion of mine since traveling to Paris as a 14-year-old and experiencing the glories of Notre Dame Cathedral for the first time. Since then, I have enjoyed extended stays in Paris several times (twice for six months and, most recently, for two months) and traveled extensively throughout the country. An important connection for BMPC is that Notre Dame Cathedral organist Olivier Latry designed our marvelous pipe organ. He and his colleagues, Vincent Dubois and Philippe Lefebvre, have performed here many times over these past few decades.

One of the highlights of our choir tours has been the inclusion of “friends of the choir” on our journeys. Typically, 20-30 travelers join us, adding to the richness of our experiences. We warmly invite you and your friends from the church and community to join us on this tour to France. Information is available . If you have any questions, feel free to contact , who is serving as the tour manager.

Today’s 80th Anniversary of D-Day began this morning in France with a gathering of world leaders from twenty-five countries, elderly French civilians who remember being freed from German occupation, and veterans more than a hundred years old returned to a place of extraordinary memories. It’s a day to pause and commemorate the largest amphibious invasion in military history, which turned the tide of World War II, began the liberation of occupied Europe, and, within the year, brought an end to the war. For the sake of freedom and democracy, more than ten thousand lost their lives on those Normandy beaches eighty years ago today.

Three days ago, on Monday, June 3, Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann died in Germany at 98 years old. Moltmann is widely regarded as one of the most important theologians since World War II. As a teenager he idolized Albert Einstein and had decided to study mathematics at the university in Hamburg but was drafted into military service in 1943 at the age of 16. In a dark German forest, he surrendered to a British soldier and, from 1945-48, was held as a prisoner of war, first in Belgium and then in Scotland. There he was given a copy of the New Testament and Psalms by an American chaplain. He would later write, “I didn’t find Christ, he found me.”

Moltmann returned home at 22 years of age to find his hometown of Hamburg in ruins from the Allied bombings and immediately went to work becoming a theologian. His experiences as a POW helped him begin to forge a theology of hope born of suffering, and through a long career of ecclesiastical and international academic leadership, he became known as the Theologian of Hope.

A year ago, on the occasion of his 97th birthday, he said:

Every morning, I am amazed that I am still here. … To die means to let go. I am preparing myself for this. To die means to give one’s life over to God. I am preparing myself for that, too. The raising to eternal life is my hope in life and in death. The eternal life will also be lived. This is the life of God’s new creation. Death is like a birthday to new life in God’s kingdom. Every morning of every new day that hope gives me new courage to live. But I did not invite you here to ponder things with me but to rejoice with me. Let us toast to life—here and there!

Moltmann relished life, loved the church, and believed that the theology of Christian hope is the most important proclamation the church offers to an uncertain world during uncertain times, such as the ones in which we live. Today calls forth deep gratitude for an important day in history when freedom and democracy proved to be hard-won. And, thank God for theologians like Jürgen Moltmann, who have committed their lives to studying how, in the midst of all the vicissitudes of life and death, God is ever present, helping us have hope.