“ROOTS AND WINGS”

By

The Rev. J. Harold McKeithen, Jr.

A message delivered at the Meeting of the Presbytery of Eastern Virginia

At Makemie Woods Camp and Conference Center

On April 26, 2005

Text – Jeremiah 17:7 and 8; Isaiah 40:28 - 31

          The God in whom we believe, the God who has called us together, the God whom we seek to serve and whom we delight to serve is the God who calls us to be solidly rooted in Jesus and to draw from him the nourishment which we need in order to walk, run and fly untiringly in his service.

A man through whose town a tornado had roared observed afterwards that the only things which survived were the things which had both roots and resiliency.  The things which had no roots simply blew away.  The things which were rigid were simply shattered.

The spiritual roots of many of us here were established by parents who faithfully fulfilled their baptismal vows to “rear us in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”  However, those of us in that category, as well as those who did not have that experience, had our spiritual roots deepened and strengthened by other adults who touched us and inspired us and challenged us and guided us as youth advisors, pastors, teachers, friends and mentors.

The Session and congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of Winston-Salem, NC, did not leave it to my mom and dad alone to rear me in the faith.  They provided Margaret Wyatt and then Barbara Eden as DCEs to plan and lead a program of Christian education in which I participated as a junior high and senior high.  The church also gave strong financial and leadership support to a camp and conferencing program which took me to Camp Betty Hastings for a week each summer when I was in 7^th and 8^th grades and to Camp Hanes for a comparable week each summer when I was in grades 9 through 12.  The impact of those experiences and of the adults who were responsible for them upon the development of my spiritual roots was incalculable.  I know that the first seeds of my ultimate vocational choice were sown there, as well as in my home.

          That story is still being repeated in young lives today.  If you were at our last presbytery meeting and were not daydreaming or nodding drowsily when Connie Motley talked about the experience of her four children at Makemie Woods summer after summer, you know whereof I speak.  She said, “Makemie Woods and the staff wrap the children in love and then fill them with a spirituality that stays with them forever all the while having fun. . . . to them,” she went on, “Makemie Woods is summer and they talk about their experiences for the rest of the year.”

I do not need to tell you what a treasure our presbytery has in Mike Burcher and the staff and program which she directs at Makemie Woods. I do need to tell you how important it is that the physical facilities which support that ministry be not only maintained but upgraded in the interest of excellence.

Some may say, “Well, I don’t know about that.  What’s wrong with what we have?”  I can tell you that that sentiment was expressed vigorously in every building campaign in which I have been involved in my ministries in Metaire, LA, Albemarle, NC and at Hidenwood Church in Newport News.  It wasn’t that people were ornery, obstinate and stingy.  It was due to the fact that they loved what they had and what it had meant to them.  They could see how well what they had had served in the past and did not see. . . at first! . . .why something new was needed.  But, in every case, when the new had come into existence in Metairie, Albemarle and Newport News, folks were delighted with the new dimensions of shared life and ministry which were made possible by the new.

Moreover, in each case, the successful accomplishment of the building project was due to the leadership of women and men who, rooted in the God of the future, as well as of the past and present, found themselves able to walk, run and fly toward the new thing which God had in mind for them.  It was they who brought the recalcitrant ones along, finally, to rejoice in that which they had initially rejected.

When we have a new Activity Building here to support our program of Christian nurture for children and youth, we are going to wonder how we got along as well as we did without it.

This process of deepening roots in order to walk, run and fly, with enthusiasm and strength, is not one which ceases. . .or at least should not be one that ceases. . . with the achievement of adulthood.

I cannot over-emphasize the importance which twenty-two annual overnight retreats, the first fifteen or more here at Makemie Woods, the last six or seven at the 4-H Center in Wakefield, had for the Elders and Deacons of Hidenwood Presbyterian Church.  Of the forty-two of them we usually had around thirty-six participate.  It was always the second weekend in January after officers had been ordained and/or installed the weekend before.  The shared meals, the walks in the woods, the Friday night games and conversation, the Saturday sessions for spiritual enrichment or planning and the concluding worship with Communion significantly deepened our appreciation for each other, our understanding of who we were called by Christ to be, our vision of where with his spirit we were going and our motivation to walk, run or fly to get there. 

This facility, however, gradually ceased to be adequate for our needs.  We looked for and found a place that was not ideal as far as sleeping facilities, bathroom facilities and meeting facilities were concerned; but it was better.  And it was with regret that we made that transition.  We had, and that congregation still has, deep emotional ties to Makemie Woods.

But old wine skins are not serviceable forever.  New wine needs new skins.  From 1967 until 1977 my wife and our children and I vacationed happily in July or August at Long Beach, NC, in a house without air conditioning.  When the temperature reached 100 degrees, as it did on more than one occasion, we just sweated it out.  When we built a house down there, which we owned from 1977 to 1989, and which we rented out to cover the mortgage payments, we knew that air conditioning was a necessity.  Maybe it should not have been.  Maybe good, hardy beach vacationers should have been willingly happily to rent our house and sweat it out as we had done, but they were not.  They wanted and, indeed, needed a more comfortable and serviceable house than the one which we had rented for a decade.  And, lo and behold, we found to our delight that we too enjoyed our time there more when the bed covers were not damp with perspiration when we awoke in the morning.

The new Conference Center here at Makemie Woods, of which you have seen architects’exterior and interior renderings, will not represent a capitulation to the need of pampered Presbyterians for luxury and ease.  It will represent a determination on the part of Presbyterians in Eastern Virginia to create a venue for worship, study, conversation, prayer, shared meals and play which will be worthy of our gracious and hospitable Lord.

It will be a place where the unity and effectiveness of local church groups will be significantly enhanced.  A place from which folks will go home energized to walk and run and even fly in service to Christ.

It will be a place which will be sizeable enough to accommodate two or three church groups simultaneously, and that experience will significantly increase our sense of belonging to each other. . . all nineteen thousand of us in our sixty-seven congregations.  One of our presbytery staff members, Linda Smith I believe, has a vision of this new center as “the living room” of our presbytery.  I like that, and I think that to experience our new Conference Center as that will give us a new sense of shared roots and a new capacity to walk, run and fly together.

When I have asked Presbyterians who have vacation houses or time shares in the mountains or at the beach why they don’t just rent something (as many, of course, do), they respond, as though the answer should be self-evident, that “they just want a place of their own.”  Chanko Conference Center across the river, the 4-H Center in Wakefield, Roslyn Conference Center in Richmond all are nice and welcoming; but we need a place of our own; and, by God’s grace  and your generosity, we are going to have a place of our own.

When we do, I hope that you and your Session are going to be able to look back and be glad that you helped to make it a reality and that you are going to want to enjoy it because it is, at least in part, yours.  In my judgment, it is not enough for you simply to permit the Roots & Wings Steering Committee to solicit contributions from your members.  That will be faint praise for this project.  You need to respond with a contribution on the part of your church, whether that is a contribution of $100 from some line item in your budget or whether it is a contribution of $10,000 raised in a congregational campaign. 

There must be around sixty young men who suit up for Christopher Newport University’s football games on Saturdays in the fall.  There may well be more, but it appears to me that there are, at least, that many.  Before the game there is a mass huddle with each player straining to get his hands on the stack of hands symbolizing their unity.  Not all of them will get on the field, but all of them are contributing to the effort.  I earnestly hope that every Session in this presbytery will seriously consider what it is saying by its decision to participate or not participate in this effort.

Makemie Woods Camp and Conference Center has established deep roots by the waters which surround it.  The additions to the facilities now here will give our center additional wings.

The participation of your children and youth in what is offered here will deepen their spiritual roots and strengthen their wings.

Your personal participation in adult programs which will be offered here will deepen your spiritual roots and strengthen your wings.

The use of these new facilities by your pastor and church officers will strengthen their roots and wings and, through them,  will do the same for  your congregation.

And the use of the new Conference Center by our presbytery as a whole will give us a deeper appreciation for the roots which we share in Christ and stronger wings for the mission to which Christ calls us in this time and place.  (We) “shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. . . .(we) shall renew our strength, (we) shall mount up with wings like eagles, (we) shall run and not be weary, (we) shall walk and not faint.”