If you want to know about Rebecca McElroy, the vice moderator of
the Presbyterian Church (USA), you take a gravel road to somewhere, Mo.
(near Monroe City), where she and her husband John live on a farm that
has been in John’s family for generations.
Rebecca McElroy, shown with her husband John, calls herself a "farmeress." But she is better known today in the Presbyterian Church (USA) as the vice moderator of the General Assembly.
From there, go six miles to somewhere else, Mo. (10 miles from
Hannibal), where 166-year-old Big Creek Presbyterian Church and its
little manse have stood the test of time atop a hill at the intersection
of black-top and gravel roads.
The locals really say blacktop, because that’s both a point of
their pride and your reassurance that your car won’t be covered
with a white residue while having to negotiate the gravel roads through
this farm country that is blessed with good soil and megatons of chalky
limestone quarried near the Norfolk & Southern tracks.
There’s the McElroy farm and the good years of 10-foot
corn, the bad years of droughts, the hoped-for rains, the tuberculosis
that wiped out a herd of cattle, the painful memories of the tragic
truck accident that turned John’s father, then 87, into a
quadriple-gic (whom John and Rebecca tended for more than a year,
turning him every few hours), the hard work that wore muscular John’s
knees to nubs, and finally retirement in December 1998 for both John and
his “best farm hand,” Rebecca.
She, the music major, taught music briefly after college but decided to
become a full-time farm wife – and she has done it all, from
tilling, to cattle sorting, to planting flowers along the driveway that
welcome visitors with a blaze of color.
And there’s the 104-member Big Creek Church, where the music seems
improbably outstanding for a small congregation, where a majority in the
congregation is related, the members have an obvious and deep affection
for their pastor and each other, and there is a surprising blend of
long-time farm families and some younger couples with children.
This Sunday gathering – averaging 67 people for worship – is
a weekly reunion of Big Creek people who live as far away as 40 miles.
There would not be enough Presbyterians living nearby to keep the doors
open. Both of the country stores in the area closed years ago as
mechanization shrank the need for farm labor and farm family members
dispersed to the cities for jobs and school consolidation.
On August 6, Rebecca McElroy is about to begin another of her typical
Sundays at Big Creek.
This time, she teaches her adult Sunday school class (the first chapter
of Colossians). Then she plays the piano for the worship service. Then
she summons the choir for an unscheduled,
a cappella rendering
of
The Lord Bless You and Keep You, because this is a special
Sunday – pastor Mike Johnston’s last before a scheduled kidney
transplant and recovery that were expected to keep him in Pennsylvania
for three months. They pray with faith: With the Johnston family gone,
work would begin on adding two rooms, a bathroom and possibly a garage
to the manse so that the Johnstons would be more comfortable after their
return.
After worship, Rebecca and John join the other elders in Johnston’s
office to anoint their pastor with oil, lay on hands and pray for his
full recovery.
Johnston jokes: He’s the $3-million man. That’s how much it
cost to keep him alive through the first kidney transplant, 18 months of
hospitalization and twice-a-week dialysis for more than a year.
Johnston’s new kidney was to have come from Rebecca’s sister,
Elizabeth “Betty” Ann Hayes. Rebecca also signed up to donate
a kidney to Johnston, but Betty was the better match until a last-minute
test showed that Johnston would have to wait for another donor.
The McElroys and other members of their extended family would not let
the Johnstons get away without reassuring them of their love and
prayers. They spread lunch they prepared in the fellowship hall after
the service.
Finally, that evening they sat nearby as a silent thank-you during an
hour-and-a-half catechism class led by Johnston and four other adults.
At the General Assembly in Long Beach, Calif., McElroy nominated
Syngman Rhee for moderator. He won the election and selected her as his
vice moderator, creating a truly odd couple. Rhee is a long-time
denominational employee, a former president of the National Council of
Churches, a native of North Korea.
He and his vice moderator don’t agree on everything. At the
General Assembly, Rhee made a plea for continued high-level funding for
the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.
McElroy provided the “small-church” voice – telling the
committee considering the issue that people in the pews find it hard to
understand why the denomination sends more than $2 million a year to two
ecumenical organizations that seem less involved ecumenically than small
local congregations that work with Christians of all persuasions.
Rhee is a big-tent Presbyterian who skirts some of the divisive issues.
He’s not going to campaign either way on the issue of same-sex
unions. He leaves the door open for further discussion about ordaining
practicing homosexuals. McElroy opposes both removing the ordination
standard and allowing ministers to bless same-sex couples.
But the friendship between Rhee and McElroy goes deeper than issues. It
began 11 years ago when Rhee was being criticized for his efforts to
encourage reunification of South Korea and Communist North Korean, a
touchy issue in the days of détente, and McElroy sent him a
handwritten letter that expressed both sympathy and political
practicality.
In effect, she said he should look beyond the criticism and come to Big
Creek to see a small church in operation – where the issues were
dear to the hearts of the people. He did just that. They have kept in
close touch since.
Rhee also played a role in her development as a Presbyterian leader.
For years, McElroy was mildly opposed to the ordination of women as
elders – and strongly averse to becoming an elder herself.
She was involved in a number of renewal ministries and she was
moderator of Presbyterian Women locally and in her presbytery, but she
declined to stand for session. Rhee told her that if she wanted to get
things done, she had to work within the system. Three years ago, Big
Creek elected McElroy to its session.
In quick succession, she became vice moderator of Missouri Union
Presbytery, commissioner to the 1999 General Assembly, moderator of the
presbytery, commissioner to the 2000 General Assembly (the second time
so that she could nominate Rhee), and vice moderator of the PCUSA.
McElroy says one of her objectives as vice moderator is to represent
the voice of the small church, where vacation Bible school is a
prayer-nurtured mission to children, where knowing and loving Christ is
the most important “issue,” where the Bible is authoritative
and the means by which we know God, his character and his will for
Christians.
At the General Assembly, Rhee and McElroy caught some flak from a few
Presbyterians who strongly oppose her evangelical commitment and her
work with the Presbyterian Lay Committee. But both Rhee and McElroy say
her work with the Lay Committee had nothing to do with her selection as
vice moderator.
Rhee’s selection of McElroy boils down to friendship – and
the voice of a small church member so committed that she would offer her
pastor a spare kidney.