They looked hard at a burly young man who had come a little late into their class at the seminary. And he hung his head. It was true. The moderator of the presbytery, my father, who happened to be the missionary that man had stoned 16 years earlier, ordained the man who had stoned him. And the church sent him off as its own first missionary, to a strange island off the southern coast where he in turn was stoned when he stood up to preach the Gospel.
Power is for witness.
I love the Church and I believe in it. I love our own Presbyterian segment of the Body of Christ most of all. At Pentecost, the power in a little group of about 120 men and women swept 3,000 people into the fellowship in one day. In the American church, according to statistics I saw some years ago, it takes 54 Christians working a whole year to bring just one new member into the church. Among Presbyterians we lose more than we win.