Page 5 - Pastor Wallace Coleman Installation Program 2022

A Charge to Keep I Have

In 2 Timothy 4:1-2, The Apostle Paul charged his young protégé with these words:
I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at
His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince,
rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

T tor and people. Finally, it is a mystical event in that the
he Pastoral Installation is a worship celebration
of the union between a new pastor and a ritual ceremony recognizes and affirms not only the his-
congregation. Like a wedding, the installa-
tory of God's involvement in salvation history, but also
tion becomes a historical mark of the consummation of in the life of the congregation both now and in the fu-
the covenant between pastor and people. Although the ture. The ceremony is usually done with great pageantry,
origin of this ritual practice cannot be assigned a specif- like most weddings, because it is done with the expectan-
ic date, the affirmation and recognition of spiritual lead- cy that the pastor and church will work together in King-
ership (priestly, pastoral) to service the needs of the faith dom building for many years.
community has biblical precedence in the Judeo-Christian
tradition (Numbers 8:5-22 ; Acts 6:1-7, 13 :2-3, Galatians The Apostle Paul writes this epistle to the church at
2:9-10). "Paul and Barnabas were set apart by the Holy Ephesus. The letter is catalogued as a prison epistle be-
Spirit and the elders in the church at Antioch laid hands on cause it was written during the time of Paul's incarcera-
them and sent them off". tion in Rome. The Book of Ephesians is about the

Church, but the place it begins is with the work of the

A pastoral installation is one of the rich cultural para- Father, Son and Holy Spirit bringing it into being. How-
digms found among most African American congrega- ever, God did not just call the church into being. God
tional churches. The ritual as practiced is a three-fold continues to exercise authority over the nurturing, matu-
event: biblical, communal, and mystical. The Bible is cen- rating, and the fulfillment of the purposes of God in the
tral to the ethos of the ceremony. Many of the elements world through the church.
of the installation ceremony, i.e., consecration prayer,
scriptures, etc., are steeped in biblical lore. Second, it is “A Charge to Keep I Have, A God to glorify,
a communal event celebrated within the context of the life A never-dying soul to save, And fit it for the sky.”
of the congregation and the community. Persons from
religious, political, and business sectors are invited to
participate in the celebration of the new ministry of pas-

CONGRATULATIONS

PASTOR WALLACE COLEMAN AND

LADY AMARYLLIS COLEMAN!

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