First order of business was to bring forward 37 of the EPC’s world missionaries for prayer and recognition. Across the stage stood singles and couple’s representing the 324-church denomination’s work in Afghanistan, Belarus, Guatemala, and England among other locations.

After an evening of local entertainment featuring skits and songs of a local flavor led by the host church, First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, the 32^nd General Assembly of the EPC quickly turned to the gravity and weight of the cross of Jesus Christ this morning.

The Assembly began with the preaching of Rev. Paul Mpindi, a Christian Reformed church-ordained pastor, born and raised in the Congo and educated in Central African Republic.  Rev Mpindi, a native French speaker, directed his audience to 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, where Paul wrote “I resolved to know nothing among you except Christ Jesus and Him crucified.”

In a thunderous message greeted with equal applause and hearty “amens,” Rev. Mpindi rebuked a distracted American church, more concerned with social justice than the cross of Jesus Christ. With both humor and power, pacing patiently across the stage before a gathered Assembly of mostly white congregants, the well known African-born pastor gave a timely reminder of the centrality of the cross and gospel preaching as the urgent need of the hour.

Poignantly, the first order of business was to bring forward 37 of the EPC’s world missionaries for prayer and recognition. Across the stage stood singles and couple’s representing the 324-church denomination’s work in Afghanistan, Belarus, Guatemala, and England among other locations.

Some of the EPC’s missionaries work in locations that are so dangerous that their regions cannot be publically identified. (The EPC focuses much of its work on the unengaged Muslims of the 10-40 window).

This evening’s worship service will continue with the ordination/installation of 13 first-time missionaries who will be going to places like China, India, and Malaysia.

Matthew Everhard is a minister in the EPC and serves as the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.   He is a volunteer (the only kind we have) reporter for The Aquila Report

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