“An organization does not have momentum, a movement does, and Moderator Bill Dudley is leading our denomination in a movement of God,” was both the introduction of the speaker and the theme of the event as mission-minded Presbyterians gathered at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s World Outreach Encounter in Memphis, Tenn.

Dudley had the great challenge of following Aileen Coleman who shared stories and perspectives from her more than 40 years on the mission field in Jordan.  It is Coleman who is credited by Franklin Graham for his personal turnaround many years ago and of that Bill Dudley reflected, “It was Franklin Graham who called to tell me about Aileen who was at Lookout Mountain. She left us speechless when she preached at Signal Mountain. I value this woman’s faithful, faithful witness to Jesus Christ.”

Turning then to prayer and to the subject matter at hand, the EPC moderator and pastor of Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga shared from his experience over the past five years.

“The first EPC General Assembly that I attended was in 2007 in Colorado. As the missionary names were called and they began to move to the front of the sanctuary I was moved by the Holy Spirit — I had never seen such dramatic commitments — I literally could not control those emotions,” Dudley shared.

Considering his prior decades of service in the Presbyterian Church (USA) he said, “I had been caught up in the aura of the defense of the Gospel, arguing, debating, orchestrating and administrating that I had lost my passion for sharing the faith with the lost. I had lost that sense of zeal that wanted the world to know this person who had come into my life named Jesus Christ.  I had somewhere misplaced it, and I wanted God to replace it in my life. So, I began a pilgrimage to renew that experience in my life.”

Prayer and questions

That season of replacement and renewal led Dudley more deeply into prayer and then to ask probing questions of himself.

Saying that the Lord led him into an intense season of examining the four gospels, Dudley kept a journal focusing on a different question each time he worked his way through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. During this time, Dudley says he read “no newspapers, no magazines, only the gospels.”

In answer to the question, “What do you want me to do?,” Dudley said that he was “confronted early in Matthew with an answer. In Jesus’ invitation to a man named Matthew.”

Reflecting on Matthew 9:9 and the following text, Dudley said, “Matthew was a tax collector — considered to be a cheat. Here was a guy who had betrayed his family and community but also one who could still cheat them.  Among the Jews, no one was to engage him.”

Continuing, he said, “Jesus is coming by and He sees this man — He sees Matthew sitting at the very table where he has disgraced his own people. Jesus simply says to him, ‘Follow me Matthew’ and immediately Matthew rose and followed. He let Jesus lead him.”

Punctuating the improbable nature of this encounter, Dudley emphasized that “for Jesus to have invited this man to become one of His own was to take a huge risk for the new Kingdom. He not only walks with him, Jesus goes to Matthew’s house. Matthew had not been trained, he had not been equipped, he had not been told anything and yet he had a dinner party. The only people he knew to invite were other tax collectors and sinners because everyone else has cast him out.”

Do you know six non-believers?

Dudley said, “It is staggering to me. Matthew goes and has an evangelical supper and invites Jesus to share with them. Most of us today rarely use dining room tables. We generally go out and meet people in other places.  So, I wondered, how many people do you think were at that dinner party? Our table will seat 8-10. I subtracted Matthew and Jesus and I was left with six. Do you know six non-believers?”

That, Dudley said, was the question God put before Him: “I want to know how many people you know from your everyday life that are unbelievers.”

That’s when, Dudley said, “Jesus said to me, ‘I want to remodel your life.’” So, he prayed, “God would you give me six nonbelievers?” Then he opened his eyes with expectation, and he opened his life to the possibility of divine appointments that God would set.

“Walking back to my car one day I had a friend who needed a ride to the tailor shop. That tailor’s name is Kamil. Kamil is a wonderful tailor. Kamil is also Muslim. And,” Dudley brightened, “I asked, ‘God, is this the one for me?’”

He then spoke at length about how he took garments to Kamil, one at a time, and how he began to trade with him. Then, Dudley recalled, “Last summer I did some damage to my pulpit robe and I wanted to take it to Kamil.  I asked if it would offend him, and he assured me that it did not.” So Dudley left the robe with him.

The Moderator’s Cross

But the EPC moderator had forgotten that in the robe’s pocket there was a cross, and not just any cross — the Moderator’s Cross from the General Assembly.

Kamil’s daughter called Dudley to tell him that a piece of gold jewelry had been found in the pocket of the robe. And then with tears welling into his eyes, Dudley held the cross lovingly in his hands and said, “I had opportunity to use this cross to give witness to Kamil” by using all the symbols and words engraved therein.

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