Binhi sang Pagtuo
October 12, 2009
Dear Centralians and Friends,
Greetings from the campus!
This coming October 16, 2009, the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches will be choosing its next General Secretary. The fifteen members of Board of Trustees will meet and decide on who that person will be.
As we continue to reflect on the Foundation Day celebration of CPU, let us remember the Baptist roots of our alma mater.
Let us read some of my historical notes:
In 1935, when the American government granted a commonwealth status to the Philippines, a great milestone in the history of Philippine Baptist churches occurred…Representatives of the Philippine Baptist churches and the American Baptist missionaries dissolved the WVC on May 23, 1935 to give birth to the Kasapulanan sang Bautista nga Pilipinhon (Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches).
The significance of this new development was described by Nelson and Herradura. Their words deserve a longer quotation,
“This new organization changed the status of Central Philippine College from being an institution of the Foreign Mission Society to a cooperating entity of the Convention (CPBC). The by-laws specified that the corporation members should be members of Convention-related Baptist churches, elected by the annual assembly of the Convention, and that two thirds of the College Board of Trustees should be members of Baptist churches. With this development, majority control of policy-making passed from American to Filipino hands.
Consequently, the campus of the college was leased to the Convention as the field body responsible for its oversight. All requests by the college for appropriation, missionary personnel, and other related needs had to be coursed through the Convention Board of Trustees, to the Society. Furthermore, proposed changes in the constitution of the college or its by-laws must be ratified by the Convention in session before they could be enforced.” (Linnea A. Nelson and Elma S. Herradura, 1981, p. 45.)
Going back to the New Testament, Paul was reminding Timothy to remember the genuine faith that he has which was passed on by two generations – his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice. Paul was telling Timothy not to put to shame the faith that he has inherited.
In the Filipino culture, we always tell our children not to put into shame our family name. We always tell them that we cannot give them money but we can give them a good name – a name that they can carry with pride because it has a good reputation.
Here at CPU it is common to have 3 generations of Centralians. We even have up to 5 generations of Centralians. This is so because the old generation trusted CPU to pass on the faith to the next generation.
Are we still passing the faith of the older generation to the latest generation? Foundation Day celebration is good time to remember our heroes of faith, the past American Baptist missionaries, and Filipino pastors and leaders. Are we remembering their names, their ministries and their words? Or are we disconnecting ourselves from the legacy that they have started?
I hope that CPU will continue to connect with the past so that the faith that they have will be passed on to us.
May God bless us all!
Sincerely,
Pastor Francis Neil G. Jalando-on
Assistant Chaplain
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Chaplain's Office Website: http://www.cpu.edu.ph/chaplain
Audio Sermons of Binhi sang Pagtuo: http://binhi.4shared.com
Blog: http://cpuchaplain.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment