WHO WE ARE…

MOTTO:  Just Love

We are committed to work for justice tempered by love, and to love informed by justice.

Just. Love. This was the watchword for West-Park that was associated with our celebration in 2011. While it sounds quite simple, our consultant Sarah Zapiler came up with this after much research and quite a few hours of interviews. This is what is behind these words:

1. First it is a reference to the words of Jesus when asked about greatest commandment:

Matthew 27-37 Jesus answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. ’38 This is greatest and the most important commandment. 39 The second most important commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ 40 The whole law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments”

2. It is a reference to what is written in 1 John 4:77:

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

3. It says that for us, our first and most important commitment is to seek to love. Simply that.

But it is more. In 1889, the Park Presbyterian Church chose to inscribe these words from Zechariah 4:6 above its door.

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Thus setting a direction fro this church for the next 125 years.  The word just before the word love defines love for us. It must involve a commitment to justice. These two words must always go together for us because as Cardinal Sin of the Philippines said, Justice with our mercy is tyranny, and mercy without justice is weakness.

For us, the two must always go together.