The Presbytery of Greater Atlanta has unanimously endorsed Joan S. Gray as a candidate for moderator of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Gray is the fourth candidate for moderator. She joins Kerry Carson, pastor of First Church in Conrad, Iowa; Tim Halverson of Faith Church in Cape Coral, Fla.; and Deborah Block, pastor of Immanuel Church in Milwaukee, Wisc.
The election will be held at the start of the Assembly on June 15, in Birmingham, Ala.
Gray is a graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary (1976) who has served as an adjunct faculty member there and also has taught as adjunct faculty at Johnson C. Smith Seminary. She has taught at Princeton Theological Seminary in the continuing education department. She was ordained by Atlanta Presbytery of the former Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1978.
She has served seven churches in the Atlanta area, most recently as interim pastor of College Park Church. In addition, she has extensive and varied experience in leadership positions at the presbytery and General Assembly levels of the PC(USA). She was moderator of Greater Atlanta presbytery for one term, and has served on numerous presbytery committees.
An authority on denominational polity and governance, Gray is co-author of Presbyterian Polity for Church Officers. She has been moderator of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission and a member of the PC(USA)’s Advisory Committee on the Constitution. Through five General Assemblies before and after Presbyterian reunion in 1983, she served on the Provisional Constitutional Committee that gave provisional interpretations of the Constitution at the GA meetings before the ACC was established.
Gray is a former trustee of the Thornwell Home and School for Children, and former director of the DeKalb Rape Crisis Center. She has taken a leave of absence as a director of the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation because of her nomination. She is an honorary life member of Presbyterian Women.
In its endorsement of her candidacy, Greater Atlanta called Gray “a healing leader whose desires and abilities would allow the church to clearly hear other leaders and would help to point the church into a spiritual renewal that would allow the church, with the help of God, to become its best self.”
This article was adapted from a story of the Presbyterian News Service (PNS).
