William “Bill” C. Teng, a fourth-generation Presbyterian minister raised in Hong Kong, is the first declared candidate for moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
National Capital Presbytery endorsed Teng, the pastor of Heritage Church in Alexandria, Va., at its meeting Nov. 27. Teng previously served as moderator of the presbytery and chair of its council.
Teng, 53, entered the ministry after considering a career in music. He earned a bachelor’s of music degree in orchestral conducting from Nyack College in New York and a master of arts in music history and conducting from City University of New York. Then, feeling called to ministry and switching to theology, he graduated from Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, with a Master of Divinity degree.
He was ordained in 1985 as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament and did some doctoral work in musical arts at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
During his ministry, Teng has worked both in Hong Kong and in the United States, serving both international congregations and predominantly Anglo churches.
His great-grandfather became a Christian — and later one of China’s first lay pastors — through the influence of American Presbyterian missionaries in northeast China.
In 1986, Teng returned to Hong Kong to start a department of church music and to teach at Alliance Bible Seminary. He returned to the United States in 1990 to serve Trinity Church in Satellite Beach, Fla., returning to Hong Kong in 1996 to serve Union Church Hong Kong, the oldest Protestant congregation in that city.
Teng returned again to the United States in 1999 to lead Chinese Community Church, an international, interdenominational congregation in Washington, D.C. He has been pastor and head of staff at Heritage since 2001.
Teng also has experience with the national life of the PC(USA). In 2002 and 2004, he served as a commissioner to the General Assembly. Since 2003, he has served on the board of Presbyterians for Renewal, being named this fall as president of that board, although he has resigned from that position to stand for moderator.
Teng is a volunteer chaplain with the Civil Air Patrol. He and his wife, Karen, were married in 1987.
