Editor's note: The four candidates running in the election for moderator of the 217th General Assembly have responded to several questions from the Outlook.
CHICAGO -- The General Assembly Council has nominated as its new executive director Linda Bryant Valentine, a lawyer who says she likes to bring "clarity to complexity" and who thinks the Presbyterian church has "fresh and exciting stories to tell."
At a May 23 meeting in Chicago, the council voted 41-13 to nominate Valentine, following more than a year of work by a search committee. If the General Assembly agrees and elects Valentine when it meets in Birmingham in June, she would begin work July 1.
Valentine will succeed John Detterick, who is retiring this summer after serving as executive director for eight years. She would be paid $160,000 a year.
Many of the questions council members asked Valentine before they voted concerned her vision for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which has just endured a $9.1 million downsizing, and the differences between working for large corporations, which she mostly has done, versus an organization built around religious faith.
So where does the church go from here?
The recent $9.1 million downsizing of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)'s national staff and the reorganization of what's left leaves people asking questions.
Among them: In a shrinking denomination with fewer members and less money, but with significant enthusiasm for mission work at the grassroots, what's the role of the national church structure?
And specifically, where do Presbyterians want to focus their energies in evangelism and international mission work?
After a heated two-hour debate, the Mission Presbytery voted June 9 to direct the St. Andrews Church in Austin, Tex., to remove self-professed atheist Robert Jensen from its active member rolls and to move him to their baptized member rolls. In a surprise move, near the end of the two-day meeting, the presbytery also voted to issue a 45-day stay of implementation.
To be moved to the rolls of baptized members would make Mr. Jensen, who is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, equivalent to a child who has been baptized but has not made a profession of faith.
In the wake of budget cuts at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), two Presbyterian groups have announced they will be sending their own missionaries overseas, probably starting this year.
Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship www.pff.net/ and The Outreach Foundation www.theoutreachfoundation.org/ issued a joint statement June 12 saying that "the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) faces a missionary sending crisis. The number of PC(USA) missionaries continues to shrink at a time when global partners are telling us that more are needed."
Hanover College President Russell Nichols will retire June 30, 2007, following his 20th year as president of Indiana's oldest four-year college, according to an announcement May 13.
A memorial service for William Phelps "Bill" Thompson, former stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), was held May 13 in First Church, La Grange, Ill.
Current PC(USA) Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick paid tribute to his predecessor in a sermon "A Life Worthy of its Calling" based on the Bible passage Ephesians 4:1-7, 15-16.
Saying that Presbyterians should turn their attention away from denominational struggles and back out towards the world, a group of more than a dozen congregations are announcing the creation of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship (https://www.presbyterianglobalfellowship.org).
While the exact shape of the endeavor is still being formulated, the new fellowship is intended to connect Presbyterian congregations in pursuing mission work and to encourage them to support the work they consider vital through designated, targeted giving.
Its organizers -- who have been praying and talking about this for the last several months -- include Michael Walker, executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal; D. Scott Weimer, senior pastor of North Avenue Presbyterian church in Atlanta; and Vic Pentz, senior pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian church, also in Atlanta.
This summer (June 15-22, 2006) the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church will hold General Assemblies in Birmingham, Ala., at the same time. This planned event reminds us of a long history of our denominations.
It all began with the organization of the first General Assembly of the PCUSA in 1787-88 and the adoption of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms as the doctrinal standards of the denomination with their decided predestinarian flavor, or so some believed. Presbyterians were moving westward and southward, into Kentucky territory with its forests in the western section of the Appalachian Mountains. The territory was very cumbersome for travel and building churches.
Linda Bryant Valentine, a businesswoman and Presbyterian elder from Illinois, is being nominated to replace John Detterick as executive director of the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
CHICAGO -- Folks were civil and respectful -- no one screamed and no one threw dishes. But a blunt exchange on May 10 between board members of the Presbyterian Coalition and five members of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) revealed some enduring differences of opinion about what the task force is trying to accomplish -- and about what it will mean for the church if the General Assembly approves the task force report in June.
Coalition leaders have been energetically critical of the task force report, as have others from the evangelical wing of the church.
The Covenant Network of Presbyterians, which wants the PC(USA) to ordain gays and lesbians, has been more positive. And on May 9 its board of directors released a statement https://www.covenantnetwork.org/news/time4hope.htm saying it won't offer advice to General Assembly commissioners on how to vote on the task force report, saying "we trust that the voice of the Holy Spirit may be heard more clearly if the voices of partisan advocacy are still."
At this day-long gathering at a hotel in Chicago, a quarter of the 20 task force members took shots at answering a volley of questions from the Coalition -- about why they met so much in closed session, about whether the presbyteries should get to vote on what the task force is proposing, about whether they're in essence trying to "trump" the denomination's constitutional standards regarding the ordination of gays and lesbians.
The advisory board of the Cross Cultural Alliance of Ministries (CCAM) has challenged the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to focus on critical issues faced by the denomination at the 217th General Assembly this summer.
"We are leaders from the various racial ethnic caucuses, and speak for ourselves. While we have varying opinions about the final recommendations of (PUP Task Force) report, we are of one mind that the issue of ordination standards must not monopolize the agenda and resources of the church. ... We need also to grapple with the matters that are at the heart of our decline," they said.
LOUISVILLE -- In what's being described as a "huge transition" in the way the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) does its work, the denomination is cutting $9.1 million from its budget -- which means 75 workers on the church's national staff have lost their jobs and the positions of 55 overseas missionaries are being eliminated. (link to list of names)
But John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, said the real story isn't only the numbers -- the deepest budget cut and most extensive reordering of the denomination's staff in nearly 15 years -- but the intent of a shrinking mainline denomination to reconfigure itself to be more responsive to Presbyterians at the local level.
"We are at a watershed," Detterick said during a news conference May 1 -- shifting from a denomination that tells congregations from on high which programs the PC(USA) will offer to one that supports the mission work being done by individual Presbyterians and congregations.
(RNS) A Gallup poll of eight Muslim countries has found that only a small minority of their residents said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were justified.
Between 5 percent and 18 percent of residents polled in those countries said the attacks were justified, Dalia Mogahed, executive director of Gallup's Muslim studies said May 2 at a forum that revealed some results of the Gallup Poll of the Muslim World.
The results were based on polling in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan.
One week after "March Madness," Presbyterian seminaries held their own version of the Final Four on April 8 at the second annual Ultimate Frisbee Revival held at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va.
More than 70 players from five seminaries participated, along with dozens more who came as spectators or participated in the weekend's other events. Players participated from Princeton Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Columbia Theological Seminary, Union-PSCE and its neighbor, the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, for a double elimination tournament.
LOUISVIILLE -- Seeking to calm the storm over divestment and get people talking constructively about the Middle East, Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly, is proposing a plan.
First, the General Assembly this summer in Birmingham would create a task force to carefully monitor events in the Middle East -- a task force whose members would be committed both to working with Palestinian Christians who want to end the Israeli occupation and to deepening relations with Jews and Muslims in the area. That task force would present ideas on "how to move forward on these sensitive areas" to the assembly in 2008.
Second, the assembly would refer all overtures regarding divestment (and there are a truckload of them) to the Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee. Many of those sending overtures want the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to revisit the assembly's highly controversial decision, made in 2004, to begin a process of phased, selective divestment in some companies doing business in Israel.
Peace River Presbytery unanimously endorsed H. Timothy Halverson (Tim) as a candidate for moderator of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Nov. 17, 2005. In support of his candidacy, General Presbyter Graham Hart said, "We need a strong and articulate voice from the center to hold us together in these difficult times. ...Tim's education, ministry and spirit reflect the breadth of the church."
Editor's Note: Before each General Assembly, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly shares what he considers to be the top ten issues coming to the assembly, based primarily on overtures that have been submitted and his travels and conversations with Presbyterians across the denomination. Here is Clifton Kirkpatrick's non-prioritized list for this year's assembly:
Seminaries hold baccalaureate services, Commencement ceremonies for 2005-06 summarized for the following seminaries:
(PNS) Fifteen committees will process the business of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in June, according to the Office of the General Assembly (OGA).
Committee leaders for the eight-day Assembly, which starts on June 15 in Birmingham, Ala., also were named recently by OGA and Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase. Each committee will have elected commissioners as moderator and vice-moderator, plus an appointed assistant and a parliamentarian/recorder.
The 534 commissioners -- 267 elders and 267 ministers -- will be randomly assigned to the 15 committees. Nearly every item of business before the Assembly will be processed by one of the committees, which will make recommendations to the full Assembly. The committees will meet all day on June 16 and 17, and on the afternoon of June 18 if necessary.
Some Assembly committees will be more closely watched than others.
LOUISVILLE -- At the opening of the General Assembly Council's meeting April 26, John Detterick, the council's executive director, predicted that "virtually every council member will find something to be unhappy about."
That's because a denomination that prides itself on caring for the world doesn't have enough money to go around.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is facing a $9.1 million budget shortfall. The denomination is cutting its budget and eliminating dozens of jobs from its national staff. The exact number of positions lost hasn't been announced yet, but the cuts unquestionably will be deep and painful.
The budget proposal presented to the council called for a mission budget for "essential work" in 2007 of $97 million, including more than $4.4 million drawn from reserves.
(RNS) The head of Canada's Anglican Church is trying to reassure the country's Jewish community that his church has no plans to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
The young woman told the story of her first call, as the associate pastor at a mid-sized church. She was learning a lot, starting to hit her stride, beginning to earn respect from the congregation. That's about when the senior pastor started showing -- sometimes in not-so-subtle ways -- that he didn't much appreciate her being in the limelight.
She began to wonder, "Is this really where God has called me to be?"
That experience, which the woman shared during a workshop recently, may not be all that unusual -- first calls often bring some jolts, some rough roads along with the thrills and adventures.
And now some serious work is being done to help first-call pastors deal with the bumps -- to put them in networks with mentors seasoned in the ministry and with peers who are also starting out; to give them a sounding board to figure out what's typical and what can't be tolerated; to help them develop spiritual disciplines that can last a lifetime.
For Christopher Crotwell, a Columbia Theological Seminary graduate who's pastor of New Providence Church in Raphine, Va., the Company of New Pastors "allowed me to fill a hole I wasn't sure how I was going to fill" after graduation.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Beth Pyles, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams group that suffered the loss of member Tom Fox in Iraq, recently described her spiritual journey at a workshop during the Presbytery of West Virginia's annual Festival of Faith educational event.
The decision to join CPT was "mostly spiritual, partly political," acknowledges Pyles, who set aside a 22-year legal career in Parkersburg, W.Va. to attend Princeton Theological Seminary. It was spiritual because "we follow a Savior who was killed for the greater good for the greater number. We are a people who do not follow a cause, we follow a person," she said. It was political because "what we're doing in Iraq is problematic," Pyles stated.
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