Monthly Archives: February 2014

The Diversity Of Dismissals From The PC(USA)

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As regular readers know I have not just been following the many twists and turns of the dismissals of churches from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as an outside observer but at the level of my own presbytery I have found myself deeply involved in the process. And so it is with a great deal of interest that I have been following the recent news about dismissals of churches elsewhere. And while I have been seeing the mainstream media focusing on the “stay or go” side of the story, because of my level of involvement locally I have a great deal of interest in the fine details of the terms under which the churches are considering dismissal. My intent today is to drill down a bit into that aspect of the story with regards to two recent cases.

First, I did want to reflect for a moment on how dismissals have changed over the last two or three years. I have always been intrigued that before about three years ago the largest churches in the PC(USA) seemed to be staying with the denomination even if they were expressing concern about the direction that the church was headed. From my discussions with others the reasons seem to be two-fold. The first is that they did not see a good place to go. The only destination similar enough to the PC(USA) for most to even consider was the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and over the years there were a good number of churches that headed in that direction to the extent that now the EPC has more than doubled in size based on the number of congregations. But as the EPC was working through these growing pains it was generally not seen as a good destination for what passes as a mega-church in the PC(USA). With the founding of ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians in 2012 a more suitable destination was available.

To be completely accurate, one of the churches on the list, First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, did transfer to the EPC. But while it was the first on the list of largest churches to depart it was at about the same time that ECO was founded and another church, First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Springs, began their dismissal process soon after.

The second reason is that the PC(USA) was trying to work out what was meant by Gracious Dismissal. As I will talk about in a minute, it looks like we still are. So while the motion was passed by the 218th General Assembly in 2008 it appears we have reached a point where a number of the kinks have been worked out and there is some greater understanding of what might be involved. This was aided by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission’s decision in Tom, et al. v. Presbytery of San Francisco (Tom decision) that somewhat clarified the application of the Trust Clause in these matters.

So, we have transitioned from a point where none of the 15 largest churches in the denomination were actively moving towards departure just a few years ago to the point today where several have or are considering it. If we consider the 2011 list of the 15 largest churches in the PC(USA) there are two churches that have now been formally dismissed ( including FPC Orlando to the EPC ) and three more that are in the dismissal process, at least at the beginning of this month…

Which brings us to one of those churches that voted this past Sunday and in doing so decided to stay with the  PC(USA) – First Presbyterian Church of Houston.

As I mentioned above, the media story here has been “stay or go” and while there was a strong majority of the membership that voted to transfer to ECO they fell 36 votes short of the 2/3 supermajority required in the dismissal agreement with Presbytery of New Covenant. This was out of a total of 1,681 members who voted.

One article from the Houston Chronicle gave these thoughts from pastor and head of staff, Teaching Elder Jim Birchfield:

“This is the toughest possible outcome in many people’s minds,” Senior Pastor Jim Birchfield
said. “To fall a few votes short will be very tough for them. I’m a
little bit disappointed. I came out very strongly and passionately in
favor of (the move).”

Birchfield said it was too early to assess the long-term
repercussions of the attempt to switch denominations, and he declined to
predict whether some members will leave the church as a result. He said
his immediate task is to begin smoothing over the differences for the
sake of keeping the 3,100 member church intact.
“We have to begin reconciling the two sides, and that will begin
immediately,” he said. “We’ll also begin reconciling among the
leadership. For the most part, we have had a very gracious debate.”

I would note that there is a longer article from the Chronicle available to digital subscribers.

Other news sources covered similar aspects of the meeting with the Texas Tribune providing this description of the debate:

For more than an hour on Sunday, church members provided testimony for and against leaving PCUSA, some of it tearful.

Those in favor of leaving PCUSA spoke of the national organization’s
“theological drift” and called for a more “Christ-centered theology.”

and

Opponents of the switch argued for theological diversity. PCUSA does
not require churches to ordain openly gay pastors if they choose not to.
They bemoaned what they saw as inevitable fallout from the decision,
and said that appealing to stricter evangelist views would only further
isolate young members from the church.

In particularly fiery testimony, one opposing member said she feared
the switch would make her “a member of a congregation that distinguishes
itself by its homophobia.”

For a more nuanced look at the meeting I would refer you to the article from the Presbyterian Outlook which has a bit more on the process and procedure.

But returning to the Texas Tribune article, one paragraph caught my attention and I want to use it as the starting point to drill down a bit. They describe the property of the church like this:

First Presbyterian of Houston was an obvious target for the fledgling
denomination. The Houston church has roughly 3,100 members, owns
property valued at more than $100 million and boasts an $18 million
endowment. The church is 175 years old.

Now consider the material that was provided by the church from a link that was on it’s Season of Decision web page. The link has now been removed but as of this writing the document with the details of the terms for possible departure is still available. (But could disappear soon.) Besides the rationale for the departure the document has some legal notes, the report of the presbytery team and the details of payments the church would have had to make to the presbytery. I have not figured out which of the two listed options would be used but the larger of the two would have been payments to the presbytery on a five year declining scale totaling $343,236. The rationale for the amount is not given and based upon negotiations in my own presbytery I would not expect it to be so. But for a $100 million property and $18 million endowment it seems like a pretty good deal. This will become more apparent in a minute.

One other item on that page caught my attention, particularly in light of the actual vote tallies, and this could have changed this picture dramatically. While no specifics or formulas are given there is this paragraph about additional payments:

There are two additional payments that might be made to Presbytery. The amounts are not known at this time. If the required majority votes to be dismissed and more than 10% of our congregation vote to remain in PCUSA, and a petition to start a new church is signed by more than 25 members, and Presbytery approves the new church start, we will owe a payment to start a new church. In addition we will likely be required to make a voluntary gift to the Presbytery’s New Church Development Fund.

It is interesting to wonder about the what-ifs had those extra 36 members been there and the vote had gone the other way, but just barely, what the magnitude of these payments would have been. (And I had to smile at the language about being “required to make a voluntary gift…” Probably a required gift of a voluntary amount.)

Let us now turn our attention to another vote, this time at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in San Francisco Presbytery scheduled for this coming weekend. When I started hearing details of this church dismissal I had to think that the presbytery was taking the instructions in the Tom decision very seriously:

When a congregation seeks dismissal under G-11.0103i (now G-3.0301a), it is the responsibility of the presbytery to fulfill its fiduciary duty under the Trust Clause. This fiduciary duty requires that the presbytery exercise due diligence regarding the value of the property of the congregation seeking dismissal. Due diligence, of necessity, includes not only an evaluation of the spiritual needs of the congregation and its circumstances but also financial analysis of the value of the property at stake. Payments for per capita or mission obligations are not satisfactory substitutes for the separate evaluation of the value of the property held in trust.

According to the information on the church web site the payment to the presbytery will be $8.89 million if the congregation votes to accept the terms and request dismissal. Yes, it is 1.5 orders of magnitude larger than the terms that FPC Houston got. In addition, for FPC Houston the quorum requirement was 30% of the membership, it is 50% for Menlo Park. And the required supermajority is 3/4 for Menlo Park while it was the 2/3 for FPC Houston. The differences due to presbytery policy are striking for two churches of very similar size (3,567 members for FPC Houston and 3,382 members for Menlo Park according to the 2012 list). As my title says – The Diversity of Dismissals.

The PC(USA)’s polity places dismissals firmly in the authority of the presbytery and each church was obliged to deal with their presbytery in coming to an agreement about the terms of dismissal. One of the places that Menlo Park discusses the terms of the agreement is in Pastor John Ortberg’s February 2nd sermon. In there he talks about the process of arriving at these numbers saying:

Where did this figure come from, and why is it so high? Sorry for the complexity around this, but we want to be as transparent as we can. From the perspective of our church, part of what is suboptimal in our current denominational system is that there are no clear objective guidelines to arrive at a financial figure in a process like this one.

But regarding this financial number, in looking at a lot of the material on their web site I have not seen a breakdown of where this number actually comes from, if there is per capita, mission, property and new church development built into it.

For more details about the voting process there is a short video clip online from February 16th where Ruling Elder Ken Perez discusses what is coming up. In that discussion he also announces that a 5 year reversionary clause on the main property has been added by the presbytery to the terms of the agreement. The church’s main web page about the dismissal has a lot of information and there is another page devoted to this weekend’s vote.

Let me return to TE Ortberg’s February 2nd sermon for a moment and highlight a couple of the comments he made. In his discussion he talks about the various options the congregation has relative to the large cost of departure. Besides paying the millions of dollars, one option is that they could turn down the offer and stay. Another is that they could walk away from their property. He discusses how neither of these fits the missional vision of the church. The fourth option is litigation and he responds to that option this way:

We could say, “We’ll go to court.” However, we think public litigation would be a bad witness for the church. It’s not good for the bride of Jesus. It’s not what God is calling us to do, and nobody wanted to do that.

While not doubting that this is their rationale in avoiding this path, and respecting them greatly for it, it is also worth noting that based on case law in the State of California, specifically the Episcopal Church Cases decided by the State Supreme Court, they would have an uphill battle in retaining control of the property through civil court.

I want to make two final comments about Menlo Park PC’s missional vision as expressed in a couple of different places. In the church’s online material the argument that is regularly presented for transferring is that the necessity of working with the presbytery is burdensome and getting in the way of their missional vision. As TE Ortberg says in that February 2nd sermon:

As you all know, we have a vision. We believe we have a mission. We want to reach thousands of people for Jesus Christ around this Bay Area that needs him so much. We want to launch new sites to help us do that.

We believe we simply cannot do that effectively if we remain in the denomination.

And this is a sentiment that is echoed in the comments by RE Perez where he talks about the issues they have had with the presbytery. Instead of emphasizing what may be a mismatch in the visions of the two governing bodies it sounds to my listening that he is leaning to a more congregational form of government and he wants to get the presbytery out of the way so the church can have more autonomy and flexibility.

Taking this one step further, as I look at all this material throughout it there is a tendency to speak of problems with the denomination when some of the issues are specifically with the presbytery. Picky polity point I know, but we do work on hierarchical structure where presbyteries do have identities and some autonomy from the synods and the General Assembly. It strikes me that the PC(USA) is getting painted with too broad a brush.

The second item I wanted to mention is a good article from The Almanac titled Changes Ahead for Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. In some ways I think the article does a better job of in explaining the church’s vision than the church’s own online material does. For example, it does discuss the issue of the church wanting to expand as a multi-site church while running up against the limitations of geographic presbyteries. It says:

MPPC Communications Director Nicole Laubscher
said ECO’s 110 churches are organized into nine presbyteries by both
geography and similarity, such as size, as opposed to geography alone as
done by the Presbyterian Church (USA).

“For us it’s about the pace of change,” she
said. ECO offers more flexibility, whereas PCUSA is designed for small
churches in a single location. “It creates tremendous barriers.”

When MPPC first sought to expand outside Menlo
Park, she said, “It was really hard. At the time, we didn’t know if we
would just get a no. Instead of being supported, encouraged and helped,
it was another barrier to hurdle. … it’s just not the right framework
to support a larger, multi-site church.”

In PCUSA, the presbytery, or regional
governing body, is responsible for planning and placing new churches.
Tom Conrad, chair of the PCUSA team selected to deal with the proposed
departure of the Menlo Park church, agreed the concept of opening
multiple sites doesn’t fit well with that organization’s system; as a
result, there are “precious few” multi-site churches.

The article also does a good job of exploring the downside to the dismissal agreement.

Some former and current members of MPPC said
they think the theological differences are influencing the church’s
desire to change organizations.

Debra Holvick, who stopped attending several years ago, got re-involved to be able to participate in the upcoming vote.

“This was the church I was baptized in, I went
to Sunday school there, I was married there, my father’s memorial was
held there, my mother remarried there and my children were raised
there,” she told the Almanac. “That church has been a huge part of my
life, so I felt responsible for it and I don’t want them to take it in
an unchristian-like direction and say this is part of who I am.”

Ms. Holvick said taking a stance against gay
clergy and same-sex marriage may not be a major motivation for changing
denominations, but it does come with the package.

Later on there are comments about whether the almost $9 million buy-out price could be “better spent funding scholarships and buying food for those in need in the local community…”

So we wait for the meeting this Sunday to see how the congregation as a whole discerns the will of God regarding its future affiliations. Stay tuned…

[Ed. note: For the record, I did resist using the cliché “Houston we have a problem” as a subtitle to this post. But yes, another post and its correction did use a variation on it.]

Presbyterian News Headlines For The First Half Of February 2014

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Let me begin today with a bit of the follow-up news to the election of the Moderator for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. First, concerning the successful nominee, the Rev. Dr. Michael Barry:

New Presbyterian Moderator vows to reach out and serve – from Belfast News Letter

Presbyterian moderator says politicians must find way of dealing with past – from The Irish Times

Just a day after his election, new Presbyterian Church Moderator sparks row by telling gay people to stop having sex – from Belfast Telegraph

And the presence of the Rev. Liz Hughes in the final vote, and falling one vote short, has grabbed some significant media attention as well:

Town-born Liz just misses out in historic bid to become Moderator – from Portadown Times

A female Moderator is surely inevitable – from Portadown Times

In Scotland, the Scottish Parliament approved a same-sex marriage bill with corresponding reaction from the various Scottish churches including the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland:

Scotland becomes seventeenth country to approve same-sex marriages – from Reuters

Same-sex marriage vote prompts church concerns – from Daily Record

Churches denounce law that legalizes same-sex marriage in Scotland – from Ecumenical News

Although individual pastors are speaking out in favour of the legislation:

Cambuslang minister goes against own church’s view on same sex marriage – from Daily Record

Also from Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland confirmed they had settled a lawsuit a few months back related to the death of a visiting Peruvian boy almost eight years ago. The lawsuit was brought by the boy’s parents:

Free Church of Scotland settles with crash boy’s parents – from the BBC

Finally, it was also announced that the jewelry – ring and cross – that are the signs of the office of the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, have been replaced after they were stolen with a bag at an airport last year:

New ring and cross for Kirk’s Moderator after originals stolen – from STV News

And in Illinois the long-running story of the fate of a Presbyterian camp on Lake Michigan has apparently been settled. While there was hope of saving the camp, with the vote of the Presbytery of Chicago the land was sold to the developer:

Presbyterian group’s plan to sell Michigan campsite meets opposition – from Chicago Sun-Times (Feb 5)

Church votes to sell Saugatuck campground property to developer for $10M – from The Grand Rapids Press (Feb 10)

Sale of 130-acre Presbyterian Camps completed – from Holland Sentinel (Feb 18)

In Mississippi, a celebration and update on a church damaged by a tornado last year:

Year after tornado, damaged Hattiesburg church holds communion – from the Clarion Ledger

From Africa, we first have an op-ed piece the decries some of the steps pastors are taking, including at least one Presbyterian one, to get around laws so they can accumulate more wealth for them and their churches:

Kenya: The Terrorism of Our Modern-Day Pastors – from allAfrica

There were also comments about the economy from the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and suggestion that spending be cut instead of taxes raised:

Imposition of taxes is not the answer – Presby Moderator – from Graphic Online

While from the island of Trinidad a problem at a Presbyterian school has parents and students protesting:

Rats close Erin Road Presbyterian – from Trinidad Express

Also in this time period we had news that Joan Mondale initially entered hospice and died a few days later. Her service was held at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis with music provided by the Macalester College Concert Choir. She was a daughter of the manse and her father, the Rev. John Maxwell Adams, was the chaplain at Macalester for a number of years. One reason that her passing caught my attention is that my father was a student at Macalester at the same time she was and worked closely with Rev. Adams in connection with the chapel services. I believe I had the pleasure of meeting Rev. Adams, probably at the 183rd General Assembly in 1971.

At this point there is a lot of news out there and you may notice a couple of high-profile items missing from this list. I do hope to make time to blog those individually in the next few weeks. In addition, as GA season approaches the news volume will probably be increasing as well. Stay tuned…

Church Of Scotland 2014 National Youth Assembly Moderator And Clerk

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This past week the Church of Scotland announced the choice of Moderator and Clerk for the 2014 National Youth Assembly.

The Moderator will be Ms Rachel Hutcheson, a member of Old High St. Stephen’s Church of Inverness. She has a good background in the workings of the Kirk having been involved in Church of Scotland Youth (CoSY) for the last six years and during that time participated in four National Youth Assemblies. In addition, she has served as a youth delegate from the Presbytery of Inverness to the General Assembly four times. She is active in her local church as a youth group leader and a member of the Worship Team. She has also helped with the wider church as staff for three National Children’s Assemblies.

She is a student at the University of Aberdeen working on an MA in Education. From one of the bio’s I had to look up her summer pastime of Munro Bagging and found it to be mountain climbing a particular set of peaks very much like the 46ers that I grew up working on.

The Clerk will be Mr. John Haston, an active elder from Abbotsgrange Parish Church in Grangemouth where he serves as the Sunday
School Superintendent, EV3NT co-ordinator, choir member, Boys Brigade helper and a committee member of the
men’s association. He serves the Presbytery of Falkirk as a corresponding youth member and assessor elder for another congregation. (Polity note: when a congregation can not form its own session the governing council is composed of outside assessor elders like other branches might have an organizing committee or an administrative commission.)

He has been to two previous National Youth Assemblies and he will be serving as a youth delegate to the General Assembly for the second time this May.

There is coverage of the announcement from both the Church of Scotland news article as well as a briefer article, but with pictures, from the Kirk’s magazine Life and Work. At this time the COSY page for Moderator and Clerk includes both the current officers as well as the most detailed bios of each of the designees.

The National Youth Assembly will be held 15-18 August and the theme is “My Father’s House.” In the quotes in the Life and Work article Rachel helps to unpack this a little:

“The Church is going through challenging times so we must take time to
reflect on who we are and where we are going. This year at NYA we will
be exploring how we worship. We will discuss how we think the Church
should be spending its money. We will be investigating how we can do
ministry intergenerationally and finally, how we can support Christians
in the Middle East. As we join together to celebrate 20 fabulous years
of NYA I hope delegates will feel empowered and strengthened in their
faith.”

(And I have to give a nod of approval to the coffee cup – OK, hot beverage cup – in the graphics.)

We congratulate Rachel and John on their selection as the officers of the National Youth Assembly and wish them well and offer our prayers as they prepare for the meeting and to represent the Assembly in the following year. Furthermore, we pray for the Assembly as a whole and eagerly look forward to their mutual discernment on the topics to be discussed.

Presbyterian News Headlines For The Second Half Of January 2014

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I am going to begin this post with a narrative form more in the style of my regular writing but I am not sure what to do with this otherwise.

In mid-January the BBC in Norther Ireland aired a two-part documentary and interview on Ian Paisley who helped found the Free Presbyterian Church and what is now the Democratic Unionist Party. This TV show has stirred a lot of feelings on all sides involved in the troubled history of that region and Dr. Paisley had some pretty strong things to say, not all of them what you might predict. As one article in the News Letter headlines it, his criticism of both the DUP and Free Presbyterian church were brutal. I will leave the civil politics aside – at least to the extent I am able in a situation where civil and secular are inexorably linked – and just note another article in the Belfast Telegraph that is headlined “It was religion, not politics that drove Ian Paisley.” In the interview, according to the online press reports, he talks about how the elders of his church forced him out. The Sunday following the airing of the programme the media were at the church he had pastored for many years with the Belfast Telegraph getting some reaction from congregants and the News Letter finding the church members “tight-lipped.” Lots more out there about this programme but to wrap this up let me note some published qualified comments from Dr. Paisley in IrishCentral about the Catholics were correct in standing up for their civil rights,  a profile piece on his wife Eileen, and some brief comments about all this from his son Ian, Jr.

And now back to my usual format for this stuff…

In other news from Ireland, these items from the Presbyterian Church in Ireland

Irish Presbyterians back Syrian victims – from Belfast News Letter; “Representatives from churches around the world have been meeting
in Lebanon this week to consult with and give support to churches
working to bring about relief and peace in Syria. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland is represented by its
board of mission overseas convenor the Rev Cheryl Meban at
consultations organised by the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and
Lebanon (NESSL).”

Presbyterian concern on mental health issue – from Belfast News Letter about a conference the church held

From Scotland an exception to the trend that new Church of Scotland ministers are typically second career…

Church of Scotland’s Young Turk ordained aged 25 – from Scottish Express

Turning to Africa, news from Nigeria and Ghana:

Presbyterian Church, Muslim group laud Jonathan over anti-gay law – from The Guardian Nigeria

Nigerian school stakes claim to have set up Africa’s first printing press – from The Guardian; “The Hope Waddell Training Institution, a school in Nigeria founded in 1895 by Presbyterian missionaries, is laying claim to have set up Africa’s oldest press. But could it be so?”

Rev Martey urges Christians to enter politics – from Joy Online; in comments by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana

In Asia:

Presbyterian Pastor On Trial On Extremism Charges in Kazakhstan – from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

and then two days later

Kazakh Court Drops Extremism Charges Against Pastor – from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; but some lesser charges have not been dropped

From North America:

Presbyterian pastor of NY church dies a month after gas station explosion in Conn. – AP article published by, among others, the Daily Reporter

And that is it for now. A few other things caught my eye in these two weeks but I am holding those for further developments or I might develop them beyond the scope of a headline post.

Where Are The Ruling Elders?

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Fair warning – this probably qualifies as another one of my rants on one of the topics I rant about from time to time – Where are the ruling elders?

In the last few days two documents have come out of agencies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that seem to overlook the fact that according to our Book of Order “This church shall be governed by presbyters, that is, ruling elders and teaching elders.” (F-3.0202 first part) and the last part of G-2.0301:

Ruling elders, together with teaching elders, exercise leadership, government, spiritual discernment, and discipline and have responsibilities for the life of a congregation as well as the whole church, including ecumenical relationships. When elected by the congregation, they shall serve faithfully as members of the session. When elected as commissioners to higher councils, ruling elders participate and vote with the same authority as teaching elders, and they are eligible for any office.

And your point is…?

The first document to come out was a press release from the Presbyterian Publishing Company (PPC) – one of the six agencies of the PC(USA) – concerning their decision to stop using Cokesbury for distribution to brick and mortar locations and that they would now distribute their products almost exclusively online through their own system. Now that is an interesting development in and of itself and I may return to it. But within the press release was the line:

PPC encourages all PC(USA) clergy, church educational and office
professionals, religious academics, and lay members to support the
denominational publisher by purchasing books and resources through these
websites.

And where are the ruling elders? For those not familiar with Presbyterian polity they do not fall into the category of “lay members.” And this from the publishing house that operates the The Presbyterian Leader imprint. Maybe it is just that the ruling elders are not encouraged to support the denominational publisher.

OK, I was going to let this go as a one-off, an oversight, a press release put together in a hurry. After all, one point does not define a trend. But then we got another point…

In the meeting this morning of another PC(USA) agency board, the Presbyterian Mission Agency, a proposed revision to the Directory for Worship was revealed. The Board agreed to send it to the 221st General Assembly with the recommendation to forward it on to the whole denomination for study. I will have more to say on this document at a later time. For now I will say that there are a number of typos in the document that need to be cleaned up.

But reading through the Rational section I was intreagued and concerned to read about the focus group they put together to get reaction to the document:

A diverse group of scholars, pastors, and mid council leaders provided feedback on the proposed revision…

And where are the ruling elders? Yes, within the scholars and mid-council leaders there probably were ruling elders. But if pastors were invited were ruling elders from churches invited to give feedback on the document and not just ecclesiastical professionals?

As regular readers of my blog know the equal governance of teaching and ruling elders together is an area that I am hyper-sensitive about and when I read documents with that filter things like this jump out at me. I am sure that some of you are thinking that I am blowing this out of proportion. But to me the situation is something to pay attention to. If we are serious about our government structure then we need to be intentional about including ruling elders in the mix the same way we are intentional about including the wide diversity of our membership in the decision making process. Furthermore, the joint decision making by teaching and ruling elders is the genius of our system and provides the means for better decision making (see Landon Whitsitt’s Open Source Church – sorry, could not find it on The Presbyterian Leader to link to) and it is the means to engage a greater cross-section of the church in ministry. Both of these quotes, to me at least, place more emphasis on the institutional side of the church and not it’s wide diversity.

OK, my coffee break is over. Just a few thoughts for now. But I leave you with the famous words of Cynthia Bolbach, the Moderator of the 219th General Assembly…

“Elders Rule!”

Presbyterian Church In Ireland Elects Rev. Michael Barry As Moderator Designate

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Yesterday was the first Tuesday in February, the day that all the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) meet to elect their General Assembly Moderator for the year. There were a few unique aspects to this year’s election, but at the end of the day the 19 presbyteries elected the Rev. Dr. Michael Barry as the Moderator Designate for the 2014 General Assembly.

Rev. Barry has served for the last 28 years as pastor of Sandys Street Presbyterian Church in Newry (in the southeast corner of Northern Ireland, for those of us who had to look it up). He comes from a family of mariners (according to the PCI press release) but his first career was as a teacher, training at Stranmillis College and then working as a math instructor at Larne Technical College, now part of Northern Regional College. During that time he continued his education and in 1979 began studying for the ministry at Union Theological College, Belfast. Upon ordination in 1982 he served as an assistant minister at First Larne and three years later moved to Newry where he has been ever since. He completed a D.Min. from Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, in 1997.

In addition to his parish ministry, he actively works with schools in the Newry area, particularly the Rathore School for children with special needs. He and his wife Esther have two daughters who both are teachers in England.

Following his election he said in a statement (reprinted here from the Belfast News Letter):

“I am very surprised but pleased that the Presbyterian Church has put
its confidence in me and seen fit to give me the honour of serving as
moderator.

“I look forward to encouraging the Church and its
people in their ministry as I have the opportunity to travel around
Ireland and visit congregations and meet people engaged in ministry and
mission.”

For some answers to questions from the Wednesday morning news conference you can check out Alan in Belfast (@alaninbelfast) and his audio of the news conference on Audioboo.

There were a number of interesting points to this year’s election that deserve mention.

First, there were five candidates on the ballot nominated in the first round. Following the first ballot last night there was a three way tie with Rev. Barry, the Rev. Liz Hughes and the Rev. Ian McNie each receiving five votes. In early responses from people familiar with the history of the church no one could remember a three-way tie before.

In a change in procedure used in this year’s tie for the first time the second ballot was taken the same night as opposed to it being taken one month later, like the initial tie in 2010. The second round was again very tight with Rev. Barry receiving seven votes and the other two candidates each receiving six votes.

Another unusual point this year was that none of the five candidates had been nominated in the first round in previous years – it was a group of all first-timers on the ballot.

Finally, the appearance of the Rev. Liz Hughes on the ballot marked only the second time that a woman has been nominated and with the very close first and second votes it is the closest that a female minister has come to being elected Moderator.

So with that, we congratulate the Rev. Michael Barry on his election, wish him well for the time until he is installed on 2 June, and offer our prayers for his time moderating the Assembly as well as for his moderatorial year.