In a few hours is when the Presbyterian Church in Ireland General Assembly would have convened. However, due to the covid-19 virus it, like a good number of other General Assemblies, has been cancelled for this year. In the case of the PCI this will break a streak of 180 years of consecutive GA’s.

However, to represent the church throughout the coming year a Moderator is needed, and having nominated a Moderator-designate back on the first Tuesday in February the nominee will be installed for this coming year. Since the nominee needs to be formally elected that will be done by the Standing Commission of the General Assembly as part of the Opening Night formalities.

The Moderator-designate is the Rev. David Bruce, nominated by a significant margin back in February with the support of 14 out of 19 presbyteries. The other three candidates split the remaining five presbytery votes.

Mr Bruce currently serves as the Secretary to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s Council for Mission in Ireland. That is one of multiple mission-related posts he has held as well as some time spent in parish ministry in Ballymena and Dublin. Besides the Mission in Ireland work, he has served Scripture Union, both in Northern Ireland and in the former Soviet republics.

He started off heading for the business world with a BSSc in Business Administration and Accounting from Queen’s University, Belfast in 1979. But coming to a personal saving faith during that time in college changed his plans and he then went to the University of Aberdeen for a Bachelor of Divinity. Following a year at Union Theological College he was licensed to parish work and the next year, 1984, was ordained to serve as Secretary to Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (now Christian Unions Ireland).

Leading up to his installation the PCI published a wide-ranging interview with Mr Bruce that included his thoughts on Presbyterianism in Ireland, particularly from his perspective from the Council on Mission in Ireland. Among his comments about the future he said:

“We reimagine, reconfigure what a Presbyterian presence looks like in the city, and that’s the route we are taking.” says David. He goes on, his eyes shining as he contemplates the future. “It may mean that Presbyterian presence no longer resembles what we have understood Presbyterianism to be in the past, you know, a congregation, a manse, a GB, a BB, a church hall, all of those things.”

David Bruce and his wife Zoe have four adult children and one grandchild. Going forward he will be tweeting on the Moderator account (@pcimoderator) but you can follow him on his personal account as well (@irishbruce). In addition, there is a little bit of traffic on the hashtag #pciga20.

The Opening Night service with the installation will begin at 7:00 PM Belfast time. There will be four individuals – the incoming Moderator, the outgoing Moderator, the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk – plus the technical crew in person in the Assembly Hall. Others will join by video. It is being livestreamed.

We wish Rev David Bruce the best on his moderatorial year and our prayers are with him in these most unusual times.

In the second Moderator selection of the day yesterday, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland conducted their annual voting process where all of the presbyteries meet on the same night – the first Tuesday in February – and vote for their next GA Moderator.

This year there were four nominated candidates:

• The Rev David Bruce is the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s Council for Mission in Ireland Secretary, serving there for the last 12 years (including the predecessor body).
• The Rev William Henry is the installed pastor of Maze Presbyterian Church since 1997 and since 2001 also with Ballinderry Presbyterian as Stated Supply
• The Rev Albin Rankin is the minister of Stormont Presbyterian Church in east Belfast, serving there since 2008. 
• The Rev Mairisíne Stanfield is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Bangor having been installed there in 2013. 

So, when the dust settled last night Mr Henry was the overwhelming favourite, being endorsed by 11 of the 19 presbyteries. Mr Bruce was endorsed by four presbyteries, Ms Stanfield by three presbyteries, and Mr Rankin by one.

Mr Henry has been the installed pastor at Maze Presbyterian Church for almost 22 years, moving there in 1997 after being ordained as an assistant pastor at Whiteabbey Presbyterian Church in 1994. In 2001 he was given the additional responsibility of serving as the Stated Supply minister of near-by Ballinderry Presbyterian Church.

He was born in Belfast and grew up in Mallusk, County Antrim. He began his higher education at Queen’s University, earning a BSc in Chemistry. Sensing a call to ministry he prepared at Union Theological College in Belfast. He was licensed to preach at his home congregation, Hyde Park Presbyterian Church.

Mr Henry has served the wider church as convener of the Home and Irish Mission/Strategy for the Mission Committee for six years beginning in 2006. He also served as convener of the Union Commission beginning in 2012 and continued when it became the Linkage Commission in 2015. His service there concluded last year.

At the age of 50, he will be the youngest Moderator of the General Assembly in, as the press release puts it, “living memory.” (At this morning’s press conference it was confirmed that the youngest Moderator was Very Rev Dr Gilbert Patton, who was 49 when he began his term as Moderator in 1930-31. )

If you are interested in hearing Mr Henry preach, you can find an archive of sermons on the church website.

His nomination has received good coverage in the mainstream media including the BBC Northern Ireland, the Belfast News Letter, the Belfast Telegraph, and itv.

In the follow-up coverage on the Wednesday morning press conference, the topics predictably included the church’s stance on same-sex relationships, Brexit, and the relationship between Union Theological College and Queen’s University as one of the constitute schools in the Institute of Theology.

Regarding Brexit, he declined to answer the question from the News Letter reporter about where he stood but included in his remarks “We’re an all-Ireland church [with an] all-island perspective. We’d be wanting to make sure there is something workable on both sides, in both jurisdictions…”

The BBC coverage of the press conference was terse and focused almost exclusively on the church’s stance on same-sex relationships. Their lede is:

The next moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) said he supports the church’s opposition to gay marriage.

But, he added the church “abhors” homophobia and is “open and welcome to anyone”.

Regarding Queen’s University suspending enrollment in Union Theological College over concerns of the breadth and diversity of teaching, the News Letter has this quote from Mr Henry responding to inquiries about that:

“I’m certainly disappointed with the decision, because what that does is it denies some of our young people the choice to follow their dream, and to study theology at the highest academic level…

“My middle daughter had an 18th birthday just recently. Even at a relatively small gathering in our house… in that one social gathering, there were three 18-year-olds who wanted to apply to study theology at Queen’s this year and that’s been denied.”

[UPDATE 7 Feb 2019: Expanded coverage of the press conference appeared today in the Belfast Telegraph. And this story made their front page. They also have an editorial titled “New Moderator William Henry will prove a steady hand.” The piece begins by listing the issues in the PCI in the last year and then states, “But if [William Henry] continues in the vein displayed in his first major interview in this newspaper today, he may well be a healing balm in an institution in need of cool heads and strategic thinking.”]

Returning the original press release, Mr Henry speaks in there about his perspective on the PCI and that it has a specific purpose in 21st century Ireland. He includes this comment

“Our younger generation, and how they demonstrate their commitment to Jesus, will be key to that future. Having observed plenty of examples in my own congregation of the vital and real faith our young people demonstrate, I will want to highlight many more demonstrations of this throughout our wider church. I pray that God might equip me with the gifting I need to model servant leadership in His Church this year,”

Speaking more broadly, elsewhere in the press release he is quoted as saying:

“For me it comes down to this experience of ‘Enjoying God,’ and perhaps that is what I’d like to develop into a theme for my year in office. When we enjoy God, prayer and worship become real and meaningful because there is a sense that God has come near. That will result in practical service for Jesus.

“Encountering God is always radical and disruptive. However, the Church can become casual and forgetful of the presence of God; and wider society has a tendency to be self-contained or self-reliant – the effect for both is that they attempt to live without a recognition of dependence upon God.

“I would wish to use the year ahead that I have to speak about this message and explore with people what it means to ‘Enjoy God,’ both to the Church and wider society. I want to bear witness to what I might call the surprising and unsettling presence of God – the one who offers fullness in Jesus.”

We wish the Rev William Henry well on his Moderatorial year of sharing the message of Enjoying God. Our prayers for him as he prepares for, and moderates the GA beginning on 3 June 2019.