In my post yesterday I said that I had no word of additional challengers for the position of Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  Well, this afternoon brings a Presbyterian News Service article that there are four candidates:

The search committee nominee, insider and heir apparent – Rev. Gradye Parsons

The initial challenger – Rev. Edward Koster

Newly announced – Rev. Winfield “Casey” Jones

Newly announced – Rev. William P. Tarbell

You can read about the Rev. Parsons all over the PC(USA) web site, such as his own GA page, as the official nominee, and there is the original Presbyterian News Service article and my initial comments.

While Rev. Parsons is currently featured on the Stated Clerk search web page, to be fair the page currently reprints part of today’s article and will soon have info on all the candidates now that the declaration deadline has passed.

I talked about the Rev. Koster when he first announced and he had a News Service article written about him as well.

The article says that both Rev. Jones and Rev. Tarbell filed their declarations at the deadline on Wednesday.  Also, both of these pastors challenged the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick for the job back in 2000. 

Rev. Jones is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Pearland, Texas, and the article says that his experience includes serving as a pastor in Texas in several congregations since 1979 and serving on Presbytery committees.

Rev. Tarbell has similar experience but his parish service has been much more traveled including South Dakota, Wyoming, Oregon, Missouri, and currently South Carolina serving as pastor of Saluda Presbyterian Church.

Now that all the candidates are know there will be a book with more information on each one published shortly.

Today, May 8, is an exciting day.  General Assembly is getting closer and I, an unrepentant GA Junkie, can hardly wait.  With only a week to go…  Only a week to go?  Yes folks, the General Assembly season begins one week from today in Edinburgh, Scotland, with the convening of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.  Did I say I can hardly wait?  (Yeah, I’m pretty hard core about Presbyterian General Assemblies.  But if you have not figured that out from this blog I’m not doing my job.)

I’ll do a preview of that GA in the next day or two, but first this is also an important day for the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly.

Yesterday marked the 45 day deadline before the convening of GA and according to the Standing Rules there is lots of stuff that has to happen by that day.  First, while the usual cut-off for submitted business is 60 days before the start, under rule A.1.b the Stated Clerk has the discretion to include business submitted up to the 45 day point.  (Note, this is the postmark date so there could be business to still arrive in the next few days.)  Forty-five days is also the cut-off for overtures [A.3.c.(3)], but the deadlines for constitutional changes and those with financial implications has already passed.  In addition, nominees for Vice-moderator must be announced [H.1.c.(1)] and challengers for the Stated Clerk election must declare [H.2.b.(3).(k)].  And in general, most papers, communications, commissioner committee assignments, and a lot of other routine items needed to by done by yesterday.

Let me move on to the business.  Taking the easy one first, I have heard of no other applicants besides Edward Koster who have declared that they are challenging the nominating committee’s selection Gradye Parsons for the position of Stated Clerk.

As for the Vice-moderator nominees, thanks to Moderator candidate Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow we now know that the Rev. Diane Givens Moffett, pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, NC, has been selected by the Rev. Carl Mazza as his Vice-moderator nominee.  I don’t see this announcement on his Moderator candidacy web site yet.  Rev. Moffett, according to the bio on her church web site, is a native of Oakland, CA, and her education was in the Bay Area as well with a degree from Berkeley and an MDiv and DMin from SFTS North.  She has been recognized for her preaching and if you Google her there are a lot of hits returned for her.  This rounds out the field of eight with seven clergy and one elder (way to go Roger!).  Now we wait for the election.

The committee leadership was formally announced earlier this week, but if you surfed around PC-biz, that has actually been posted there since my last update.  The committee leadership is very important, maybe the most important business aspect of GA.  Since all business is dealt with in committee first, and generally shaped there, how the committee functions is crucial.  In most cases the full assembly has neither the time nor the interest in doing anything more than fine-tuning a committee report.  In general, the committee report is adopted almost exactly as the committee presents it.  Pray for these people in leadership.

Well, that brings us to the business itself.  The total number of items in PC-biz is 283 and with 99 overtures last time the count now appears to be up to 109.  With numbers like that you can see why the Assembly must trust the committees.

I have been a bit connected to overtures 100, 101, and 102 which were submitted by my Synod and concern Hanmi Presbytery, a non-geographic Korean-language presbytery, and its churches.  Beginning with 102, which was assigned to Committee 3 – General Assembly Procedures, this overture asks for the continuation of Hanmi Presbytery on an indefinite basis.  The rational is interesting reading because it not only lays out the trials and tribulations Hanmi has been through, but it also describes the history of non-geographic presbyteries in the PC(USA).  Authorized in 1983 and established in 1984 Hanmi was to be a transitional presbytery (yes, the PC(USA) had transitional presbyteries, but that is another issue) with a ten year life time.  The status as a transitional presbytery was renewed for another 15 years, to expire in January 2009.  That was to be the last extension and instructions were given to develop a plan to transfer churches out.  In the mean time, non-geographic presbyteries were enshrined in the Book of Order by the church in 2001 by adding them to G-12.0102k so as to meet “mission needs.”  Now that non-geographic presbyteries are no longer a transitional structure, the request is for Hanmi to continue indefinitely.  But this is with the note that overtures 100 and 101 are requests to transfer churches out of Hanmi into Riverside and Pacific Presbyteries respectively.

It is interesting to note that the 217th GA in 2006 referred to the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly a request to study the feasibility of non-geographic synods, particularly Korean-American ones.  That referral is coming back as item 03-07 and recommends that when there are not enough congregations within the bounds of a synod for a non-geographic presbytery that congregations may join, with the permission of everyone in sight, a non-geographic presbytery in another synod.

Now, without financial implications or constitutional changes what is left?  Social witness policy of course.  Overture 103, from Pittsburgh Presbytery, is supporting single-payer universal health care.  Overture 105, from Santa Barbara Presbytery, asks that the PC(USA) becomes a non-partisan advocate for peace and would direct that the denominational offices not take sides.  And 106, also from Santa Barbara Presbytery, would have the 218th GA answer all overtures concerning Israel and Palestine with a single statement.  That statement says that the issues are complex and the PC(USA) will not take a position that favors one side or the other.  Furthermore, it calls on the church to pray for peace, render humanitarian aid, condemn terrorism, and advocate for a negotiated solution.

It is interesting that another group of overtures deal with disaster assistance in various ways.  Overture 104 from South Louisiana Presbytery asks the denomination to look into group wind and hail insurance policies.  Overture 107, from the Synod of the Sun, would thank Presbyterians throughout the country, and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, for their help rebuilding the Gulf Coast communities.  And 108 addresses a current issue in the denomination, the incorporation of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.  This overture, from Peace River Presbytery, instructs General Assembly Council to continue to move forward with the process of incorporating PDA.  At its meeting at the end of April the GAC voted unanimously not to incorporate PDA because they decided that things were good now and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  They did keep the task force in place until September 2009.  It is not evident if this overture pre-dates or post-dates that vote.

Finally, overture 109, from Heartland Presbytery, asks the Stated Clerk to gather resources and examples of ordination examination procedures and materials for use across the church.  This is of course related to the PUP report and we will see if it is affected by other action the GA may take on PUP issues.

That is it for now.  I’ll be focusing on the Church of Scotland GA for the next couple of weeks but will try to also update the PC(USA) business if anything arises.

Over the last week there has been some local activity for the four candidates standing for Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The series of events began with the attendance of the candidates at the regular meeting of the General Assembly Council in Louisville.  This seems to not so much be a “moderator” event as it is a “reality check.”  It gives the candidates an opportunity to see the state of the denomination one last time before GA, and it lets the “inner circle” of the denomination check out the candidates.  From these two days Bruce Reyes-Chow has posted some of his reflections.

After Louisville, all four traveled to New Jersey for two “meet-and-greet” events, one in the afternoon at Bloomfield College and one that evening at First Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville.  The evening one is well covered, complete with pictures, by lead organizer Mark Smith in his blog Mark Time.  For full details and impressions check it out, but it had a great format with time for candidate’s remarks to the whole group, breaking up into four groups, one with each candidate and then rotate candidates, and finally an informal time to mingle.  In addition to Mark, candidate Carl Mazza has his own comments on his blog.

Finally, Bruce Reyes-Chow and Bill Teng were able to continue the “whistle-stop tour” with an event the next day at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Washington, D.C.  You can find reflections on this event by Carol Howard Merritt on her blog Tribal Church.

All the comments are positive about these events and it sounds like a useful exercise to get the candidates together out in the “real world.”  So often we hear about the election at GA, those that did not get elected fade from view, and the Moderator is now someone out traveling the world on our behalf that we may read about, but usually don’t meet and who also has pretty much faded from view when the next GA rolls around.  Now I realize that even with the new two year terms of moderators, for them to visit every presbytery would require visiting an average of close to two presbyteries per week.  So getting face time with each of the two-million-ish members is not realistic.  But we in the particular church need to be attentive to our connectionalism more than the one week every-other year that GA is in session.

There have been enough events happening this week that I thought it worthwhile updating the preparations for the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Probably the biggest single news item, one worthy of a Presbyterian News Service article, is that at least one individual, the Rev. Edward Koster, Stated Clerk of Detroit Presbytery, will challenge the search committee nominee, Rev. Gradye Parsons, for the job of Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.  Rev. Koster has served 13 years as a Presbytery stated clerk and in addition to his theological training he is also a lawyer.  The News Service article quotes Rev. Koster from a prepared statement as saying “I believe that while our leadership has been faithful and competent, it
has increasingly strayed from the core of the church. If I am called to
serve, I believe I can make a difference.”

The blogosphere has had some response to this challenge.  In particular the Rev. Bob Davis of San Diego Presbytery has an analysis of the process from his perspective and concludes that the process as it currently stands limits the commissioners’ exposure to the challengers and favors the committee nominee.  The Rev. Davis has some experience with this, having been one of the challengers to Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick when he was last re-elected by the 216th General Assembly in 2004.  In a follow-up post today Rev. Davis suggests some changes to the Standing Rules to improve the process.  Specifically, he wants more time for conversation between the candidates and the commissioners and delegates and so suggests establishing a commissioner committee to interview the candidates.  While I don’t have my materials in front of me, it is my memory that was the process at the preceding election at the 212th General Assembly (2000).  I would also note that the Rev. Davis appears to be a commissioner to General Assembly from San Diego presbytery so he may be in a position to do something about his suggestion.

There are some additional reactions on blogs to the Stated Clerk election, including Quotidian Grace and Spoiled Dinner Party that express concern about the choice of an insider as the committee nominee at this point in time and they welcome the challengers.  The other 12 applicants who were not selected by the nominating committee have until May 7 to declare if they also wish to challenge.

Another place there has been activity is on the business system PC-biz.  The big news is that overnight the members of the committees were added to the system.  In scanning through the lists I recognize a bunch of names, like the Rev. Davis who will be on Committee 8, Mission Coordination and Budgets.  For the candidates for Moderator and Vice-Moderator, Rev. Carl Mazza is on Committee 4, Church Polity; Rev. Byron Wade is on Committee 5, Church Orders and Ministry; Rev. Tamara Letts, Committee 13, Theological Issues and Institutions; Rev. Peter deVries, Committee 14, Review of GA Permanent Committees; Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow and Rev. William Teng, Committee 16, Worship and Spiritual Renewal (note: these are supposed to be random assignments so someone from Presbyterians for Renewal on the Spiritual Renewal Committee is coincidence); and Elder Roger Shoemaker on Committee 17, Youth.  Those that are elected Moderator and Vice-moderator will not serve on their committee so they may moderate the committee report impartially.

As far as the business is concerned, almost all overtures and recommendations have been assigned to committees at this point.  There is one new overture, 99, also known as business item 11-23, from the Presbytery of San Francisco.  The title is “On Divestment from Caterpillar, Inc., and Motorola, Inc., for Profiting from the Israeli Military Occupation of Palestine Territories” which pretty much says it all.  It is also interesting to note that two more overtures have been withdrawn:  Overture 4 on clarifying the Rules of Discipline about pronouncing censure and Overture 75 on temporary suspension of military aid to the State of Israel.  No reasons for withdrawal given.

In other news related to the Moderator election, the Candidates Forum at First Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, NJ, is tomorrow night and I look forward to comments and impressions from any of the candidates, from Mark Smith on his blog Mark Time. or from any other blogger who makes it to the event.  And thanks to Mark for putting this event together.  Being on the left coast I don’t think I’ll be making it myself.  Also, I continue to watch but have not seen word yet on Rev. Mazza’s nominee for Vice-Moderator.

Finally, the denomination has announced the prayer emphasis for the week before GA highlighted by a road trip by Tammy Wiens-Sorge, Associate for Spiritual Formation and Stephany Jackson, Coordinator for Congregational Leadership, traveling from Louisville to San Jose.  For six months now I have been steeling myself for all the upcoming references to that old song about San Jose and the title of this effort, Praying Our Way To San Jose, comes pretty close to the first authentic reference I have heard.  But I have to agree with Joan Gray, Moderator of the 217th General Assembly, when she says in her message on the web page “If you haven’t already, start praying now!”  I could not agree more.

The process continues as we move towards the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) which begins on June 21, 2008, in San Jose, California.  This week the big event was the release of the Moderator Booklet with the statements by each candidate and responses to questions from the four Moderator candidates.  Just to remind you, the four candidates are (in order of their inclusion in the booklet) Rev. Carl Mazza, Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, Elder Roger Shoemaker, and Rev. William “Bill” Teng.

I will have to take some more time to review the answers and see if I want to make any comments on the answers, but it is interesting to note which questions the candidates chose to answer.  The Office of the General Assembly provided a list of ten questions and the candidates were to chose five questions to answer in 500 words or less for each question.  What I found interesting was which questions the candidates answered and which they did not.  For example, all four candidates chose to answer the first question:

1. Our church’s Ecumenical Vision Statement reminds us that, “The unity of the Church is both God’s real gift and God’s effective calling.” How would you work for unity within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and how would this contribute to the unity we seek with other churches and Christian communities?

Three of the four answered thee questions:

5. What suggestions do you have for identifying new directions for partnership between congregations, presbyteries, seminaries, and the General Assembly in preparation for ordained ministry?

6. In what new ways can the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its congregations place a focus on ministry to and with youth and young adults to ensure a church for future generations?

7. What is your sense of where God is leading the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at this time in its history?

Carl and Bruce answered all three of these, Roger answered 5 and 7, and Bill answered number 6.

Three questions were answered by two of the candidates.  Roger and Bill answered both

2. The 208th General Assembly (1996) affirmed the goal of increasing racial ethnic membership to 10 percent by the year 2005, and to 20 percent by the year 2010. How do you assess the Presbyterian Church’s progress toward the fulfillment of this goal and what would you do during your moderatorial term to move the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) closer to realizing or exceeding this goal?

8. What should be the role of the Moderator during times of deep disagreements in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) about matters of faith and practice?

While Bruce and Bill answered the Form of Government question:

10. The Form of Government Task Force was created by the 217th General Assembly (2006) to propose a revised polity that would be more flexible, more foundational, and more appropriate for a missional Reformed Church in the 21st century. What do you think about these proposals?

There was only one solo answer and that was for Carl for

9. We are living in a war-torn world. What might the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its congregations do to strengthen its ministry of peacemaking at this time?

Finally two questions went unanswered:

3. The General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations held a Consultation on the Ecumenical Stance of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and identified ten priorities for our ecumenical commitment in the next ten years. What do you understand to be the greatest ecumenical challenge and ecumenical resource before the church in the next decade?

4. The General Assembly will be asked to act on a proposal to take the first step toward adding the Belhar Confession to The Book of Confessions. How do you think this addition to The Book of Confessions would impact the confessional and spiritual life of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?

So, a quick conclusion is that all the candidates place a high priority on Christian Unity (question 1) and lower priority on ecumenical relations (question 3) and adding to the Book of Confessions (question 4).  As I have talked with commissioners and delegates to the GA these are themes that I have been hearing from them.  Also, the interest in partnerships between governing bodies and institutions as well as reaching out to youth and young adults is a pretty strong theme.  So it is not surprising that these four individuals have matched their priorities to the major themes in the PC(USA) today.  (Quick and dirty probability says that there is one chance in sixteen of all four choosing the same question and of nobody choosing a question if the choices are random so it appears that their selections are not random.)  I would also point out that Bruce was the only candidate to not answer the questions in the same order they are numbered.  And Bruce and Carl used one page per question, pretty much filling up the page, while Roger and Bill’s answers to any single question generally did not fill up a page.

Well, that is enough reading tea leaves for now.  I’ll probably have more comments about the individual responses later this weekend.  I’m taking my class on a field trip to the San Andreas fault and I’ll have a bus ride home to do some reading.  (Happy California Earthquake Day by the way. (102nd anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco quake and fire))

The other item of note in the candidates’ booklet is the announcement that the Rev. Teng has selected the Rev. Tamara Letts as his nominee for Vice-moderator.  Rev. Letts is an Associate Pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Anchorage, Alaska and from her bio in the booklet appears to have worked with Rev. Teng on the board of Presbyterians for Renewal.  She has also worked with the Network of Presbyterian Women in Leadership (NPWL) and is listed in their speakers bureau.

Tamara joins the Rev. Byron Wade and the Rev. Peter C. deVries as the Vice-moderator nominees.  I searched the booklet several times and I hope that I am not missing it, but I don’t see the Vice-moderator nominee for Rev. Mazza.  And of these seven individuals, I would point out that Roger Shoemaker remains the only Elder in the group and Tamara Letts is the only women.  (Is there a COR in the house?)

With the processing of business on PC-biz following overtures has become a moving target since they get changed to committee items and lose their clear overture label.  The last time I addressed overtures we were at 86.  The numbering is now up to at least 98.

Since we are beyond the constitutional changes deadline most of the overtures deal with social justice issues.  These include Overture 87 from the Denver Presbytery “On Equal Rights for Families of Same-Gender Partners” which appears to be about the same as Overture 83.  There are a couple that address the Middle East.  These include 88 from National Capital Presbytery on  “Being a Voice for the Victims of Violence in Israel and Palestine,” and 93 from Newark Presbytery “On Supporting Israel’s Right to Exist, But Calling for Temporary Suspension of Military Aid to the State of Israel” that address the Israel/Palestine situation.  There is also 96 from Heartland Presbytery “On Ending the War in Iraq.”  Regarding Iraq overtures, Toby Brown has commented on the Mission Presbytery debate of a similar overture in his Classical Presbyterian blog.

Some of the more local social witness issues include overture 89 from National Capital Presbytery “On Addressing the Tragedy of America’s Gun Violence,” overture 95 “On Peaceful Relations Between the Christian and Muslim Communities” from Chicago Presbytery, and 98 “On Supporting Those Who Feel Called to Seek Status as Conscientious Objectors” from San Francisco Presbytery.  And there are a couple of other overtures like 91 from Scioto Valley Presbytery titled “Overture on War, Mercenaries, and Profiteering” and 94 “On Peacemaking in Columbia” from Chicago Presbytery.  I will generalize that these all call for some combination of raising awareness in the church, maybe studying the issue, and the Stated Clerk writing letters to politicians advocating on behalf of the church.

The remaining three overtures have more direct implications for the PC(USA).  Overture 90, from Beaver-Butler Presbytery, is titled “On Advocating and Funding Either Both Sides of the Abortion Issue or Neither.”  The title pretty much says it all and it would direct GA agencies to do one or the other in compliance with the 1992 abortion policy.  There are two related and some-what similar overtures from its neighbor Pittsburgh Presbytery (Mister Rodgers pun intended):  Overture 55 about the “Relief of Conscience Plan” and Overture 63 also about advocating both sides.

San Francisco Presbytery proposes an added office or agency in Overture 97 “On Creating a Presbyterian Office for the Prevention and Healing of Minister of Word and Sacrament Mis-conduct and Abuse.”  The overture asks for an ongoing presence that would be in the Office of the Stated Clerk and the General Assembly Council (GAC).  These are two different branches of the national structure and so it would be a rather unique presence if it does indeed cross between the two.  In addition, how does this fit into the reorganization of the GAC?  The overture specifies that oversight would be by the GAC.

And finally, there is overture 92 which is another call, this time from Newark Presbytery, for a “corrected” translation of the Heidelberg Catechism.  This joins overtures 36 from North Kansas Presbytery and 45 from Boston Presbytery which also request “Restoring the Heidelberg Catechism to its Historic Form.”

Well, that is plenty for now and I’m putting in way to many off-topic side comments.  This probably should have been two posts but I was on a roll so I just plowed through.  And there are a couple things hanging out there so I expect to be posting another update early next week with those items.  Have a good weekend.

Coming so close to my previous update I won’t update the business coming before GA, except to say that more items are being assigned to committees on PC-biz and to note that Kay Moore, the Manager of General Assembly Business at General Assembly Meeting Services, has been added as the sole committee member to all the committees.

The news today is the announcement that GA Moderator candidate Elder Roger Shoemaker has chosen the Rev. Peter C. deVries as his Vice-moderator nominee.  My hat tip to Bruce Reyes-Chow on this since none of my other feeds or alerts have picked this up yet, and in fact Roger Shoemaker’s web site, which I watch closely, does not have it there either.  But Rev. deVries does have his blog up and going so this is more of announcement by the selectee than by the selector.  I suspect that Bruce just got the word out faster than anticipated and that Roger’s site will be updated with the official news shortly and they just wanted all their ducks in a row first. 

Peter has put up a nice blog with four posts last Thursday on his background, mission, the Bible, and conflict.  There is a general overseas mission theme going here because Rev. deVries is the convener of the Ghana Mission Network; remember that Elder Shoemaker has been  in leadership in the Czech Mission Network.  Peter is the pastor of Old Union Presbyterian Church in Mars, Pennsylvania, in Beaver-Butler Presbytery.  He is working on a Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Religious Studies (note not Pittsburgh Seminary).  He describes his research as “His dissertation uses the hermeneutic theory of Paul Ricoeur to advance
an understanding of Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse of Mark 13.”  I did find it interesting, as you can tell from that quote, that his about post is written in the third person.  The other posts nicely outline his view of the other three areas.  In particular, he writes in the conflict post that:

The PC(USA) is not in a crisis. Christianity has experienced discord and conflict from its very inception. While
the intensity of our disagreements and the things we disagree about may
distress us, God calls us to persevere in our struggle together to
discern his way forward.

These posts also reflect his mission emphasis and academic perspective.  And the motorcycle picture is a nice touch.  Now wonder it got Bruce’s attention.

So, we await the remaining two Vice-moderator nominees.

The Presbyterian News Service has just broke the news that of the fourteen applicants for the job of Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) the choice of the nominating committee is current Associate Stated Clerk Rev. Gradye Parsons.

While we did not know the list of applicants, I think that most GA Junkies would figure Rev. Parsons to be the odds-on favorite if he wanted the job.  He has been in the Stated Clerk’s office for eight years and is presently the director of operations.  If you apply “kremlinology” to this choice, he is frequently seen seated close to outgoing Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and at several events I have been to he has been the Stated Clerk’s representative to the event or meeting.  (Want to try it yourself?  Zoom in on this very high resolution image or note that Gradye is in the Stated Clerk’s seat in this picture.  Both are from the 217th General Assembly.)

To his credit, he has a great deal of experience in the office which will be helpful.  Some may view that experience and the hiring from within as a negative as well as Rev. Parsons’ participation with the governing board of the National Council of Churches of Christ.  I am encouraged that the article mentions one of Gradye’s goals is to do more to develop the ministry of elders and in my time with him I have found him very knowledgeable, friendly, and good natured.

But this is only the choice of the nominating committee and it is now time to wait and see if any of the other 13 applicants will chose to also run for election making this contested.  They have until May 7 to announce.  The election will be held on the Friday of General Assembly, June 27.

One interesting thing is that this was a coordinated web roll-out from the PC(USA) headquarters.  Within a short period of time this announcement appeared on the main PC(USA) web page, the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee web page, and the PC News service site as the highlighted article.  One has to wonder if it would have found as much penetration if the choice was an outside nominee.