Let me begin with a technical note: The Second and Third individuals to be endorsed to stand for Moderator of the General Assembly were endorsed by their presbyteries on the same day and the news seems to have hit Twitter within a few minutes of each other.  But, media outlets seem to be consistent in the use of the 2nd and 3rd designations so I will use them as well.

On Tuesday October 11 the Presbytery of Great Rivers endorsed their General Presbyter and Stated Clerk, Teaching Elder Susan Davis Krummel, to stand for election as the Moderator of the 220th General Assembly.

There is no bio or statement posted on the Presbytery web site but the PC(USA) news article tells us that TE Krummel has served in a variety of pastoral positions in various sized churches in the first 24 years of her ministry.  She has been in her current position for the last eight years. She received her ministry degree from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and has additional certificate education from McCormick Theological Seminary.

Ms. Krummel has a strong record of service to the denomination including teaching polity at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, serving as the president of the Association of Executive Presbyters, and Moderator of the General Assembly Nominating Committee.

Her Moderatorial web site is up and it contains the press release and a collection of weekly perspectives she wrote for the Presbytery. It also invites us to follow her on Facebook and Twitter (@skrummel) for which there is one tweet so far.

In the press release, Ruling Elder Gary Davis, the moderator of the presbytery nominating committee, is quoted:

“An inspiring preacher and
teacher of the Reformed faith, Sue Krummel knows about the culture of
our presbytery because she was born and raised here. We recognize that
most of the churches (small membership congregations) in our
denomination are very much like some of the churches that Sue has
served. We believe that in this critical hour, the Presbyterian Church
(USA) needs a Moderator who understands the people in the pews. Sue
does.”

The Presbyterian Outlook has an article about her and the third candidate (I’ll post tomorrow) and The Layman Online has an article on all three of the current candidates.

This endorsement raised an interesting question about the current call of individuals who are standing for Moderator.  It struck me that serving in a higher governing body council was rare for those also serving as Moderator, but after I looked into the statistics it is not common, but not as rare as I though.

The obvious exception right now is Teaching Elder Landon Whitsitt who, while currently serving as Vice-Moderator of the General Assembly, just recently received a call to be the Executive and Stated Clerk of the Synod of Mid-America.  But that change was recent and he was serving as a parish pastor at the time of the 219th GA.  The other Vice-Moderator that came to mind was Ruling Elder Gay Mothershed who was serving as an Associate Executive Presbyter in Texas at the time of the 208th GA.

So, looking systematically at the list of Moderators, there have been 25 General Assemblies since reunion.  Of the 25 Moderators there have been 17 Teaching Elders and 8 Ruling Elders.  While the ruling elders could be an executive (cf. RE Mothershed above) it turns out that five were involved in business or non-profit corporations (Wilson, Gwynn, Brown, Ufford-Chase, Bolbach).  Two of them were in academics (I. Rogers, Gardner) and one writer (Marj Carpenter – I was tempted to call her a missionary because she wrote with a mission).

Regarding the Teaching Elders, about half (nine) were parish pastors at the time of election (Taylor, Hall, Fife, Dobler, Bohl, Buchanan, Andrews, Gray, Reyes-Chow).  Three were in academics (Oldenburg, Rhee, J. Rogers), two missionaries (Nelson and Weir – retired at the time of election), and one heading up a ministry non-profit (Abu-Akel).  The remaining two were an Associate EP and an EP (Salmon-Campbell and Valentine respectively).  So while being elected Moderator while serving in a presbytery executive position is not unheard of, it is one of the less common positions of call to be in at the time of election.

So, there is a summary of Rev. Krummel’s endorsement and the EP’s that have gone before her to this position. Our best wishes as she stand’s for the position of Moderator of the General Assembly.

Now, on to number three…