As we approach the convening of the 223rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) this Saturday afternoon, we look forward to the election of the Moderator(s) on Saturday evening. There are three teams that have declared and been endorsed, two co-moderator teams and a moderator/vice-moderator team. All three announced and were endorsed in quick succession last December. I am going to present these in three consecutive posts over the next two days and will do so in the order they announced, or more precisely the order their announcements appeared in the PC(USA) news outlet of record 😉 , the Presbyterian Outlook. So we continue with…

Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri and Cindy Kohlmann

The second team to announce that they would be standing for Co-Moderators was Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri and Cindy Kohlmann. They have an extensive and well designed moderatorial web site with not just their basic information and sense of call, but a blog as well that talks a bit more about their journey to GA. And a lot of the site is quadralingual with not just English, Spanish, and Korean, but a Portuguese version as well.  Their information and responses to questions is the third set in the Moderators Handbook put out for the General Assembly, beginning on page 23 of the PDF file.

Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri is a ruling elder and educator who lives in Miami with her family. Her service as a Youth Advisory Delegate (YAD) to the 205th General Assembly (1993) gave her the understanding of the connectional church, and she later served as a commissioner to the 212th General Assembly. She was ordained as a ruling elder at the Iglesia Presbiteriana en Caparra Terrace, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has served as a member and chair of several presbytery committees as well as the Vice Moderator of Synod Boriquén and council member. On the national level she has been a member of the General Assembly Committee on Theological Education.

Vilmarie’s higher education includes a B.A. in Education from the University of Puerto Rico and a Master’s in Education from Turabo University. Professionally, she has taught high schoolers and adults, first in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and now in Miami, Florida, where her husband, Rev. José Manuel Capella-Pratts, is the pastor of Primera Iglesia Presbiteriana Hispana.

Cindy’s higher education was at Whitworth College in Theatre and Religion and then earning an MDiv from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. While in seminary, Cindy served in the U.S. Naval Reserves as a Chaplain Candidate. She was ordained to a call as a solo pastor at New Jersey Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, OH and later she moved to Clinton Presbyterian Church, Clinton, MA, after he marriage to the Rev. Eric Markman. For the last three years she has served as Resource Presbyter for the Presbyteries of Boston and Northern New England.

Cindy can be followed on Twitter at @CindyKohlmann.

Throughout the answers to their five questions in the Moderators Handbook they weave in the preaching theme of the “Kindom of God.” In question one which asks specifically about the theme of “Kindom building for the 21st century” they say:

Jesus’ call to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” comes at the end of his words regarding worrying and striving after daily necessities in the Sermon on the Mount. It is within this context that we believe the Kindom of God will be firmly established, both individually and corporately: when scarcity becomes abundance, safety overcomes insecurity, marginalization is replaced by full community, and daily needs are no longer in question for any person.

And in answer to the question about describing the church of tomorrow they begin with

The church that is emerging is a reflection of the Kindom of God, where the radical love of Jesus Christ is on full display, the power of the Holy Spirit is blowing us to new places, and the creative force of Almighty God is breaking out in new ways.

Best wishes to Vilmarie and Cindy in their standing for Co-Moderators and prayers for the commissioners as they discern the next moderatorial team. We can meet the candidates Saturday morning and I look forward to the press conference with the successful team following the election Saturday evening.

Moving on… Team #3 coming soon