This past week saw the endorsement of a third candidate to stand for the Moderator of the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as Mission Presbytery endorsed Teaching Elder Kelly Allen of San Antonio. Rev. Allen has served as pastor of University Presbyterian Church since 2009 having served as the pastor of a United Reformed church in Buckinghamshire, England, and before that the pastor of two churches in Missouri. Her detailed bio on the church web site lists her education including a BA in psychology from Washington University, St. Louis, an M.Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary and a MA in politics and religion from University of Birmingham, England. On that bio page you can also find her Statement of Faith.

At this time she has a range of social media in place including her OnePager basic web page with the dedicated domain name kellyformoderator.com, a Twitter handle (@kellysueallen), and a Kelly Allen for GA Moderator 2014 Facebook page. She also has her regular blog “How I See Things.” And while the basic web page is a good intro to her, by the nature of the web hosting it might change but will not become much more developed. And the RSS feed on the web page is for her regular blog. Right now it appears that the best place to be reading updated thoughts on standing for Moderator will be the Facebook page.

Her tag line is “Hope-filled leadership for today’s church” and on the basic web page she develops this in three areas of “leadership commitments”: 1. A commitment to spiritual practice – the practices in the history of the church that have drawn us closer to God and to one another in communion. 2. A desire to build community among strangers – “our encounters with the ‘other’ reveal much about ourselves” and in meeting others where they are can we see an expression of the Kingdom of God. 3. A willingness to be bold and bodily witnesses to gospel values – how are we as Christians seen and heard in the world around us and who do we partner with to demonstrate the Gospel?

For more of her thoughts there is a three and a half minute video of Rev. Allen on her Facebook page talking about some of these ideas and her thoughts about the call. On a side note, you have to love the strategecially placed PC(USA) logo in stained glass behind her but she does lose style points for the trailing credits which still has the [enter name here] under the credits.

For additional coverage of her announcement there is an article from the Presbyterian Outlook.

And so, we wish Teaching Elder Allen the best as she prepares for the General Assembly meeting and add her name to our prayer list for all the candidates standing for Moderator.