As I wrote the three previous pieces on the teams standing for Moderator of the 223rd PC(USA) General Assembly, I found some interesting threads. One of these was that half of them have some connection to Florida (Bertram, Vilmarie, and Chantal). Not sure how relevant that is, but some other notes:

• It is mostly an East Coast bunch: Bertram – NYC, Vilmarie – Miami, Cindy – Massachusetts, Chantal – Pennsylvania. Ken is in the Midwest (but still east of the Mississippi) and Eliana is in Seattle. That also gives Ken the shortest distance to travel.
• As is typical, there are the Princeton Theological Seminary connections: Half the TE’s have M.Div.’s from there – Bertram and Ken; Cindy’s is from Austin and Eliana’s is from Seattle.
• Both Bertram and Cindy have theater experience
• Both Cindy and Chantal were born abroad as children of U.S. active duty military personnel. In addition Eliana is a native of Colombia.
• Two attended Presbyterian schools for their undergraduate training: Cindy – Whitworth, Ken – Grove City.
• It is four women and two men, four teaching elders and two ruling elders, and three people of color. So, there will be a female Moderator or Co-Moderator this year, and a 2-out-of-three chance of a ruling elder.

My best wishes to all of them. I regret that with a problem with my airline flights I will not arrive in time for the meet-and-greet tomorrow morning, but looking forward to the election and press conference afterwards. And hope to catch some of you in the hall.

On to GA

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 conclude with…

Chantal Atnip and Ken Hockenberry

The third announcement for Moderator came from Chantal Atnip who later announced that Ken Hockenberry would be joining her as her Vice-Moderator candidate. While they have no moderatorial web site that I found, they do have three extended articles on the Synod of the Trinity web site news section: One with her announcement, one in interview format with her discussing the sense of call and other matters, and another announcing the vice-moderator choice. Their information and responses to questions is the first set in the Moderators Handbook put out for the General Assembly, beginning on page 3 of the PDF file.

Chantal is a ruling elder who has served as the treasurer for the Synod of the Trinity for the last 13 years. She is an active member of the Pine Street Presbyterian Church of Harrisburg, PA, where she currently serves as clerk of session. She has a degree from Florida State University in Mathematics and Math Education. Her career has been varied including teaching and IT work, particularly software development and as co-founder of a computer consulting company.

While connected with the Synod of the Trinity, she has little experience at the national level, something she describes as an asset for her standing for Moderator [quote from the Synod article]:

“I am not connected to the national church, so I have a different set of eyes and a different voice than the other people who are running for moderator,” she said. “I bring an openness and an ability to cross the different levels of the denomination. I have been asked what I plan to do (if elected moderator). I don’t ‘plan’ to do anything. A moderator is just that – we moderate. We are to be problem solvers.”

You can follow Chantal on Twitter @AtnipChantal.

Ken Hockenberry is a teaching elder in the Presbytery of Chicago serving as the interim pastor at Carter-Westminster United Presbyterian Church in Skokie, Illinois. He did his M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary and some additional post-graduate work at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Before his present call he was the pastor of Beulah Presbyterian Church in Louisville as well as serving as the stated clerk (part time) of Mid Kentucky Presbytery. The Synod article also mentions that he has served as the moderator of the Presbytery of Cayuga-Syracuse, and the bio in the Moderators Handbook mentions his decade of service as a pastor in that area.

You can follow Ken on Twitter at @ClerkKennyH.

In their choices on the optional questions in the in Moderators Handbook, they did not answer what the church of tomorrow looks like, but instead chose to give their elevator speechs about what it means to be Presbyterian. Chantal talked a little about her faith journey and wove in the 223rd GA. Here is Ken’s answer, in full, where his experience as a stated clerk is on full display:

To be Presbyterian means I am part of a church community immersed and empowered by grace and gratitude. We believe God’s grace and love is freely given to us, rather than something we have to earn. Because we are immersed in this free gift of grace, we are empowered to engage in acts of gratitude, giving thanks to God through worship, as well as ministry and missional service to others.

To be Presbyterian also means that I am part of a church community where elders are called to rule and to teach. That’s what the word “Presbyterian” means: “governed by elders.” God – through the Holy Spirit – calls ordinary people to general missional service in the church and in the world, following in the way of Jesus Christ. God also calls some ordinary people to particular kinds of missional service, into what we call the ordered ministries of Deacons, Ruling Elders, and Teaching Elders or Ministers. This means our church community operates with a high degree of shared leadership, found and called from the bottom – up, rather than from the top – down.

Best wishes to Chantal and Ken in their standing for Moderator and Vice Moderator. 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… A quick summary

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 being with…

Eliana Maxim and Bertram Johnson

The first team to announce was Eliana Maxim and Bertram Johnson. An extensive amount of information about them can be found on their moderatorial web site, as well as a Facebook group for their candidacy. Their information and responses to questions is the second set in the Moderators Handbook put out for the General Assembly, beginning on page 10 of the PDF file.

Teaching Elder Eliana Maxim is currently serving as the associate executive of Seattle Presbytery, a position she has held for the last seven years. She began exploring her call to professional ministry by serving as director of children and family ministries at Mercer Island Presbyterian Church. Her ministerial training began at Union Seminary in Richmond, VA, before transferring to Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry where she completed her MDiv.

She is a native of Colombia and her family emigrated when she was a young child, settling in the Los Angeles area. Her service in ordained ministry is a second career, having first completed a communication arts degree at Loyola Marymount University and then working as a news producer at CNN.

Currently, she also serves as a faculty member of the Transitional Ministry Workshop at Menucha, Oregon. Her service to the denomination includes the 220th GA’s Committee on the Belhar Confession, the 222nd General Assembly’s Way Forward Commission, the Committee on the Office of General Assembly, and vice-moderator of the National Hispanic/Latino Caucus of the PC(USA).

She can be followed on Twitter at @elianamaxim.

Teaching Elder Bertram Johnson serves as Minister of Justice, Advocacy, and Change at The Riverside Church in the City of New York and is a member of the Presbytery of New York City. While working on his BA at the University of Florida he volunteered for youth ministry with Young Life. Following graduation he spent a year serving youth and families at a neighborhood community center in Washington, D.C., as an intern with Sojourners.

He did his formal ministerial training at Princeton Theological Seminary where he completed an MDiv and Rutgers University where he completed an MSW. He then moved to the Pacific Northwest and continued working in church employment. His web site bio continues his faith journey:

When the denomination’s polity regarding LGBTQ ordination became more restrictive, although he was certified to receive a call and was working at Mt. Baker Park Presbyterian, Bertram decided to withdraw from the ordination process.

After work as an oncology chaplain and directing spiritual and practical care programs for people living with HIV/AIDS, he was led back to the ordination process and was ordained as a teaching elder at Madrona Grace Presbyterian Church in January 2014. He has served on the GA Nominating Committee and is a member of the NEXT Church Leadership Team.

One of the possible questions for the moderatorial teams to answer in the Handbook asks them to describe the church of tomorrow. Eliana and Bertram begin their answer saying:

The church of tomorrow is less concerned with membership and denominational pedigree than it is with incarnational faith, community engagement, and authentic relationships. There seems to be a desire to return to a parish model, where the church is involved in the life of the surrounding community and mission partnerships are determined not on large programmatic commitments made through denominational channels, but on local ecumenical, interfaith and secular allies.

And they balance this with

Lack of membership or affiliation desire can also mean lack of pledging and tithing for our local churches and this obviously impacts the financial health every body in our denomination from the local church through the mid-councils and onto our per capita funds that support the mission and ecclesial arms of the PCUSA.

Lots of good stuff in their answers to the questions and I encourage you to have a look at the full answer to this one and the answers to the others.

Best wishes to Eliana and Bertram in their standing for this position 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 #2 coming up later