Dear Grace Community,
As a pastor in the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), I am not a member of a church and instead am a member of a presbytery. This means that in addition to serving at Grace, I also serve the PCUSA in different ways. I realize that you don’t often see or hear about this, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some of this with you.
Grace is part of the Presbytery of Southern Kansas. The presbytery is made up of churches in the southern part of the state as far east as Coffeyville and as far west as Colorado. Our presbytery meets quarterly and meets at Grace on May 8, 2018. This gathering of pastors and elders is designed to strengthen our ministry networks.
In addition to attending presbytery meetings, I serve on the Presbytery Governance Team. This team functions as the finance and human resources team for the presbytery. It’s been an interesting six months on this team as we’ve worked to separate funds between the presbytery and the Westminster Woods Camp.
I also serve the PCUSA at the synod level. Each geographical region of presbyteries is part of a synod. We are part of the Synod of Mid America which includes all of Kansas and Missouri. This year I began a three-year term as a synod commissioner. I’m still not entirely sure what this will consist of. My first meeting was a conference call, and in October I go to the Kansas City area for a daylong meeting.
The idea of denominational structures is to create more opportunities for ministry and collaboration. The PCUSA is as imperfect as any system designed by humans, but it also provides many opportunities for us to serve Jesus as individuals and as a church. If you are interested in serving the church outside of Grace through our presbytery, synod, or at the national level, please let me know, and I will help connect you.
In Christ,
Catherine
APR