[6-21-01]

Witherspoon's Whole Gospel Congregation was presented to Central Presbyterian Church of Louisville by Robb Gwaltney, a former member of the Witherspoon executive committee and an active member of the congregation.

Carolyn M. Klinge, the Clerk of Session, accepted the award, and spoke about the congregation's life in a way that merits wider attention. As we seek to develop the concept of the Whole Gospel Congregation, she offered us one good example as a starting point for our explorations.

In her opening remarks she referred to Gwaltney's presentation, which are on another page.

It is an honor for me to represent the members and friends of Central Presbyterian Church in receiving the Witherspoon Society award.

Here we are - a community of faithful Presbyterian people gathered together at a time when justice for all people and the full inclusion of all God's people, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people, in our church remains a goal and is not yet a reality.

When I asked Robb Gwaltney what I should say here today in accepting the Full Gospel congregational award on behalf of the members & friends of Central Church , he told me that I should say "IT'S ALL TRUE," which it IS, but of course as a scientist, I like to back up statements with experimental PROOFand in fact, Robb has already provided some facts and numbers about Central Church to support the conclusion that Central reflects the Mission Statement of the Witherspoon Society. I will just add a few more, so that there will be no concern over investigator bias or unreproducible results

As a Session and as a congregation, we attempt to discern and act upon the call of the Holy Spirit to live in wholeness, in a community of faith that fully reflects the "wildly inclusive" love of God. This aspect of the congregation is one of the key components that attracted me to join Central in 1997.

We are a group of people of different faith backgrounds, socio-economic groups, educational levels, ethnicities, physical abilities or disabilities, and sexual orientations who worship together. We have three active adult education classes in which we seek to study, to learn, and to act out our faith based in the Gospel. We have an active and growing youth program. The final, but by no means least important hallmark of Central Church is that we are a caring community, sharing our joys and concerns weekly in prayer during worship and caring for each other through an active e-mail prayer list, calls, cards, food, and visits.

Robb has shared with you the fact that Central has a long history of advocacy for social justice including Central's becoming a More Light Congregation in 1983. In fact, until this year when we were joined by Central Presbyterian Church in Owensboro, KY. and University Presb. Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, we were the only More Light church in the Synod of Living Waters.

We are an unusual church: First, we are a relatively small church with 177 members and 5 affiliate members, but we have two full time pastors, Mark Baridon, our new pastor, and Associate Pastor Ann Deibert, who has capably served the congregation for 5 years. That gives a member:pastor ratio of 89:1. We are able to afford this ratio because of the generosity of our Central Church ancestors and the endowment that they left in our stewardship. We are also unusual in that 23 ordained Presbyterian ministers participate in the life of the congregation as what we call Friends of Central.

I think one of the keys to the success of Central is our intentionality around worship and the use of inclusive language for God. Another essential core of worship at Central is wonderful music in a variety of different styles - thanks to Guy Younce, Music Director, and the dedicated musicians in our chancel choir.

In living our faith day-by-day, members of Central are active in a variety of mission opportunities in Louisville and in the PC(USA) including tutoring and mentoring school children and youth, prison ministry, working to ban the death penalty, and working with Habitat for Humanity. Many of our members are involved in the work of Presbytery, in the Committee on Local Arrangements for this Assembly, and in every aspect of preparation for GA. We, like each of you here today, try to put our faith into action.

In summary, we are honored to be the recipient of the Witherspoon congregational award and pray that together with the faithful members of the Witherspoon Society we will continue to discern the call of the holy spirit to justice for all of God's people in Louisville, in the PC(USA), and in our world.

Thank you.

GA actions ratified (or not) by  the presbyteries   

A number of the most important actions of the 219^th General Assembly have now been acted upon by the presbyteries, confirming most of them as amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order.

We provided resources to help inform the reflection and debate, along with updates on the voting.

Our three areas of primary interest have been:

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PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive

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