wfn.org | GAC Reelects Brown as Executive Director

[PCUSA_NEWS@ecunet.org]

29-Feb-96

96089        GAC Reelects Brown as Executive Director 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--After almost three hours of executive session, the General 
Assembly Council voted 46-16 to reelect the Rev. James D. Brown to a second 
four-year term as the Council's executive director. 
 
     "The Council is enthusiastic, ready to move ahead," the Rev. D. 
William McIvor told the Presbyterian News Service after the Feb. 21-25 
meeting at The Seelbach Hotel.  McIvor described the 75 percent yes vote as 
"very positive, given the difficult times the Council and Jim have been 
through these past three and a half years." 
 
     Brown concurred with that analysis and described his end-of-term 
review as a "helpful time to reflect about a very turbulent time in our 
denominational life." 
 
     Brown said he sees his task during the next four years as fourfold: 
 
        strengthening relationships among Council members, particularly 
since a new class has just begun 
 
       spending more time in face-to-face gatherings with staff 
 
       bolstering partnerships and connections in the wider church, 
particularly with middle governing bodies 
 
       helping the church as a whole "find its center and its common 
future." 
 
     "Having led during the time which I led, a strong encouragement came 
out of such a [Council] vote: three-fourths of the Council," said Brown, 
reflecting on the Feb. 24 ballot.  The other quarter, he said, "serves as a 
reminder of the enormous hopes and expectations" in the Council and in the 
church, and reminds him of the "nature of the challenge" ahead. 
 
     Of the Council's work, Brown said it is "making good headway.  ... 
That flies in the face of a lot of the critique going on." 
 
     In his regular report to the Council Brown acknowledged, "These are 
not easy times.  In this regard, I was recently struck by a scene from the 
third chapter of Joshua when the officers of the Israelites went through 
the camp and commanded the people, 'When you see the ark of the covenant of 
the Lord your God being carried by the levitical priests, then you shall 
set out from your place.  Follow it, so that you may know the way you 
should go, for you have not passed this way before.' 
 
     "We are at such a moment in the history of our beloved denomination, a 
moment that drives us to our knees in prayer as we seek to be steadfast and 
faithful to the gospel that has as its core faith, hope and love, 
remembering always that the greatest of these is the love of God made known 
to us in Jesus Christ." 

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  Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Louisville, KY 40202
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