wfn.org | NCCCUSA Appoints The Rev. Dr. Staccato Powell Deputy

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

NCCCUSA Appoints Rev. Dr. Stacatto Powell Deputy General Secretary
General Secretary
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Internet: wendym@ncccusa.org

Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252

NCC1/9/98   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRESENTING:  THE REV. DR. STACCATO POWELL
NEW NCC DEPUTY GENERAL SECRETARY FOR NATIONAL MINISTRIES

 NEW YORK, Jan. 9 - Passionate, proactive and pragmatic 
- these are the watchwords of the Rev. Dr. Staccato Powell, 
who on February 1 will take up his new responsibilities as 
National Council of Churches Deputy General Secretary for 
National Ministries.

"I am always asking, `Now that the conversation is 
over, what?'," said Dr. Powell, who will give leadership to 
a diverse array of NCC ministries to the nation including 
education, advocacy, evangelization and the Bible, all part 
of the Council's National Ministries Unit.

 "If we are not passionate about our ministry, it will 
not be as `contagious' as it ought to be," Dr. Powell said.  
"We must be proactive.  The church can no longer sit 
passively by and react to crisis situations that develop.

"And we must be pragmatic, always asking, `How do we 
build ministries, change lives, alter conditions, change 
relationships, create new sustainable communities?'  We must 
be about touching people where they are.  We must be an 
embodiment of Jesus' pronouncement of the Age of Jubilee.

 "That's the direction I would like to see the National 
Ministries Unit go," he said.  "I see the National 
Ministries Unit as being a ministry to the churches, not to 
supplant but to help them minister in the best possible 
way."

Dr. Powell will come to the NCC from the Washington 
Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, St. 
Louis, which he has served as pastor since 1997.  Prior to 
that time, he served several churches in North Carolina.  He 
holds both a divinity degree and a law degree and has 
received many honors, including the Malcolm X Award for 
Outstanding Leadership while a student at the University of 
North Carolina at Charlotte.  He has been active locally in 
community development, interfaith and ecumenical bodies.  He 
also participates actively in the NCC and the World Council 
of Churches.

 It is through his service on the WCC Black Church 
Liaison Committee that many ecumenical leaders came to know 
Dr. Powell, among them the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC 
General Secretary.  "We are blessed to have Dr. Powell as a 
Deputy General Secretary for the NCC," Dr. Campbell 
commented.  "He brings to us the energy and commitment of a 
new generation of ecumenical leaders with experience in the 
WCC, in the local congregation, with the historic Black 
churches and now at the NCC."

 "The field is ripe for ecumenicity," Dr. Powell said.  
"This is the ecumenical age.  I see the collaborative 
efforts people are calling for and how the government, the 
private sector and others are turning to the churches for 
answers."

For example, he said, government is turning to faith-
based initiatives to address needs created by welfare reform 
- including child care, job creation, and job training.

His varied background along with his ecumenical 
commitment impressed many who helped bring Dr. Powell on 
board to the NCC.  "We are really looking forward to his 
work," said the Rev. Dr. Elenora Giddings-Ivory, Director of 
the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 
and Chair of the NMU Committee.  "We feel that he has the 
background coming out of a local church and being both an 
attorney and a clergyperson to do the varied work of the 
National Ministries Unit, which includes women's justice, 
racial justice and evangelization."

"He brings the disciplined mind of a trained lawyer and 
the soul of a preacher" is how Dr. Campbell describes Dr. 
Powell.  NCC leaders also expressed their confidence that 
Dr. Powell will reach out to build coalitions.

 Coalition-building is among Dr. Powell's passions and 
gifts.  He has served as a catalyst in a model project in 
St. Louis that has brought together investment bankers such 
as Coast Partners, architects, engineers, lawyers, and 
contractors with the St. Louis-based AMEZ Development 
Corporation to build affordable single-family homes.

The Land Reutilization Authority has an inventory of 
vacant properties in blighted areas, he explained, which the 
coalition targets "for total development, including green 
spaces and malls.  There already are schools and churches."

People needing the homes are identified through ACORN, 
and a financial services agency works with them to get 
mortgages.  Two houses are up, and two more are rising, Dr. 
Powell said.

Dr. Powell succeeds the Rev. Dr. Mac Charles Jones, who 
died suddenly March 6, 1997, after serving only four days as 
the NCC's Deputy General Secretary for National Ministries.  
Since then, NMU staff have shared the interim leadership of 
the unit.

"It is because of Mac that I am taking this job," Dr. 
Powell said, explaining that he and Mac would often talk 
together while attending WCC meetings and that Mac actually 
talked with him when Mac was considering taking the NCC 
position as head of NMU.  "In many ways, Mac prepared me to 
succeed him, without either of us knowing it at the time," 
Dr. Powell reflected.  Dr. Powell said he also hopes to 
provide "some degree of continuity with Mac's vision," since 
he has a good idea of Mac's vision as a result of their 
friendship.

"The church has to be a proponent for justice 
perpetually and to be prophetic, in terms of pointing the 
way," Dr. Powell asserted..  "We can't just deal with the 
`is-ness' or `was-ness' but also the `ought-ness.'  Not just 
what is or was but what ought to be."

-end-
 -0-