wfn.org | New GAC Chair: A Long and Winding Road

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13-June-1998 
GA98002 
 
              New GAC Chair: A Long and Winding Road 
 
                       by Jerry Van Marter 
                                  
CHARLOTTE--The Rev. Cathy Chisholm, the new chair of the General Assembly 
Council (GAC), feels called to her new leadership position, but she's not 
sure why. 
   Chisholm, who is serving her first pastorate in Vandalia, Ill., after 
graduating from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 1993, told 
the Presbyterian News Service in a June 10 interview: "I understand this 
(GAC chair) as a call, though I don't understand how God thinks I can do 
it." 
   But an unfolding sense of call has been the hallmark of Chisholm's 
still-emerging ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)., and all along 
the way she has received the signs and encouragement that have convinced 
her she is on the path God has chosen for her. 
   "I got into the ministry the long way around," she said with a smile 
that seems ever-present. "My first awareness that my life was turning to 
ministry came when I was working as a church secretary in Idaho Falls 
(Idaho)."  Staff and church members quickly recognized, she said, "talents 
and potential I didn't know I had." 
   Through a divorce, a near-fatal illness and the completion of her 
undergraduate degree in mass communications while commuting to Idaho State 
University in nearby Pocatello, Chisholm said the Idaho Falls congregation 
"supported me spiritually and materially."  And in July of 1990, Chisholm 
packed her two children and all of her belongings in a U-haul truck and 
moved to Louisville for seminary. 
   Her ministry experiences in Idaho had led her to believe her future was 
in educational ministry, Chisholm said, but during her clinical pastoral 
education stint in seminary, she "discovered I was really a pastor." 
   And though she is now pastor of the 170-year-old, 100-member 
Presbyterian church in Vandalia, Chisholm still thinks of herself primarily 
as an educator.  "I see myself as an educator and I hope to model the 
leader as educator during this year," she said, adding that she is 
particularly pleased about being in a position of GAC leadership during the 
Presbyterian Church's "Year with Education." 
   Chisholm's role as an educator has already shown up.  Before she was 
installed as GAC chair, she gave each Council member a "membership 
evaluation" form, asking them to record such information as their greatest 
sources of satisfaction and frustration, what resources would help them be 
more effective as council members and what advice they would give to new 
elected and staff leaders. 
   Such collaborative efforts are essential to the success of the Council 
and to her success as chair, Chisholm insisted.  "The key issue facing the 
Council," she said, "is how we do our work. 

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