wfn.org | The (Not So) Secret of His Success: Frank Stayed Frank

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10-August-1998 
98222 
    The (Not So) Secret of His Success: Frank Stayed Frank 
    Diaz completes work as interim executive director 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-If you walk into Frank Diaz' office at the Presbyterian 
Center in Louisville, you are apt to find him reading his Bible. 
 
    Diaz, who is finishing up a two-year stint as interim executive 
director of the General Assembly Council (GAC), spends a lot of time 
reading the Bible and at prayer, and firmly believes that the power of 
prayer has brought him, the Presbyterian Center and the entire denomination 
safely through some very troubled waters. 
 
    It was a little over two years ago that Diaz was thrust into a top 
leadership position in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  The Rev. James D. 
Brown was up for confirmation to a second four-year term as executive 
director.  Diaz, who was Brown's associate director for administration, 
says he assured Brown that, despite all the controversy of his first term, 
he would be reconfirmed. 
 
    But in one of the most stunning moves in recent Presbyterian history, 
the 1996 Assembly rejected the confirmation bid.  "There was total silence 
after that vote in Albuquerque," Diaz recalls.  "I felt so bad for Jim, I 
just walked up and hugged him - no words, just a hug." 
 
    Almost immediately, Diaz says, Youngil Cho, then chair of the Council, 
told him, "You have to go back to Louisville."  So Diaz postponed vacation 
plans and returned to the Presbyterian Center.  Members of the GAC 
Executive Committee also reconnoitered in Louisville, and within 72 hours 
of Brown's rejection Cho walked into Diaz' office and announced, "You're in 
charge." 
 
    Diaz says he "felt that my first job was to hold the staff together in 
Louisville."  He began by  instituting a daily prayer session at the 
Presbyterian Center (in addition to the daily chapel services that are held 
there) in which members of the national staff gathered and "prayed their 
way through the national staff - praying for individual staffers each day 
until we had prayed individually for every one of them." 
 
    As word of the prayer "vigil" spread throughout the church, Diaz 
remembers, "the church began to see that we're emphasizing prayer and that 
Jesus Christ is at the center of what we do here ... and it was a 
breakthrough."  Diaz says letters began pouring in from Presbyterians 
around the country - "They saw us as a praying people and they began 
lifting us up in their prayers and the tide turned." 
 
    Diaz knew the power of prayer would be effective.  His biggest worry, 
he says, "was the church - the distrust and lack of confidence that we were 
all, together, Christ-centered in what we we're trying to do." 
 
    A key moment came early in his tenure as interim executive director 
when he was asked to meet with the presidents of the 67 
Presbyterian-related colleges and universities.  "I told them," Diaz says, 
"that we needed to rebuild our relationship with them, that we really 
needed them to train the next generation of church leaders."  In that 
meeting, Diaz says, he lifted up the Great Ends of the Church as a rallying 
point for all of them "and it really seemed to strike a chord." 
 
    Diaz didn't know at the time that the new General Assembly stated 
clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, was to sound the same theme when he 
addressed the group.  It was not a preconceived plan by the two new 
leaders, Diaz insists, but their simultaneous call to emphasize the Great 
Ends of the Church, "has proven inspirational to many." 
 
    Diaz credits the positive financial results of 1997 - with giving by 
Presbyterians to mission all across the church up across the board - to a 
renewed Presbyterian commitment to the Great Ends of the Church - "and I 
believe we'll see more of the same in 1998." 
 
    Diaz' spectacular success - he has been praised for his leadership by 
virtually every faction of the contentious Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) - 
has surprised many who agreed with a management assessment in 1996 by the 
Arthur Andersen consulting firm that the executive director's job is "a 
mission impossible." 
 
    But the modest Diaz is nevertheless confident.  "The job's not 
impossible," Diaz states matter-of-factly.  "The time required is enormous, 
but the job is doable."  The key, he says, is to stay true to yourself and 
let the people around you do their jobs. 
 
    "I'm a great delegator," Diaz chuckles.  "I have no ego to build up, 
nothing to prove and I'm gonna get paid even if nothing gets done, so I've 
given people a lot of leeway and they have responded and done a good job." 
He gives particular credit to the division directors in Louisville, who, he 
says, "acknowledged my leadership and fully supported me." 
 
    Diaz' people skills have been a key to his success.  "You can't lock 
yourself in your office - you have to be responsive to the constituency, 
whether it's the staff here or in the presbyteries and synods or [the 
people] in the pews," he says.  In addition to his daily prayer sessions, 
Diaz has made it a habit to stroll through the halls of the Presbyterian 
Center each day, inquiring about the well-being of staffers in the 
building. 
 
    Such a service-oriented approach to the job is also what new executive 
director John Detterick will bring to it, and Diaz predicts great 
achievements for his successor.  "John has a pleasing personality - he 
doesn't have to be someone else to succeed here." 
 
    Diaz does have cautionary advice for Detterick, who begins work Aug. 
12.  "He's got to get his team together quickly," he says.  Two key 
appointments will be those of a deputy executive director and a director of 
Mission Support Services. 
 
    And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is not of one mind about its 
future.  "There are factions - the Presbyterian Coalition and the Covenant 
Network of Presbyterians - who are assuming leadership in defining the 
future of the church," Diaz says.  "There is some good thinking going on in 
both camps, and John will have to figure out how to be a bridge between 
them ... if in fact there can be a bridge.  I believe John will be able to 
find ways to get everyone to work together." 
 
    As for Frank Diaz and his wife, Shirley?  They're going back to Texas, 
where a new house in Lewisville - outside Dallas - is almost completed. 
"There's some options open and I'm talking to First Church, Dallas, about 
being a parish associate," Diaz says.  In October and November, they are 
going to Europe, thanks to a parting gift and educational fund supplied by 
the GAC. 
 
    Diaz, 65, who didn't enter the Presbyterian ministry until he was 46, 
will miss national staff work more than he missed the business world he 
left to go to seminary.  "The only thing I miss about the business world is 
the paycheck," he laughs.  "The chance I've had to touch the lives of other 
people in special ways makes it all worth it." 
 
    He riffles the pages of his Bible and glances out the window of his 
office at the Ohio River outside.  "You know," he says almost wistfully, 
"only God could have planned it this way - a little brown boy in bare feet 
that no one thought much of has been given the opportunity to lead this 
great church. ..." 

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