wfn.org | Second candidate jumps into moderator's race

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Note #6287 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

5-December-2000
00431

Second candidate jumps into moderator's race

Peaks Presbytery executive Andy Sale joins Colorado elder Nancy Maffett as
candidate to lead 213th General Assembly

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Presbytery of the Peaks has endorsed its general
presbyter, the Rev. M. Anderson "Andy" Sale, as a candidate for moderator of
the 213th General Assembly, which convenes here June 9 of next year.

	Sale joins Nancy Maffett, an elder from Colorado Springs, Colo., in Pueblo
Presbytery, in the race for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s highest
elected office.

	Sale has led the Blacksburg, Va.-based presbytery for the last five years. 
He previously served as executive presbyter for Missouri Union Presbytery
and has also pastored churches in Kentucky and Virginia.

	While acknowledging that the issue of human sexuality is very important to
the church and will no doubt be the most hotly debated topic at the
Assembly, Sale told the presbytery that "there are more basic issues which
are being left unattended, particularly the future well-being of our
congregations and the strength of our clergy and lay leadership." He added,
"A survivalist anxiety has captured the heart of this great and historic
denomination which needs to be shaken off to address the spiritual needs of
21st century America." Sale said, "Voices from the left and from the right
of our church have even called for a division of our fellowship, which has
further sapped the spiritual energies of the broad middle of our
Presbyterian Church."

	He called for "a re-forming effort" with its central focus "in the work of
the 173 presbyteries, which are the middle governing bodies of the
Presbyterian Church. This is where the well-being of congregations and their
leadership are most immediately addressed."

	During his moderatorial year, Sale said, he would like to call together
Presbyterian leaders and their counterparts from other denominations to a
wide-ranging symposium on the challenges and strategies for congregation
transformation and leadership development among mainline churches in 21st
century America.

	Sale was born and raised in Charleston, W.V. He graduated from Davidson
(N.C.) College in 1964 and from Union Theological Seminary-PSCE in Richmond,
Virginia in 1968.  He did other post-graduate work at the University of
Geneva, Switzerland and at Union-PSCE.

	 He has three grown children with his spouse Frances Wood Sale, who is an
elementary guidance counselor in the Lynchburg (Va.)City Public Schools.

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