wfn.org | 2 pastors moving to seminaries

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Note #7346 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

18-July-2002
02255

2 pastors moving to seminaries

Barnes will teach at Pittsburgh; Wardlaw will be Austin president

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - Two prominent pastors in the Presbyterian Church (USA) are leaving their pulpits for posts at denominational seminaries.

The Rev. Craig Barnes, senior minister at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, has been chosen to occupy the Meneilly Chair of Pastoral Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He will take up his teaching duties there on Sept. 1.

The Rev. Theodore "Ted" Wardlaw, pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA, has been called to the presidency of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas, beginning in mid-November.

Barnes' June 24 resignation came as a surprise to the church's session.

He wrote in his letter of resignation: "While I am convinced this call has come from God, the decision to accept it has been agonizingly difficult. ... I will be leaving a large part of my heart here when I go. But the limitations of my health and my great passion for scholarship and writing beckon me to a different type of ministry."

Barnes told the Presbyterian News Service that his service at National Presbyterian has been the "happiest nine years" of his ministry, but he is "delighted" to be joining the seminary's faculty. "It is just another pastoral transition," he said.

The church has begun its search for an interim pastor.

Wardlaw has been pastor of Central Church since 1991. Before that he served congregations in Long Island, Texas and Tennessee. His nomination to become Austin seminary's ninth president was approved during a special trustees' meeting on July 1.

He will take office on the retirement of Robert M. Shelton, who has served the seminary for 31 years, as a professor of homiletics, academic dean and president.

Wardlaw said the move is another leg of his life journey as a Christian. He told the seminary trustees that he will try "to represent the lively tradition of the Presbyterian Church, and to cultivate students and faculty who will be the bearers of that tradition ... (and) to serve and lead ... the greater church to which Presbyterian seminaries are intrinsically attached."

Wardlaw will begin a sabbatical in the seminary president's office in Austin in mid-September.
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