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[PCUSANEWS] Ex-moderator has high praise for small churches


From PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>
Date 30 May 2003 11:25:50 -0400

Note #7782 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Ex-moderator has high praise for small churches
GA03093

Ex-moderator has high praise for small churches

'Whether you are 14 or 14 hundred,' Gardner says, God is good

by Emett Barfield

DENVER, May 27- Former Moderator Freda Gardner was the featured speaker at
Thursday morning's Small Church Ministry Network annual Assembly breakfast.

	Gardner spoke with fondness of her encounters with small
congregations during her travels as moderator of 211th General Assembly
(1999). "Whether you are 14 or 14 hundred, God has given each their gifts,
and they are to be used in faithfulness."

	She asked her listeners to take five minutes for discussion and list
some of the qualities of small churches. After each small group reported on
its brainstorming, she declared that the quality mentioned most often was
"faithfulness." 

	She challenged small churches in the Presbyterian Church (USA) to
think "out of the box" and devote themselves to good stewardship of God's
gifts.

	"Numbers are not the final criterion of faithfulness," she said.

	 Diana Stephen, the PC(USA) associate for Network Support for Rural
and Small Church Ministries, said the vision of the Small Church Ministry
Network is to advance the mission of the church through advocacy for small
churches. 

	Stephen reminded her listeners that small churches are those that
average 100 or fewer members in attendance at Sunday worship. "The PCUSA has
11,000 congregations, and of these, 8,000 are considered small
congregations," she said.

	The Rev. Susan R. Andrews, the moderator of this year's 215th
Assembly, stopped by to greet the group and offer a few words of praise for
Gardner, who she said will be "the main role model of moderator for me."

	Andrews said her 250-member congregation in Bethesda, MD, "has made
me real, for they are real." She concluded with the affirmation, "Small
churches are the heart of who we are."

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