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06655 December 8, 2006
Tom Taylor unanimously confirmed for top GAC mission job
Valentine calls evangelical leader ‘confident but humble’
by Jerry L. Van Marter
LOUISVILLE - The General Assembly Council’s (GAC) Executive Committee has unanimously confirmed GAC Executive Director Linda Valentine’s appointment of the Rev. Tom Taylor as the GAC’s deputy executive director for mission.
Valentine praised Taylor as “intelligent, creative and deeply committed to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).” She said that during the search process in which 50 candidates were considered, “Tom Taylor really stood out as someone who would articulate a theology of mission service that matches the realities in the church and world today.”
Moreover, she added, Taylor “has been a healer in a presbytery (San Gabriel) that is deeply polarized … is a modern thinker with an affinity for tradition …and has a flair for communication, which is the concern most frequently heard out in the church.”
And, Valentine said, “Tom is a confident but humble leader, an increasing ly rare quality today.”
Taylor, who calls himself “an evangelical with a small ‘e’” and said he chose to join the PC(USA) at age 30 after considering several denominations, said the diversity of the PC(USA) and its commitment to actively living out the gospel were the key factors in his seeking the job.
“I have always had a heart and calling for the fellowship of the whole church,” Taylor told the committee. “I joined the PC(USA) precisely because its so incredibly diverse, giving people a broad faith journey, where I could be myself and be honest, and be encouraged to share my beliefs. We are better followers when we stick together.”
That togetherness also makes the church more effective in mission, Taylor said. “With the enormity of needs today, I’m convinced we can’t do this alone. When I look around the world and the church, I know liberal and conservative Presbyterians agree about a lot more of these tragedies and issues than we disagree.”
He recalled attending last week’s meeting of the Association of Presbyterian Mission Pastors here and telling that group “as we look as these needs we’re going to be far better by working together, no matter our partisan positions. We’re better followers and messengers of Jesus Christ when we stay together.”
Thanking the committee for its vote, Taylor said, “I’m so honored to be in a position to unlock the power of the Presbyterian Church in the world.”
Taylor, pastor of the 1,400-member Glenkirk Presbyterian Church in Glendora, CA, is not well known outside southern California. Executive committee members had a few questions — none of them hostile — for him.
Asked about Glenkirk’s subscription to the Confessing Church Movement — a conservative group built around three “essential doctrines” — Taylor said, “Glenkirk was a Confessing Church when I got there. I’ve known some in that group to be vitriolic, so I asked about it. I was convinced they signed on to express their faith in our confessions and then dropped it.”
Asked in the same vein about the efforts of some presbyteries to adopt their own “essential tenets,” including in San Gabriel’s neighboring San Diego Presbytery, Taylor said such a list has not come to floor of San Gabriel. “One pastor was trying to push it, but a group of us evangelical s don’t agree and told him so it’s dead in the water.”
The word “evangelical” has “been tossed around pretty loosely,” Taylor said. “I call myself an evangelical with a small “e” — it has to do with sharing the gospel as much in healing the body as healing the soul. Being an evangelical in mission means asking ‘What’s the real need there?’ and then responding in both word and act.”
Valentine told the committee she hopes the church will welcome Taylor as it has welcomed her. “I was unknown when I was called and know that my lack of national experience was a concern, but I have been met by warmth and openness,” she said. “So I understand concern of those who don’t know Tom … yet, and urge the church to accept Tom with open hearts and minds as you have me.”
Taylor is the second of three deputy executive directors named in recent weeks as Valentine, who began work in July, fills out her senior staff. In late-September, Joey Bailey was confirmed as deputy executive director for shared services and chief financial officer. He had served in a similar post in the administration of Valentine’s predecessor, John Detterick, who retired in June.
The search has begun for a third deputy — deputy executive director for communications and funds development. To prepare for the ramping up of that newly-created office, the executive committee at its Dec. 7 telephone conference call meeting, eliminated two holdover positions — associate director for communication and associate director for stewardship and mission funding. The communication post has been vacant since the retirement of Ann Gillies at the end of 2005. Associate Director for Stewardship and Mission Funding the Rev. Claude W. Godwin was laid off, effective Dec. 31, 2006.
In other business, the Executive Committee:
Heard a progress report from the GAC’s Mission Funding Task Force, which is seeking to design a new system for funding the $100 million annual mission budget of the PC(USA) in light of the accelerating movement away from unrestricted giving in favor of designated giving;
Established a $720,000 escrow account upon which the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands may draw as needed to fund its operating expenses until the five-year, $40 million campaign concludes in June 2008;
Authorized creation of a task force to discuss whether the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation should become the publisher of Presbyterians Today magazine.
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