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07015 January 8, 2007
Annual church educators conference just around the corner
APCE event helps participants stay up to date and connected
by Evan Silverstein
LOUISVILLE - Looking to the future by learning from the past will be the focus of the upcoming annual conference of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE).
The theme of the Jan. 31-Feb.3 event in Philadelphia is Sankofa: Flying Forward Reaching Back, inspired bya philosophical principle of the Akan people of West Africa called Sankofa, which holds that in order to move into the future one must go back and learn from the past.
The philosophy is symbolized by the mythical Sankofa bird, which will be the conference icon, shown flying forward with its head facing back holding an egg in its long beak to symbolize the future.
The four days of community building, plenary sessions, worship and workshops will bring together people dedicated to the educational ministries of Presbyterian and other Reformed denominations in the United States and Canada.
"You will be blessed, enriched, challenged and equipped by the workshops you attend at the conference, the worship you experience and friends old and new breaking bread together," wrote Bobbie Arrowsmith and Sylvia Eagono, Philadelphia local committee co-chairs, in a welcome letter to participants.
The gathering will also feature music, a spirituality center, and a market place that will include more than 50 exhibitors and Christian bookseller Cokesbury.
The conference keynote speaker will be the Rev. Frances Taylor Gench, professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA.
Gench is a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church, and the author of such books as Back to the Well: Women's Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels.
She resides in Washington, DC and attends New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, where her husband, the Rev. Roger J. Gench, is pastor.
The Rev. Bill Carter, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Clarks Summit, PA, will serve as worship leader and musician.
Elder Sylvia Washer, executive presbyter of Mission Presbytery, will be honored by APCE as its 2007 Educator of the Year.
Washer, a member of Madison Square Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, TX, is a church educator who has and has worked in that capacity for several churches and New Covenant Presbytery.
She has written church school curriculum for the denomination and is a co-author of Get Ready! Get Set! WORSHIP!, a book aimed at helping congregations include children in worship.
Washer has also worked on the team that created a new music resource for Reformed worship called Lift Up Your Hearts, published by Geneva Press.
APCE will also present its 2007 life achievement awards to Jeanne McIver, an APCE cabinet member and certified Christian educator from Dayton, OH; and Connie Nyquist, a certified Christian educator from Houston, TX.
APCE, a professional and ecumenical organization, serves the educational ministries of the Reformed family of churches in association with the PC(USA), the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Reformed Church in America (RCA) and the Christian Reformed Church (CRC).
For more information about the conference or to register for the event log on www.apcenet.org or call Pat Murphy, APCE registrar, at 1-888-728-7228 extension 5460.
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