wfn.org | New Mexico Pastor Joins Moderator Race

[George Conklin <gconklin@igc.apc.org>]

Presbyterian Church, U.S.A>
5 October 1995

95356         New Mexico Pastor Joins Moderator Race 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
  LOUISVILLE, Ky.--The Rev. John Clark Poling, pastor of First
Presbyterian  Church in Las Cruces, N.M., has become the second
announced candidate for  moderator of the 208th General Assembly
(1996).  Poling was endorsed Sept.  30 by Sierra Blanca Presbytery. 
 
     He joins the Rev. Norm Pott, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of 
San Rafael, Calif.  (Redwoods Presbytery), in the race for moderator. 
The  Assembly is scheduled for next June 29-July 5 in Albuquerque, N.M.

 
     Poling is from the area where he now serves, having been born in El 
Paso, Texas. He grew up there and in Philadelphia and Salem, Ore.  A 
graduate of the University of Texas at El Paso, Poling spent two years in 
the Peace Corps in Ecuador prior to attending Princeton Theological 
Seminary. 
 
     He served pastorates in Duncanville and Arlington, Texas, and 
Downington, Pa., before coming to Las Cruces.  The 550-member Las
Cruces  church is 112 years old, having been started as an Hispanic
mission church  by Santa Fe Presbytery. 
 
     Poling has served on both the Synod of the Southwest and Sierra
Blanca  Presbytery budget committees.  He is currently on the
presbytery's  Committee on Ministry and Mission 2000 Task Force. 
 
     He describes himself as a moderate.  "After conversations with folks 
in the middle, I have found that we're always in the cross fire," he told 
the Presbyterian News Service.  "If you look at the Presbyterian Church 
theologically, it's a pretty normal bell curve -- I want to keep the bell 
ringing without being too distracted by all the racket from the fringes." 
 
     Poling said "mission is what's important to my congregation.  The 
Presbyterian Church needs to keep lifting that up, to get churches on the 
sidelines back into the heart of denominational life."  He said what he 
brings to the office of moderator is the ability to "be a fair moderator 
during the Assembly and then an advocate for Presbyterian mission
during  the following year." 
 
     Poling insisted reconciliation is possible in the contentious 
Presbyterian Church.  "Look, I come from a family that represents all the 
extremes of thought and theology and points in between in the
Presbyterian  Church," he explained, "and we still love each other, so it
can be done."