wfn.org | Marian McClure Is Chosen to Lead WMD

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

30-May-1997 
97228 
 
                Marian McClure Is Chosen to Lead  
                  Worldwide Ministries Division 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--The Rev. Marian McClure has been unanimously nominated by 
the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD) director search committee to head 
the Presbyterian Church's global mission enterprise.   
 
     If elected by the General Assembly Council and confirmed by the 
upcoming General Assembly in Syracuse, N.Y., McClure will succeed the Rev. 
Clifton Kirkpatrick, who left the Worldwide Ministries Division's top post 
last year when he was elected General Assembly stated clerk.   
 
     When McClure's nomination was announced May 30, Kirkpatrick praised 
her as "both evangelical and ecumenical.  The leadership of the Worldwide 
Ministries Division keeps getting better and better, and I'm delighted." 
 
     McClure, in turn, during an impromptu celebration in the WMD area of 
the Presbyterian Center after the announcement of her nomination, credited 
Kirkpatrick for "building an extremely talented and committed staff."  She 
also expressed appreciation for Gwen Crawley, who has served as interim WMD 
director for the past year. 
 
     McClure is currently coordinator for international education and 
leadership development in the division.  Prior to that she was a Special 
Gifts fund-raiser in the Mission Funding office of the National Ministries 
Division.   
 
     McClure is a graduate of the University of the South in Sewanee, 
Tennessee.  She holds a Ph.D.  in political science from Harvard University 
and a Master of Divinity degree from Louisville Presbyterian Theological 
Seminary.  She was a Fulbright Scholar while at Harvard, spending several 
months in Haiti.  She has also worked as an antipoverty and women's program 
developer for the Ford Foundation in Mexico.   
 
     She is fluent in Spanish and also speaks French and Haitian Creole. 
McClure is an affiliate of Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church in Louisville, 
where she teaches a high school Sunday school class and sings in the choir. 
 
     She told the WMD staff that one of her top priorities as incoming 
director is to "improve the ability of the division to serve 
congregations."  She said the division needs to take the initiative with 
persons and congregations interested in the global mission of the 
Presbyterian Church rather than rely on those outside the division to 
initiate contact about the church's mission enterprise around the world. 
"We have the means and need to employ them to develop an institutional 
memory that will keep track, stay in touch and follow up with people who 
have expressed an interest in various and specific ministries of the 
Presbyterian Church," she said. 
 
     McClure said she also wants to focus on "nurturing and building the 
wealth of relationships and partnerships -- inside and outside this 
building, inside and outside this church and all over the world -- that we 
have established over the years." 
 
     Most of all, she continued, "We need to always remember and be guided 
by the reason for our existence -- as a church and as a division -- to 
spread the good news of Jesus Christ wherever we go and whatever we do." 

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