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Neal Presa, Candidate for Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Neal Presa, Candidate for Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Last updated on: June 11, 2012 at 9:11 am by Bruce Reyes-Chow

Neal Presa, Candidate for Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) 2012-06-11T09:11:59-07:00 Bruce Reyes-Chow

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In an attempt to help folks get to know the candidates for Moderator of the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), I have asked the Moderatorial and Vice-Moderatorial Candidates a few questions. You can find links to all of their responses HERE and you can follow most of the candidates on Twitter HERE. Thanks for taking the time to read their responses and please feel free to share this with friends, leave a comment or ask a question.

CANDIDATE FOR MODERATOR
Neal Presa – Teaching Elder, Elizabeth Presbytery
Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

A snippet from Neals’s responses in the 2012 Moderatorial Handbook:

Instead, my hope, our hope, remains in the triune God who knits us together, who continually invites us to the Table . . . Rooted in our Reformed heritage while embracing the potentials of emerging ways of how to be Presbyterian in the 21st century, I want to partner with you, to discover how we may more faithfully and fully serve in this exciting time.

Knowing that being Moderator/Vice-Moderator will require a great deal of time and energy from you and your community, why give in this way to the Presbyterian Church (USA)?

I come from, married into, and belong to families of Filipino and Korean immigrants who work hard, pray a lot, especially when it comes to caring for family and your neighbors. In both cultures, neighbors are just as much as your own blood family. You give yourself, sacrifice yourself for the good of the whole, and, in doing so, you discover more of who you are, and appreciate more and more the deep bonds that bind you beyond blood lines.

That’s why I want to give of myself in the next two years if elected as Moderator of the 220th General Assembly. I care deeply about our Presbyterian family. Ours is not a blood relation, we belong together in baptism. Water is thicker than blood!

I care about the past which we inherit and which make up who we are..all the messy fights of a bygone era that have shaped our faith. I care about the present — where we are in this moment of our life together as we are all seeking to be faithful to God with what we have, all of us trying to serve Jesus Christ as best as we can by God’s grace. I care deeply about our tomorrows — the creative opportunities for mission and ministry here in the U.S. and around the world. Sometimes the realities of challenged budgets, congregations leaving, and new denominations forming can overshadow the dynamic work happening in ministries across the country.

Our Presbyterian family needs one another. More importantly, we need the God who calls us together. I want to be a part of that family conversation.

If someone were to ask you, “Why should I bother going to church?” how would you respond?

You’re right. If you’re not bothered in your soul about life and the world,don’t come to church. But, if you are bothered about life and the world, come and learn about belonging to a community that bothers about the stuff for the soul.

Even as a pastor, there are times, too, where I’ve thought about, “So what?” What’s the point of all of this? Another session meeting.

Yet, what I’ve discovered time and time again when I reflected upon past memories growing up of not wanting to go to church, and when I get into seasons of being down in the dumps, I’m drawn back to the amazing adventure of God’s work in people’s lives, of how people grappled with God and the world, and how we are invited to participate in it.

What this means is that in all the messiness and beauty of our world, is the messiness and beauty of the Church, and what makes the Church different is that whenever two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, there Christ is. It’s whenever I’m in and with the Church that I’m reminded of Jesus, and God’s love, that I came from the dust, and my life doesn’t belong to myself, but that God has an intention for all of us.

It’s not that discovering the purpose of life or finding solutions to the world’s weightiest problems can’t be found in other places in our world; you can and we have. The Church, however, is a special community where the expected thing is to speak about matters of the soul. It’s a place where you matter because you matter to God.

Choose one item of business or issue that will be coming up at General Assembly and share your perspective.

As chair of the General Assembly Special Committee on the Heidelberg Catechism, I am looking forward to the discussions and consideration of our Committee’s Final Report after four years of careful and prayerful work.

The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) is arguably the most used confessional document in our Reformed tradition. It has helped shaped the faith of millions of Presbyterian and Reformed communities around the world. When I was in my early 20s, I found the Catechism to be a well-spring of doctrine as it provided theological foundations around the great themes of sinful humanity’s guilt, God’s grace in Christ, and our response of gratitude. The Catechism assisted me in teaching Sunday School and Bible study.

While the Catechism has been the focus in recent years because of a mistranslated section Q/A 87 related to the debates on human sexuality, the Catechism encompasses so much more.

Over the last four years, our Special Committee worked closely with the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) and the Reformed Church of America (RCA), and together, we are bringing to this Assembly a more accurate translation of the Catechism that is theologically robust.This is an exciting and historic moment for our three denominations to work together.

And, in contrast to the current version in our Book of Confession, we are bringing to the Assembly Scriptural references from the 1563 Latin and German versions,so that we can dig deep into our Bibles and this Catechism.

What are a few things that most people would never guess about you: interests, adventures or . . .?

Underneath the clerical robe and Banana Republic suits, when I’m not preparing a sermon or attending a meeting, I’m a Filipino, Pacific Islander dude. What does that mean? Because I was born on an island, I love the water and the sun. So whether I’m in the cool breezes of San Francisco, or the blizzard winters of the East Coast,I always find every opportunity to wear shorts and sandals.

I love to travel,not just for church meetings, but most especially with my family.All in all, I’ve traveled to six continents and hope to bring a group of family and friends with me to Antarctica via Chile on my 40th birthday. When I travel, I like staying in one city and getting immersed in that one location, tasting every kind of food. Our family’s favorite place in the world is Cape Cod.

For many years growing up, I was hooked with my cousins to professional wrestling entertainment. So much so that we even formed our own Home Wrestling Federation, where I’m proud to say that I still hold the HWF championship belt.

I love reading, getting some recipes from the Barefoot Contessa or Giada de Laurentiis, biking, watching tennis, and goofing off with my sons. When you see me at General Assembly, remind me to sing to you a parody I made up with my sons; I call it the “Sushi Song” set to the “Rocky” theme song.

Before I got the call to ministry, I worked for a U.S. Senator and a former deputy district attorney.

Born to young parents, I grew up with disco music and dance the cha-cha to the 70s.

WILD CARD: Answer any question you want, one that someone has yet to ask or choose from some that have been asked here: http://bit.ly/KwiN07

Duncan MacCleod asked about our local context:

I’ve been privileged and grateful to serve as pastor of Middlesex Presbyterian Church, entering my 10th year. It’s a small multicultural congregation in central New Jersey,with neighboring non-denominational large churches.We have an aging building that sucks up the operational budget. We’ve run a pre-school for nearly 30 years that has taught over 2000 children with Christian education.

To steer the congregation from its historic tendency of having a pastor-centered ministry built around programs that were unsustainable for the long-haul, I emphasized a community-centered ministry of shared leadership grounded in the Christian spiritual practices of Word and Sacrament.

What did this mean? First, we gradually moved towards weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, finding at the Table that we are shaped as “often as we eat this bread and drink this cup” that we are the body of Christ. Second, we established an Academy of Preachers and Liturgists, which involved training seven laypeople of all ages on the craft of interpreting Scripture, developing and delivering a sermon. Also, I taught three ruling elders about Reformed Eucharistic theology and trained them to preside at the Lord’s Table. To expand the repertoire of prayers and liturgies, I put the Book of Common Worship in every person’s hand so every Sunday we are literally on the same page!

I believe in empowering our ruling elders and the whole community of faith.

Thanks again to all of the candidates for being part of this process. While we obviously hold all of the candidates in prayer throughout this process, please be sure to pray for their communities of service, their families and all who are supporting them during this time.

For all of the candidates’ links and responses click HERE or go directly to the individual responses: Neal and Tara | Susan and James | Randy and Shamaine | Robert and Hope

faith | religion

220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Academy of Preachers and Liturgists

Barefoot Contessa

Christian Reformed Church in North America

Middlesex Presbyterian Church

Presbyterian Church (USA)

RCA

Reformed Church of American

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