Presbyteries in Missouri, Kansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and West Virginia have been selected as the 2011 partner presbyteries for the second year of For Such a Time as This, an innovative pastoral residency program designed to serve underserved congregations and develop missional pastors.
The presbyteries of Heartland, Tropical Florida, Upper Ohio Valley, Western North Carolina, West Virginia and Northeast Georgia/Charleston-Atlantic – the latter two contiguous presbyteries working in partnership – will compose the pilot program’s second group of ministry settings for 2011. In order to qualify as partner presbyteries, each was asked to identify several small churches that would serve as especially good learning settings for first call pastors.
Application and recommendation forms as well as further information for pastoral resident candidates for the Class of 2011 are now available on the program’s Website. The completed application and all supporting documents must be emailed to the program’s coordinator, Dr. Marilyn Johns, at residency@pcusa.org. Sermons may either be mailed to the Office of Vocation, c/o Dosie Powell, PC(USA), 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202, or sent electronically. All application materials should be submitted no later than March 15, 2011.
Pastoral residents will be ordained as ministers of the Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA). All positions are full-time, designated pastor positions and will be compensated at presbytery minimum salaries. Pastoral residents will be enrolled in the PC(USA) Board of Pensions plan and may qualify for the Board of Pensions Seminary Debt Assistance program.
Named for a reference from the Book of Esther, For Such a Time as This deliberately invokes Esther’s unexpected rise to leadership in her own day even as the PC(USA) is calling forth leaders to serve in a rapidly changing and challenging 21st century context, in which half of the denomination’s nearly 11,000 congregations have 100 or fewer members.
In 2010, the program's inaugural year, six recent seminary graduates were paired with churches in the presbyteries of Heartland, St. Andrew, Northern Plains and South Dakota.