Presbyteries of Zimbabwe & Denver Partnership: Traveling Together

Denver Presbytery hosted 4 delegates from the Presbytery of Zimbabwe from October 9 thru October 24: Rev. Lydia Neshangwe, Rev. Tafadzwa Kasere, Rev. Simba Agushito and his wife, Doreen. The Agushitos were the recipients of the 2019 “long leave” (rest and renewal) grant of the PZDP prior to joining the delegation (September 24 – October 8).

Our partners preached in the following host congregations: Bethel, Green Mountain, Calvary, Peoples, Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, First Englewood and Wellshire. They met our Presbytery staff members, learned about the Enneagram in a workshop taught by Rev. Dr. Holly Heuer, participated in the Fall Gathering of Presbyterian Women at PCOC, toured Central Visitation and New Genesis, met with our Mission & Ministry Work Group and Mission Partners focused on Zimbabwe, immersed in the history and current day life of Denver’s African American community, spent long hours in conversation with their home hosts about real life and real ministry where we each live, work and worship.

We also participated in a conference in Austin, TX, hosted by the Zambia, Zimbabwe & Mozambique Partnership (“ZZM”), which is part of the Presbyterian Mission Agency. There were about 40 people there. We met representatives from congregations with connections to the church in those 3 countries, as well as representatives from Zambia. PCUSA’s World Mission leadership was there, as well as our Mission Co-Workers in Eastern Africa, Paula Cooper, and Southern Africa, Doug Tilton. The conference presented 4 themes for education and discussion: Theological Education, Communication, Sustainable Livelihoods, and HIV and AIDS. To have voices from the US as well as Zambia and Zimbabwe made for a rich exchange.

We were the only Presbytery Partnership present – the others were from individual congregations primarily from Grace Presbytery and Mission Presbytery. Our model was of great interest – and received requests for phone calls to talk about it further. I want you to know, Presbytery leadership, that being part of the outward looking church is life giving. With the structures of church as we’ve known for our lifetime are shifting, stretching, breaking sometimes, mending, it’s easy to hunker down and close the circle. Denver’s commitment to stay open and in partnership not only across our Presbytery, but beyond, was affirmed as a real message of hope. Thank you!

During the October 22, 2019 Assembly, the delegation presented Denver Presbytery with a statue representing:

Two heads…two separate partners from different contexts and different environments

Joined arms…the unity of purpose that joins us and keeps us together in partnership

Same color…we have so much in common

Common base…in God we live and move and have our being

Knicks & scratches…our imperfections and the challenges that come along the journey of partnership

Mountain View United Church Received Force for Good Award

Mountain View United Church, Aurora, Colorado received the Force For Good Award from the Interfaith Alliance (TIA) of Colorado on Monday, October 28, 2019. “2019 honorees have taken measurable action for radical love and justice in the past year,” announced TIA.

Mountain View United Church nurtures beloved communities of belonging, inclusion and justice. Nathan Hunt, Director of Economic Justice, TIA, noted that Mountain View United Church, “is a congregation that lives its faith through concrete actions of justice in their community. These are the Christians that I have been searching for since my youth, Christians who feed day laborers, provide overnight hospitality for homeless women at a sister church, partner with refugees, and advocate for immigration reform and safe gun laws. Mountain View United Church is the first congregation to join our Congregational Land Campaign to leverage their 2-acre vacant land for safe, inclusive, community-based, affordable home-ownership in the Metro Denver area. The congregation has joined with Habitat for Humanity to build townhomes for working families and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”

Reflecting upon the evening, Roberta Coss, church member remarked, “I am proud of our little church that “does” what we “say” we do! A church of approximately 60 people that is mighty and small, reminds me of the quote from Sister Teresa, “We know only too well that we are doing nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.” Bob Jordan, Church Council Chairman, shared, “The Force of Good Award introduced me to all the wonderful people living and acting in radical love in their hearts. It made me more aware of the groups and individuals that I can learn to model.”

The other 2019 Force for Good honorees are Representative Dafna Michaelson Jenet, and 9 to 5 Colorado.

Congratulates Mountain View United and Rev. Dr. Tracy L. Hughes!

October 22, 2019 Stated Assembly Meeting

A special thank you to the volunteers, staff and ministers of Wellshire Presbyterian Church for hosting the October Assembly Meeting. Your hospitality and warm welcome were much appreciated! The music was amazing and we appreciated experiencing your new worship space!

Adrian Miller of the Colorado Council of Churches provider the word and left us all yearning for the mac n cheese recipe with no cook pasta! Do Tell! He left us inspired to to the impossible.

STAND UP | SPEAK OUT | LEAD!

Watch and listen to Adrian Miller, Executive Director of Colorado Council of Churches preaches before our Assembly, based on Ezekiel 37:1-14.

Mission Accomplished or Mission Impossible from Denver Presbytery on Vimeo.

New Faces at Presbytery Office

Sue Pilcher, Treasurer

During the August Assembly at Church of the Eternal Hills in Tabernash, Presbyters voted on the recommendation to elect Susan Pilcher as the Treasurer. Sue, was elected to serve as Treasurer for a three-year term effective August 10, 2019. Elder Pilcher is a member at Grace and has previously served on Presbytery Council. She is the Chief Financial Officer of SafeHouse Denver with responsibility for all finances, accounting, reporting and budgeting functions as well as working with auditors and banking institutions.

Sue can be reached by email: treasurer@denpres.org.

Alan Lane, Accountant

The second new face you will see on Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Presbytery Office is our newly hired in-house accountant, Alan Lane. Alan is a graduate of Texas Tech and has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1985.

Alan can be reached by email at accounting@denpres.org.

Julia Henderson Named Interim Director of Assembly Operations

OFFICE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Ruling elder brings experience and energy to new role

Rick Jones | Office of the General Assembly - October 19, 2019

BALTIMORE

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of the General Assembly has announced that Ruling Elder Julia Henderson has been appointed interim director of assembly operations, effective November 4. Henderson is stepping into a vacancy created by Tom Hay’s recent departure. Hay retired last month after 11 years in the position.

“I come to this work with a great love for our denomination. It is a love that has grown deeper through each point of connection I have had to a General Assembly,” Henderson said. “At the conclusion of the most recent General Assembly, I told our Stated Clerk, the Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, that I have never felt more proud to be a Presbyterian due to the work that was accomplished in St. Louis. I am incredibly honored to be appointed to this role.”

Henderson will oversee the planning and execution of all logistics connected with the 224th General Assembly meeting in Baltimore next year. Henderson is no stranger to assembly work, having served as a member of the Committee on Local Arrangements for the Denver assembly in 2003. She has also served as moderator of the General Assembly Procedures Committee at the Minneapolis assembly in 2010 and also worked the General Assembly docket desk at the St. Louis assembly in 2018.

“We are excited to have Julia join our team,” said Kerry Rice, OGA’s Deputy Stated Clerk. “We believe she will bring energy and excitement to this role as we look toward the 224th General Assembly.”

Henderson will continue the role through July 2020. Meantime, the search will continue for a permanent replacement with hopes of filling it in time for the gathering.

Click here to read on PCUSA.

San Francisco Theological Seminary's first full-time African American professor

Commemorating 50 years

 By Rev. Cornelius O. (“Neil”) Berry Jr. | Special to Presbyterian News Service

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Theological Seminary was established in 1871. In August 1969 under the leadership of President Arnold Come, the trustees of SFTS called the Rev. Dr. Cornelius O. Berry Sr. to join the faculty as their first full-time African American professor. Dr. Berry was an associate professor of systematic theology. He was a faculty member of both SFTS and the Graduate Theological Union located in Berkeley, California. He was also chairman of the Advanced Pastoral Committee and of Area 111 in the GTU until his untimely death in July 1973.

Rev. Berry’s parents left South Carolina in the early 1920s and moved to the Sugar Hill area of Harlem in New York City. They then moved to the southeast Bronx, which was a predominately Jewish community. Dad was born there on Feb. 13, 1926. My father was a product of the New York City public school system, and he skipped three grades. While in the Bronx, he joined the mighty St. Augustine Presbyterian Church at its inception. The Rev. Edler Hawkins was the founding pastor. Edler would later become the first black moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church.

My father was very mischievous as a lad, and one day he went into Rev. Hawkins office and acted up terribly. He then ran out of the church down the streets of the Bronx. My father did not know that Edler had been a track star in college, and he proceeded to catch my father and drag him back to the church by the scruff of his neck. From that day on, my dad was completely devoted to Rev. Hawkins. Rev. Hawkins’ leadership was so great that many of the gifted young men of the Bronx who joined St. Augustine’s decided to become Presbyterian ministers rather than doctors or lawyers. My father was one of these young men, and Rev. Hawkins became a surrogate father to our family. 

Dad then attended City College of New York, which was free but highly competitive to get in. He earned his B.A. there and then went on to attend Union Theological Seminary. These were the golden years of Union Seminary of New York with such men as Reinold Neihbur, Paul Tillich and James Muilenburg teaching classes. In his second year at Union, he married his childhood sweetheart and the love of his life, Lois Gwendolyn Palmer. Upon graduation, he took a call to a small Protestant parish in East Harlem. He was then called to Mt. Carmel Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey, where my sister and I were born. He stayed there eight years and while there, he started work on his Ph.D. at Columbia University in New York. He then was called to St. Albans Presbyterian church in Queens, New York, for three years.  

These were happy years for my father and mother. These years were made even happier because Dad could frequently visit his only sibling (his two-year-older brother, Creighton Berry) and his family and in Jamaica, Queens. My father and his brother were very close. They were both brilliant in their own ways. Creighton went on to head Gimbels department store’s commercial art department. Gimbels in New York City was the second largest department store in the world at that time. He later founded the Edler Hawkins foundation in New York City for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He is also considered one of the greatest watercolor artists of his generation.

During this time, he made lifelong friends with the Rev. Clarence Cave and the Rev. Joe Roberts. Clarence became a longtime administrator for ethnic affairs in the General Assembly and was my godfather. Rev. Roberts was honored to be nominated by Daddy King (seven years after his son Martin was killed) to fill the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Dr. Berry was then called in 1961 to the Board of Christian Education in Philadelphia. Dad was only the second black man hired to work for the national church. We were the first black family to live in Merion Station and only because the Quakers sold us a home there. He became a charter member of the Black Presbyterian Union when racial tensions were beginning to rise in the country. Dad’s job at the Board was to fly around the country implementing the newest and the most enriching models of Christian education. To this end, in 1964 he started Vanguard magazine that was sent to the presbyteries and churches of the UPC. In 1963 my sister Alison was born there.

We moved to Alma, Michigan, in 1965, where my father was named the chaplain of Alma Presbyterian College and assistant professor of religion. Dad went down to Montgomery, Alabama, at this time and met and marched with Dr. King. They became friends, and in 1967 he called Dad to discuss his evolving views on the Vietnam War.

In 1969 Rev. Berry received the call to SFTS. He finished his doctoral thesis in nine months and was awarded a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia. His thesis was a systematic exercise in proving the existence of the human soul.

When we arrived in Berkeley, Dad stood face to face with the counterrevolution. This caused him a struggle for discernment that any black intellectual born in the 1920s would have. He looked to Tillich’s idea of the “new being” to frame the young people’s quest, in a Christological context.

“Christianity as a religion is not important, for Christianity is more than a religion. It is the New Being that is important. Resurrection is not an event that might happen in some remote future, but it is the power of the New Being to create life out of death, here and now, today and tomorrow. Where there is a New Being, there is a resurrection, namely, the creation into eternity out of every moment of time.” — Paul Tillich

In a surprising move of solidarity with the young people’s movement, he asked if he could have a polished clay peace symbol I had. He had never asked me for anything before in my life. He wore that peace symbol around his neck instead of a cross every day for the rest of his life.

“One of my clearest recollections of my father was when he took us to Jones Beach on Long Island, where everyone from New York and New Jersey vacationed. It was truly amazing to see him swimming against the horizon — he looked like a great white whale. His swimming skills were amazing. The pictures in my mind of him swimming in the ocean are truly epiphanic.”  — Author Rev. Cornelius Oliver Berry Jr. (“Neil Jr.”)

Dad’s close friends at the seminary were the Rev. Howard Rice (longtime chaplain of SFTS), the Rev. John Hadsell (longtime administer) and the Rev. Warren Lee (longtime Director of the Advanced Pastoral Department). Rev. Rice and I became great friends during my time as a student at the seminary. One day he called me aside and said, “Neil, your father had a special place in my heart, and he was one of my favorite theologians. He made Tillich understandable to me.”         

Upon his death, Dad was working on a book about the black church in America. In 1994 I picked up the baton and took the idea for a course on the history of the black church in America to the African Studies department of the University of Michigan, Flint campus. It was the most popular course in the department, and I taught it there for five years until I took a call to Witherspoon Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis. The course is still taught there to this day.

In conclusion, I would like to quote from the eulogy his good friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Reist, gave at “The Church by the Side of the Road” in Berkeley in July 1973: “To say ‘poor in spirit’ with reference to my colleague, my friend, and my brother Neil is to utter then a high salute indeed. For Neil’s was that unique kind of poverty of spirit that refused to relinquish the integrity of his own identity in the face of any external definition from left or right, black or white.”

If Dad were alive today, he would be proud to know that the Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett (whose younger brother, Christopher, married his youngest daughter, Alison) was recently named executive director and president of the Presbyterian Mission Agency in Louisville, Kentucky.