Prayer for Your SGP Staff

by | Jul 17, 2017

Every summer, your presbytery staff reflects on our work in the past year, and updates our objectives for the next year, until June 2018. I thought I would share a few top-line priorities, for your information and so you can pray for us as we seek to support the ministries of San Gabriel Presbytery.

Diane Frasher, Stated Clerk Email

Diane has the responsibility for ensuring that the constitutional duties of the Stated Clerk are fulfilled, in coordination with Associate Stated Clerk Twila French. A major new emphasis this year is to provide more training and consultation with clerks of session of our member churches, especially new clerks and/or churches who seek to improve their session minutes and church records. Because Diane will no longer be Stated Clerk for Riverside Presbytery, her schedule will be more flexible from now on. On a personal note, she now lives within San Gabriel Presbytery (in La Verne), and has a new grandson, Dalton, born on Friday, July 14. Congratulations, Diane!

Twila French, Associate Stated Clerk/Administrator Email

As I have shared, Twila has had to take on yet another major job responsibility when we purchased the Temple City property. In addition to her work with Diane, managing the office, and doing the bookkeeping, Twila is a point person for repairs and coordinating with our shared ministry partners as we share the Presbytery Center. Unfortunately, one area we had hoped to relieve Twila was website management, but that has not happened as the redesign has not been completed and an on-going maintenance person has not been identified. We will need to make some decisions if the website redesign is not completed by September. An on-going prayer I have for Twila is self-care, especially taking vacation time away from the Presbytery.

As I have shared, Twila has had to take on yet another major job responsibility when we purchased the Temple City property. In addition to her work with Diane, managing the office, and doing the bookkeeping, Twila is a point person for repairs and coordinating with our shared ministry partners as we share the Presbytery Center. Unfortunately, one area we had hoped to relieve Twila was website management, but that has not happened as the redesign has not been completed and an on-going maintenance person has not been identified. We will need to make some decisions if the website redesign is not completed by September. An on-going prayer I have for Twila is self-care, especially taking vacation time away from the Presbytery.

Wendy Gist, Mission Advocate Email

Wendy’s priorities expanded significantly when the Justice, Peacemaking and Mission Committee was formed in 2015. She continues to live into this expanded portfolio in the coming year, now including SDOP (Self-Development of People). We discussed the success of our first annual Presbytery Work Day, and have plans to enable more participation next summer. Wendy is finalizing the preparations for the second youth trip to Peru (though she misses Rocky Supinger, who worked with her to coordinate the details for the first youth trip several years ago). Please pray for all participants, youth and adults, during their time in Peru, July 27-August 7. And we still hope to invite several new participants for our first-ever installation in Peru’s capital city of Lima. This will be a great opportunity because Lima is more accessible and closer to sea level, and the culture of Lima is rich and fascinating. The hope is that the Lima trip will be in Spring 2018.

Jake Kim, Ministry Development Associate Email

Jake will continue to work with the Vision and Strategy Team to develop procedures for evaluating potential new worshiping communities and their leaders, especially as they apply for funding through and from the presbytery. Jake and VST will also support potential new worshiping community leaders, especially who may be interested in the middle of our presbytery, as well as working with a couple of churches in redevelopment. One area that Jake also hopes to focus more on is leadership development, especially supporting young adults who may be coming into leadership in their churches.

Lauren Evans, Chaplain for Retired Presbyterian Church Workers Email

Lauren is learning from our retirees how to define and support the relationships of our retirees with the larger church, and with each other. There is a desire for retirees to connect with each other in a different way from their career days before retirement. Lauren hopes to hold quarterly lunches, and to explore ways our retirees can use their personal and also pastoral gifts. Finally, Lauren anticipates opportunities to help retirees navigate their finances, and to share their story. I for one would love to hear more from our amazing retires, who have lived and often were raised in other countries in work through World Mission. Lauren is seeking a way for the retirees to share their stories-I for one would love to hear more from our retirees!

Wendy Tajima, Executive Presbyter Email

As I mentioned last week, several of our churches are making significant decisions about their future ministries, and I want to support them through their transitions, whatever they may become. Of course, property issues continue to roll along, both the revision and management of the new Presbytery Center but also the ongoing sagas of attempts to sell the Irwindale and South Hills (Pomona) properties. Another major initiative will be to work with Twila French and our CPA, Bruce Gray, to do a major redesign of our accounting system. The current accounting system needs a redesign, especially with property income and expenses, dozens of defunct accounts that need clearing out, and to enable a mission-specific fiscal process.

Speaking of the new Presbytery Center, we need a high-quality grand piano for the sanctuary. The piano was replaced by the Disciples by a loaner when the building was transferred. If you know of a grand piano that can be donated to the Presbytery or purachased, please let Twila or me know. But since I’ll be out of town the next three weeks, better to contact Twila at 626.614.5964 or Email.

One last update. This last weekend was a very happy one for our presbytery, as Pasadena Presbyterian Church met as a full congregation and voted to call Rev. Dongwoo Lee as their Korean Language Pastor. Dongwoo has been a very active member of our presbytery, and his great pastoral gifts were most appreciated as he helped Korean Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church during a most difficult time as they were exiled from their building. Korean Good Shepherd’s Administrative Commission just met this weekend as well, and with that church’s call to Rev. John Moon, the AC voted to seek dissolution this fall. They gave original jurisdiction to the church session immediately, and plan to complete financial reviews and present a final report for the September 16 Presbytery meeting. HALLELUJAH!

PPC’s Korean praise team sang a song that included the following lines:

Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God
And nothing will be able to stop us from loving His church.

As we all seek to serve Christ’s church in different ways, and as we can celebrate together each other’s ministries and the ministries we support as one body, let us give thanks to God for opportunities to uplift each other in the Presbytery, and for very gifted and faithful staff who support you as you follow Christ’s leading. And may we all continue to love Christ’s church.

In Christ’s peace,

Wendy