A special one-time grant program from the Office of Christian Formation suggests that rest may be the hardest thing to learn when practicing what you preach.
When the Rev. Dick Powell was tapped as a candidate for the job of president and CEO at Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, he had one demand: “If I can’t stay in the Board of Pensions plan, I’m not coming.” More than a decade later, Powell and every other full-time employee at the camp and conference center in the Texas Hill Country is a member of the Benefits Plan of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
As Christy Foster stood on a hillside overlooking the Guadalupe River at the Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, she remembered all at once just how much—and for how long—she had wanted to be in camp and conference ministry.
If camps are famous as places for roughing it, the tablecloths were an unexpected amenity. “Because you are here at camp, there are tablecloths,” said Doug Walters, Camp Hanover’s executive director, to a dining hall filled with delighted laughter. “There are no tablecloths here in summer.”
As a new class of PC(USA) seminary students matriculates this fall, many find themselves entering graduate school not only with great anticipation and an unwavering commitment to serve Christ’s church, but also with unprecedented student loan debt.
When the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board unanimously approved a change in name for the Financial Aid for Studies office to Financial Aid for Service in the fall of 2012, the action signaled an intentional shift in the PC(USA) from an emphasis on education purely for the sake of education to education for a life of discernment and service.
