Called to Serve
Lucimarian Roberts, Presbyterian elder from Biloxi, Mississippi, has been named co-chair of the General Assembly’s Mission Initiative Task Force. She will be serving with co-chair Bill Saul of Long Beach, California, and a soon-to-be announced blue ribbon task force of thirteen people. The Mission Initiative is a five-year, $40 million campaign to raise money for international mission personnel and new church developments — particularly racial ethnic and new immigrant congregations. It was approved overwhelmingly by the 214th General Assembly on June 22, 2002, by a vote of 426-8. Plans for the campaign call for $21.5 million to go for 115 new full-time missionaries and mission volunteers, to be deployed over the next 10 years. The other $18.5 million will fund the start up of 50 new churches each year over the five years of the campaign, a 40 percent increase in new church developments over current levels.
Lewis Fowler began work as Interim Executive in North Alabama Presbytery on July 15. Fowler says he's trying to retire but keeps being called to interim presbytery service, first in South Alabama Presbytery and now in North Alabama. Before “retirement” Fowler was Executive Presbyter in the Presbytery of East Tennessee. While his wife, Florence, continues to work in Oak Ridge, Lewis keeps an apartment in Huntsville, returning to Knoxville for “two long weekends a month” at the couple's lakeside retirement home.
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