Synod Installs Executive at Annual Meeting

by Bill Williams

At its annual meeting January 24- 25, 2005, at Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Ala., the Synod of Living Waters installed its new executive, bid a fond and whimsical farewell to its retired executive, and cemented its new sister relationship with the Synod of the Peninsula of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico.

The Synod also adopted its 2005 budget with some misgivings over the financial shortfall of the past year and approved several documents dealing with the continuing rapid growth of its water purification mission project, Living Waters for the World.

An opening worship service included installation of the Rev. Terry Newland, former executive of Sheppards & Lapsley Presbytery, as the Synod Executive. His predecessor, the Rev. David Snellgrove, was the subject of a good-natured roast that evening (see next page).

The Rev. Terry Newland (at left) answers constitutional
questions from stated clerk Charles Van Devender.

Newland and the Synod members were asked constitutional questions by the Rev. Charles Van Devender, Synod stated clerk. The installation prayer was delivered in Spanish by the Rev. Edwin Tun Canto, president of the Synod of the Peninsula, followed by an English translation.

The preacher for the worship service was the Rev. Warner Durnell, executive of North Alabama Presbytery, who used the sermon title, “God’s Paradoxical Election,” based on the text of I Corinthians 1:26-31. The charge to the new executive was given by the Rev. Bill Jones of Sheppards & Lapsley, the charge to the Synod by its incoming moderator, Ruth Collins of South Alabama Presbytery.

In the business session that followed worship, Ms. Collins was elected moderator and the Rev. Tom Pickering of Western Kentucky Presbytery vice moderator, a position that traditionally leads to election as moderator the following year. The outgoing moderator, the Rev. Don Padget of Middle Tennessee Presbytery, passed on the necklace cross that is the badge of office, and the new moderator received from Van Devender a memorial gavel inscribed with the names of two deceased stated clerks, Dick Baldwin and Al Freundt.

Ruth Collins installed as moderator by Don Padget.
Tom Pickering, at left, was elected vice moderator.

The Synod adopted a balanced budget of $1,120,306, a minor change from the past year’s budget. However, Newland pointed out that income in the past year fell some $120,000 short of expectations, while expenses exceeded the budget by about $25,000. The shortfall reduces the Synod’s reserves, and Newland warned that the same thing cannot be allowed to happen year after year.

Unified giving funds received from presbyteries at year’s end stood $41,337 below budget estimates, while per capita payments were $29,715 below the budget.

The Synod also approved a 2005 budget for Living Waters for the World that predicts $204,750 in receipts and $214,152 in expenses. It was the first LWW budget to project income, and Newland pointed out that neither income nor expenses for the mission can be accurately predicted.

To help cope with the mission’s rapid expansion, the Synod approved a mission statement, a job description for Missionary-in-Residence Wil Howie, a legal agreement with St. Andrew Presbytery over the Clean Water U campus at St. Andrew’s Hopewell Camp and Conference Center, and a new partnership with the Synod of the Northeast working toward eventual establishment of a second Clean Water U campus at the Stony Point Conference Center in New York.

New opportunities and challenges abound, LWW Committee moderator Bill Williams said. A new Yucatan model using reverse osmosis to remove heavy metals from water sources will be tested in February. A pre-built emergency system that can be shipped in to disaster points is being developed. Another model will equip hospital boats to draft water from the river. The first foreign students are due this spring at Clean Water U.

The Synod approved some minor technical changes in Louisville Seminary’s articles of incorporation and heard reports from Synod committees.