“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.          
It is like the dew on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.”   
Psalm 133 

Dear friends, 

We are blessed to have faithful and diligent leaders throughout the presbytery serving in many ways: the Executive Board, the Commission on Ministry, the Commission on the Preparation for Ministry and a variety of task forces and committees. And this presbytery has delegated much of its work to these entities.  

Although we scheduled a presbytery meeting for this coming Tuesday, April 16, upon reviewing the draft docket, we realized there is no business coming before the body.  

Reports have been filed by the above-mentioned leadership bodies which we encourage you to read and see what business has been conducted on your behalf. But the Executive Board has determined there is no need for an official presbytery meeting and has cancelled it. 

And yet, because we do enjoy gathering as a community of faith, we will still gather on the 16th at 5:30pm at Woodland Park Presbyterian Church for dinner and fellowship. We look forward to the opportunity of simply being together in conversation without any particular agenda before us. 

We do want to assure you though that Scott and I are aware of a few significant items of business with potential impact on our congregations and presbytery. One of them is the changes to the Board of Pensions benefits. We will be attending a BOP sponsored informational gathering on the 23rd of this month and will engage with COM and the broader presbytery to share information and strategize how Seattle Presbytery can be a faithful partner to our churches and pastors amid these changes. 

The other item is the proposed overture to the General Assembly regarding inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity among categories that the church does not discriminate against. We are in conversation with many as we seek to be informed and prepared for how the assembly may vote. 

These – and other – topics will be reviewed and discussed in the next couple of months. We invite you to stay connected and stay tuned. 

In conclusion: no presbytery meeting on April 16th but yes presbytery gathering for dinner and fellowship that same date. Be sure to RSVP so we can plan appropriately. 

Eliana Maxim & Scott Lumsden

Direct link: https://www.1946themovie.com/

Special invitation from Seattle Pacific University:

April 22nd, 6 pm- 7pm  livestreamed opportunity (https://spu.edu/academics/college-of-arts-sciences/biology/lecture) to hear an amazing speaker - Katharine Hayhoe, an author, Christian, the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy,  director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and host of PBS digital series, Global Weirding: Climate, Politics and Religion.  Hayhoe writes an influential newsletter that shares Climate Change good news and ways to respond - https://substack.com/@katharinehayhoe.  

Please join Magnolia Presbyterian Church as the Presbytery of Seattle ordains Linda Ott to serve as Temporary Associate Pastor.

All are welcome to this worship service.

Michelle Muñiz (she/her/ella) will be in Seattle to share about Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s work in Puerto Rico. She will be at Northminster PC this Sunday, Feb. 18 at 10:30am during worship.
Michelle is the Disaster Recovery Coordinator for Puerto Rico / Coordinadora de Recuperación de Desastres para Puerto Rico, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.

Learn more: linktr.ee/puertoricopda

Please join Northminster Presbyterian Church as the Presbytery of Seattle ordains Martín Jiménez to serve as Temporary Associate Pastor.

All are welcome to this worship service.

Thriving Conference. Saturday, February 3rd, 9am-3pm at Bethany Community Church Green Lake Campus, $30. Area family ministries (including Bethany Presbyterian Church) have come together to host a one-day event for parents, caregivers, and those who work with tweens and teens. We know navigating these adolescent years can be tough. Gather in community at the Thriving Conference to gain insights from expert speakers, participate in discussions, and learn skills that lead to flourishing. More information on breakout groups and registration.

Installation service for Revs. ht lee & lottie macaulay friedman

January 21, 2024 at 10:00am in Overlake Park Presbyterian Church sanctuary

Seattle Presbytery and Overlake Park Presbyterian Church invite you to join us to joyfully celebrate a worship service for the installations of Pastors HT Lee & Lottie MacAulay Friedman.

STATED PRESBYTERY MEETING
TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2024

in person @ LAKE BURIEN presbyterian church

5:00PM: Meeting begins

Learn more & register online.

THRIVING CONGREGATIONS INITIATIVE LEADERSHIP FORUM

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2023

This one-day event will explore emerging stories and frameworks for congregational leadership and flourishing.  This year we have a guest trainer and facilitator who will guide us through Polarity Thinking & Mapping for faith communities.  We believe this will have significant impact on the work of congregational teams.    

The Leadership Forum is designed for all Thriving Congregation Initiative cohorts and anyone in the Presbytery interested in congregational leadership and thriving.  Many of those who will be in attendance are pastors, elders, and leaders of various congregational ministry teams.  If you have others in your congregation interested in the TCI work, please feel free to invite them as well.

Date:  Saturday, Nov. 18 (in person only event)

Time:  10am – 4pm

Location: Seattle Central Library – Level 4, Room 1 (1000 Fourth Ave, Seattle)

SeaPres Holy Conversations

Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West, by Blaine Harden

A HOLY CONVERSATION

with

Blaine Harden

-Seattle author

and

Rev. Irvin Porter

-Nez Perce, Pastor of Church of the Indian Fellowship, Tacoma, and

Associate for Native American Intercultural Congregational Support PC(USA)

OCTOBER 24, 7-9PM MERCER ISLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

What are the myths we tell ourselves, the lies we perpetuate as Presbyterians in the Pacific Northwest?

In 1836 Presbyterian missionary doctor Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa were sent west; eleven years later they were murdered at the mission.   In the years following, a story manufactured by Rev. Henry Spalding, an embittered Presbyterian missionary and colleague of the Whitmans, launched the role of Whitman as a Christian role model and martyred frontier hero who saved the Oregon Territory for the United States. 

By 1899 scholars exposed Spalding’s story as a deliberate fraud.

And yet to this day the “Whitman lie” is perpetuated by the larger public, including Presbyterians.

Blaine Harden explains: “The Whitman lie is a timeless reminder that in America a good story has an insidious way of trumping a true one, especially if that story confirms our virtue, congratulates our pluck, and enshrines our status as God’s chosen people.”

Join Seattle Presbytery as we engage a crucial conversation about demythologizing, grapple with the real story of Native American history, and search for a healing and equitable path forward.

“The truth will set you free.”

Seattle Presbytery will purchase and ship a limited number of copies of the book (Murder at the Mission by Blaine Harden) to our churches upon request. Contact us for details. We will also have some copies of the book available at the Oct. 24 event. We also encourage churches to purchase additional copies and e-copies as needed on their own.

More about Blaine Harden:

Blaine Harden is a journalist and author of six books, three about the Korean Peninsula, one about Africa, and two about the history of the Pacific Northwest, where he was born and raised. His most recent book is Murder at the Mission. He attended Gonzaga and Syracuse universities before spending most of his career as a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, serving as bureau chief in northeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa.

He was also a national correspondent for the New York Times and a writer for the New York Times Magazine, as well as a reporter for PBS Frontline and a contributor to The Economist. Harden wrote Escape from Camp 14 (2012), an international bestseller published in 28 languages. Among his journalism honors is the Ernie Pyle award for coverage of the siege of Sarajevo.

More about Rev. Irvin Porter:

Irvin is descended from three Native American tribes: Pima, T’hono O’odham, and Nez Perce. He is the seventh of eight children raised by a single father after the divorce of his parents. Irvin is descended from Twisted Hair, the Nez Perce chief who met Lewis and Clark in 1805. Twisted Hair’s son, Chief Lawyer, was the first Elder elected by the Nez Perce in 1871 when First Indian Presbyterian Church of Kamiah, Idaho was dedicated. Lawyer’s son, Archie, was the 2nd Presbyterian minister ordained among the Nez Perce people. Irvin’s ancestors among both the Nez Perce and Pima tribes were some of the first Christian converts among their people and many served the Presbyterian Church as elders or ministers including his father, Lawrence Porter, Pima and T’hono O’odham, who was also ordained as a Presbyterian minister.

Irvin was ordained by Olympia Presbytery in 2003 but began as a Commissioned Lay Leader at Church of the Indian Fellowship in Tacoma, Washington in 2001. The church was founded in 1876, and Irvin is the first Native American pastor.

He became the Associate for Native American Intercultural Congregational Support for the Racial Equity and Women’s Intercultural Ministries of the Presbyterian Church, USA, in June of 2013. His responsibilities include working as liaison between the ninety-five Native American congregations within the PC(USA).

He enjoys music, playing the piano, Native American arts, crafts, books, as well as being a history and genealogy enthusiast. He and his wife Anne-Cecile live in Puyallup, Washington’s South Hill community.

Frequency Kitsap is a community symposium that equips volunteers of any age to become more effective in connecting with youth of today. This FREE event will explore today's cultural trends relating to Generation Z. Parents/Guardians are also invited to attend.

We are excited to welcome back Chap Clark as keynote speaker!  Chap is a well-known practitioner, author, scholar and specialist in adolescent and family dynamics. Chap, along with our community specialists, will equip us with tools to better connect with our younger friends.

Learn more.

STATED PRESBYTERY MEETING
TUESDAY, october 17, 2023

in person @ Newport presbyterian church

5:00PM: Meeting begins

Learn more & register online.

An invitation from Rev. Doug Early & the Colombia Partnership Task Force:

All sorts of experiences can break open our isolated selves and introduce us to a world and a life greater than we had ever anticipated. Some of these experiences might be major events: the birth of a grandchild; the realization that someone we love loves us in return; spending time amidst a culture very different from our own. Some of these experiences can occur through much more subtle means: reading a written work that reaches our heart and spirit; hearing a speaker share a specific piece of wisdom; a conversation that goes deep. For me, one of the most profound experiences to break open my own isolation has been a trip to Colombia with a team of us from the Seattle Presbytery. I won’t waste time on a lot of specifics. Suffice it to say that everything I understand about God, about following Christ, about loving others, about being a pastor and a person, has been broken open, enriched, and enlivened.

The reason I don’t want to waste time on my own story is that I want to talk about yours – your story, and your congregation’s story. For all sorts of reasons, most of the folks in our churches will never be able to make a trip to Colombia. Yet there are ways in which those of us here in the Seattle Presbytery can experience life-enriching relationships with sisters and brothers in Colombia without ever boarding a plane. One of the most exciting opportunities that has arisen from our time in partnership with the Presbytery of the Coast is now taking tangible form. The Presbytery of the Coast runs a fantastic school in the city of Barranquilla that serves students from even significant distances away. Not everyone who would do well at the school can afford the tuition and other associated costs (uniform, books, meals), especially those who have to travel to attend (added costs). In consultation with one another, the Colegio Americano (the school, started by the Presbyterian Church in 1889), the Presbytery of the Coast, and the Seattle Presbytery have come up with a foundational model for connecting several parties in close relationship across the two map points. Ten students at the school in Colombia will each be connected with a Colombian family in the city of Barranquilla and one or more families and/or individuals in the Seattle Presbytery. The student will be a full-time student at the school; the family in Barranquilla will be a local, family-away-from-home for the student; and, the folks in Seattle will be a community of accompaniment and support throughout the student’s years at the Universidad.

The goal in all of this is not only getting the child through school. That would be worthy enough in its own right. But the goal here goes deeper than that. The goal is to establish relationships across cultures that will enrich the lives of everyone involved. As a result of the connection between the two presbyteries across a decade, we have seen many such relationships develop. And we would love to see such relationships develop all over the Seattle Presbytery. Since the day a covenant of relationship was established between the two presbyteries, the hope has been that every congregation would benefit in some tangible way. This is a great opportunity to build on that hope. If you are at all interested in being a part of one of these new communities, or would like to find out more about this - or any other aspect of our partnership with the Colombian church, plan on joining us for lunch on September 14, 11:00 am, Queen Anne Presbyterian Church. From my own experience, I’m pretty sure your life will be changed for good.

Rev. Doug Early (TE, Queen Anne)
Colombia Partnership Task Force

RSVP to communications<AT>seattlepresbytery.org.

Installation Service for Ken Sunoo
September 10 @ 1:00pm | Sanctuary

University Presbyterian Church and Seattle Presbytery invite you to join us in presence and prayer to joyfully celebrate a worship service for the installation of Pastor Ken Sunoo. 

Please join Seattle Presbytery in a service of worship for the installation of Rev. Jeny Carlson, who has received a call as Pastor at Northminster Presbyterian Church, Seattle.

Join virtually on Zoom here.

All sorts of experiences can break open our isolated selves and introduce us to a world and a life greater than we had ever anticipated. Some of these experiences might be major events: the birth of a grandchild; the realization that someone we love loves us in return; spending time amidst a culture very different from our own. Some of these experiences can occur through much more subtle means: reading a written work that reaches our heart and spirit; hearing a speaker share a specific piece of wisdom; a conversation that goes deep. For me, one of the most profound experiences to break open my own isolation has been a trip to Colombia with a team of us from the Seattle Presbytery. I won’t waste time on a lot of specifics. Suffice it to say that everything I understand about God, about following Christ, about loving others, about being a pastor and a person, has been broken open, enriched, and enlivened.

The reason I don’t want to waste time on my own story is that I want to talk about yours – your story, and your congregation’s story. For all sorts of reasons, most of the folks in our churches will never be able to make a trip to Colombia. Yet there are ways in which those of us here in the Seattle Presbytery can experience life-enriching relationships with sisters and brothers in Colombia without ever boarding a plane. One of the most exciting opportunities that has arisen from our time in partnership with the Presbytery of the Coast is now taking tangible form. The Presbytery of the Coast runs a fantastic school in the city of Barranquilla that serves students from even significant distances away. Not everyone who would do well at the school can afford the tuition and other associated costs (uniform, books, meals), especially those who have to travel to attend (added costs). In consultation with one another, the Colegio Americano (the school, started by the Presbyterian Church in 1889), the Presbytery of the Coast, and the Seattle Presbytery have come up with a foundational model for connecting several parties in close relationship across the two map points. Ten students at the school in Colombia will each be connected with a Colombian family in the city of Barranquilla and one or more families and/or individuals in the Seattle Presbytery. The student will be a full-time student at the school; the family in Barranquilla will be a local, family-away-from-home for the student; and, the folks in Seattle will be a community of accompaniment and support throughout the student’s years at the Universidad.

The goal in all of this is not only getting the child through school. That would be worthy enough in its own right. But the goal here goes deeper than that. The goal is to establish relationships across cultures that will enrich the lives of everyone involved. As a result of the connection between the two presbyteries across a decade, we have seen many such relationships develop. And we would love to see such relationships develop all over the Seattle Presbytery. Since the day a covenant of relationship was established between the two presbyteries, the hope has been that every congregation would benefit in some tangible way. This is a great opportunity to build on that hope. If you are at all interested in being a part of one of these new communities, or would like to find out more about this - or any other aspect of our partnership with the Colombian church, plan on joining us for lunch on September 14, 11:00 am, place TBD. From my own experience, I’m pretty sure your life will be changed for good.

Rev. Doug Early (TE, Queen Anne)
Colombia Partnership Task Force

Please join Seattle Presbytery in a service of worship for the ordination of jill Jones, who has received a call at envision hospice.

Wednesday, July 19, 7:00pm

St. Andrew Presbyterian Church

3604 NE 10th Court

Renton, WA 98056

The service will also available to view the Livestream. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzHqJsetqao.

STATED PRESBYTERY MEETING
TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 2023

IN PERSON (Mercer Island PC)

5:00PM: Meeting begins (IN PERSON, includes dinner for registrants)

Learn more & register online.

Please join Seattle Presbytery in a service of worship for the installation of Rev. Kelly Spencer, who has received a call as Pastor at Newport Presbyterian Church, Bellevue.

APRIL 10 UPDATE: This event has been canceled.

Stay tuned for updates about future gatherings.

An invitation from University Presbyterian Church:

March 4 @ 10:00 am – 2:00 pm

The Homelessness crisis in King County continues to create more questions than answers. One of the most important questions for the Church is, “How can we love and serve our homeless neighbors?”

This event covers key areas such as:

• The extent and root causes of homelessness

• God’s heart for our homeless neighbors

• Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission’s approach

• How the Church can get involved

• Referral and Housing

• Healthy Boundaries

Engaging Homelessness: University District provides foundational information and includes insights from experts, real-life stories from formerly homeless individuals that show that change is possible, and a Q&A time.  We want each attendee to walk away with a deeper understanding of homelessness and actionable steps to take.

REGISTER HERE