Letter from the Transitional Executive Presbyter: March 2025

Dear Colleagues in Ministry,

I have been with you on a full-time basis for a month now, and I’m proud to witness that San Francisco Presbytery and its congregations and New Worshiping Communities are doing incredible ministry. The presbytery is also facing numerous challenges with which you are undoubtedly familiar: 

• internal conflict and low trust;
• financial challenges and the ramifications of deferred building maintenance; and
• unequal access to decision-making in the presbytery.

 

Along with those external challenges, of course, including:

• a deluge of seemingly unchecked assaults on regular functions of government at the federal level, with the potential to impact large swaths of our members and their communities;
• threats to our immigrant and refugees members and their communities and the destruction of international aid; and
• dismantling of federal commitments to acknowledging past harms to marginalized communities.

 

We face a lot in this moment, but after a month of being with you, I am confident that we will be able to do good work together. I was heartened to see so many of you at the February 19th Sanctuary press conference and Day of Remembrance procession in San Francisco, where we ended with a vigil at Christ United Presbyterian Church, the oldest Japanese/Japanese American Christian church in North America. I know we will continue to find ways to show up. 

 

There are so many ways to live God’s love out loud:

• By our denomination being a plaintiff in a religious freedom lawsuit challenging immigration enforcement access to churches;
• Joining protests and other visible signs of commitment to inclusion and justice;
• Supporting transgender people and their right to exist, embracing immigrants, offering kindness and respite to the unhoused and food to the hungry;
• Insisting through word and actions that diversity and inclusion are in line with what it means to be a Christian community;
• Withholding our dollars from companies that do not share our values.

 

As you know, our capacity to demonstrate God’s love is shaped by how we are at home. So let us continue to support one another in our ministries here even as we speak in courage and truth to the rest of the world. A link to my report to presbytery is here, and I hope you take a look to see where I think we are beginning our work together.

I am delighted to be in ministry with you. Thank you for that privilege.

I close with the prayer I gave at the Day of Remembrance vigil after the Sanctuary press conference:

Creator of the universe, you made us to mend, not to break. You made us to care for each other, not cut each other down for greed or bigotry or hopelessness

We come to this moment yearning for what we know to be possible: a world of compassion, where all of your creation is treated with dignity and care

We come understanding that it is our duty to call the world to account for the ways in which humanity falls short, out of apathy, fear, or malice

So we come before you asking for courage for the days ahead. Give us fuel for our fierce love, that we may do something, say something, in this struggle on behalf of the humanity brave enough to move countries, on behalf of ourselves, that we may not give up and fall prey to the same dehumanization and cruelty currently papering our news sources and paving our streets, limiting our imaginations and caving our hearts into their smallest possible capacity

Instead, open our hearts wide, loosen the tightness in our souls, fill our imaginations with glimpses of freedom and the beauty of a diverse creation. Give us new appreciation for the difference around us while making us more fierce, more loud, more powerful.

For those of us who find holiness around every corner, for those of us who worship a risen Christ, for those of us who cling faithfully to principles guiding our every move and thought, for those of us who are simply seeking to be better than we are, be with us, fill us with hope, and give us strength as we leave this place. 

May it be so. Amen.

Peace,

Laura