Let’s talk about lay pastors

Dear Presbytery of Southern Kansas,

Let’s talk about lay pastors. In the Presbyterian Church (USA) there are official lay pastors and unofficial lay pastors. For many years we called our official lay pastors Commissioned Lay Pastors. We now call these people Commissioned Ruling Elders, or CRE’s. This means that they are ordained church elders commissioned to a particular service. They completed a set of study requirements established by the presbytery and were commissioned.

We have 3 active CRE’s in our presbytery:

• Keith Neill serves on the staff of First Presbyterian Hutchinson.

• Scott Randle serves at Viola Presbyterian and First Presbyterian Wellington.

• Kevin Salzmann serves at Kingsdown Presbyterian and Spearville Presbyterian.

In addition to the 3 CRE’s, we have 5 people enrolled in the CRE process:

• Kirk Anderson – home church Grace Wichita

• Matt Busby – home church Freeport

• Becky Gillette – home church Great Bend

• Michael Roberts – home church Syracuse

• Ayrika Watson – home church Garden City

There are 46 churches in the Presbytery of Southern Kansas. 13 of the 46 churches have fulltime installed PC(USA) pastors.* Raising up CREs is an important part of our future as a presbytery.

My work is based on the idea that a church can be a church without a pastor, and two years into this call I still believe this. A church doesn’t need a full time, or even part-time pastor, to worship and answer Christ’s call to serve. However, we at the presbytery level have a responsibility to equip church members to lead their churches. One way to do this is through CRE classes. In our presbytery we have 6 people who have taken CRE classes but have not enrolled in the official CRE process. Some of these people will enroll, others took classes to strengthen their understanding of an area of church life. This makes them stronger leaders within their congregations.

We offer classes through the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. This lets you be in a cohort with others from our presbytery. However, there are many ways to take CRE classes, and I am happy to discuss them with you. Our next Dubuque class is on Preaching and starts the week of October 7. There’s still time to sign up! Reach out to me if you’re curious about it.

Reach out to me in general if you’d like a visit, have church questions, or you have an idea you want to collaborate on!

In Christ,

Catherine Neelly Burton

*Our 33 churches without installed pastors are led in an assortment of ways including: CRE’s, non-PCUSA pastors, and volunteers. Churches with contracted leaders are responsible for turning in their contracts with the presbytery.