For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born and a time to die;

A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted….

Dear Friends:

The past weeks have witnessed many changes in people and institutions familiar and dear to Presbyterians in Southeast Alaska.  The Chapel by the Lake expansion project is underway (Hoorah!), and the Presbytery has left its eagles’ nest office suite and Cyndi has moved all files and operations to a single room (groan). Christina Maddox, our new treasurer, is working mostly from home and laptop, and working very well. With many thanks, especially to Cyndi, our office presence and style is now very different.

The Synod of Alaska Northwest adopted the radical reduction in operation and program that its council recommended.  The Synod is now configured at the absolute minimum permitted by the Book of Order.  The greater change is not in getting smaller, however, but in the very nature of what it means to ‘be synod’.  As we move forward, Synod will no longer initiate program or operate beyond or over its presbyteries.  Rather, to use an image from grammar, presbytery councils may request other councils ‘to synod’—as a verb-- around a particular matter.  Discernment and initiative is now lodged with presbytery councils.