Executive Director Will Retire

PRESS RELEASENovember 3, 2010The board of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians has announced that its executive director, Pamela Byers, will retire in summer 2011. Byers has held the position since the founding of the Covenant Network in 1997. The group was originally formed to remove the constitutional language about ordination standards that indirectly but effectively prohibited gay and lesbian Presbyterians from serving as elders, deacons, and ministers of the Word and Sacrament. “This year’s General Assembly adopted all but one of the Covenant Network’s recommendations, including sending Amendment 10-A to the presbyteries,” Byers said.  “In the next months, I’ll be working very hard with colleagues all across the church to pass this amendment and return the church to its traditional means of discerning and approving the calls of qualified and gifted Presbyterians.”Covenant Network Co-Moderator Deborah Block, pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Milwaukee, said, “Pam Byers has labored for our vision of an inclusive, engaged, and united church with unfaltering  ‘energy, intelligence, imagination, and love,’ successfully leading the way to the current Amendment 10-A now before the presbyteries.”  Co-Moderator David Van Dyke, pastor of the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, said “Pam has set a clear path for our first thirteen years.  The new Executive Director will work with our board to envision our life together in a ‘post-B’ church – a church that has removed its most contentious issue by passing the essential constitutional change represented by Amendment 10-A.”An Executive Search Team of the board will solicit applications for a new Executive Director to begin in summer 2011. Byers is an elder at Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco and is actively involved in her presbytery.  A graduate of Wellesley College and Rutgers University, she earned a Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree from the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 2009.An initial celebration of her leadership will be part of the Covenant Network’s upcoming conference in Houston (November 4-6), with a formal event to follow in San Francisco in May, 2011.#   #   #