The outgoing leader of the Presbyterian Mission Agency preaches during Wednesday’s chapel service and is honored afterward
by Layton Williams Berkes | for Presbyterian News Service
The Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett brings some of those in worship to their feet during Wednesday chapel worship at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Alex Simon)
At Wednesday’s PC(USA) chapel service, the Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett offered her final sermon as president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency. She offered an honest, invigorating, and hopeful message calling on listeners to receive and bear witness to the light of Jesus, even and especially in the face of an uncertain future.
Ministry colleagues from across the denomination and around the world gathered both in person at PC(USA) headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, and online via Zoom to recognize her ministry and give thanks for her six years of service as the head of PMA. Moffett was also joined in person by her husband Mondre while her daughter, the Rev. Eustacia Moffett Marshall, cheered on from zoom.
Wednesday morning’s service began with opening remarks of welcome and gratitude from the Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III, director of Theology, Formation, & Evangelism, and Sara Lisherness, Deputy Executive Director for Mission Program. Jones and Lisherness invited those gathered in person and online to share words that “describe Diane’s ministry.” Lisherness offered up “prophet, poet, and pastor,” while Jones named “transformative, visionary, leadership.” In the Zoom chat, others mentioned Moffett’s energy, passion, spirit, and optimism.
Lawrence Robertson Jr. stirred chapel-attendees with stirring music leadership, while the Rev. Samuel Son, manager of Diversity and Reconciliation, performed an original spoken word poem about the subversive power of Matthew 25.
Other Presbyterian leaders also shared their appreciation for Moffett and her work during the service and after. She was introduced by PMA Board co-chairs, the Rev. Dr. Matt Bussell and the Rev. Michelle Hwang, as well as the Rev. Jihyun Oh, Executive Director and Stated Clerk of the General Assembly for the interim unified agency. Oh mentioned that she was scheduled to be at a gathering in Grand Cayman, but knew she needed to be present to honor and celebrate Moffett’s ministry. After the sermon, the Rev. Shannan Vance Ocampo and the Rev. Warren Lesane shared publicly some of the praise for Moffett’s work offered by the PMA Board at her most recent annual review.
The Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett and the Rev. Jihyun Oh are pictured during Wednesday’s celebration of Moffett’s six-year career leading the Presbyterian Mission Agency. (Photo by Alex Simon)
The service was followed by an informal reception at the Presbyterian Center, where Moffett was greeted warmly by well-wishers, such as the Rev. Carlton Johnson, associate director of Theology, Formation & Evangelism.
Johnson said he couldn’t help but be present for the event considering what a great mentor Moffett has been to him over the last six years. He credits her with furthering his leadership growth.
“I count her not only as a mentor by proxy but a mentor in deed,” Johnson said. “She’s shared some incredible five-minute, 20-minute, half-hour conversations” and he feels confident that the work she’s been called to will continue as will their friendship.
The Rev. Ellen Sherby, associate director for Global Connections, which is part of Presbyterian World Mission, also sang Moffett’s praises.
“I wanted to come here to celebrate Diane and to honor her and her ministry and the legacy she’s left in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and I know it’s also a time of lament, so to be present in the lament and to be present in the celebration and the hope for the future that she so faithfully has always spoken to us,” she said.
Sherby added, “I admire her leadership because she leads with such deep faith, and I wanted to be present. I know she will not be leaving Louisville, and I hope and expect to see her again in the future” through Presbyterian circles or other interactions in the community.
The Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett relied on scriptures from Isaiah and John during her sermon Wednesday. (Photo by Alex Simon)
Moffett’s sermon centered on Isaiah 43:16-19 and John 1:1-5 and 9-14. After mentioning the annual theme words of “emerge,” “evolve,” and “embody,” which have focused the work of the PMA for the last three years, Moffett made frank commentary on the space of transition and liminality in which the interim unified agency finds itself, and the heavy weight of uncertainty about employment futures for both herself and potentially other colleagues. She named what she herself and no doubt others have been feeling, “fear and anxiety about the future yet to be realized.”
Moffett then expanded her scope to the broader church and to the United States. She touched on the stakes of the upcoming presidential election and the immense polarization currently defining American politics. Moving on to the church, she described the doom and gloom predictions and statistics about declining membership in many Christian denominations. Then she drew on reflections from the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, in questioning whether we ought to be lamenting the decline of a Protestant mainline that has white supremacy baked into its foundations.
Having set the scene of darkness in which we currently find ourselves, Moffett clarified that this darkness is “a concept, not a color” as it has historically been misappropriated to demonize people of color. Instead, she explained, “we are obscured … we do not see what’s happening.” This is the darkness into which God shines light in the form of Jesus Christ, Moffett proclaimed.
Moffett dove into her own upbringing and her early faith experiences with her grandparents in Berkeley, California. She was profoundly impacted by her grandmother’s devotion to God, which she saw embodied in ardent daily prayer on behalf of those she loved and “unmatched curiosity and energy to engage” with the Bible every day. From these powerful foundational encounters with deep faith, Moffett said she was “caught, infected, and transformed by the light of Jesus.”
The Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett chats with well-wishers during a celebration of her time leading the Presbyterian Mission Agency. (Photo by Alex Simon)
“We have the right to be children of God,” she told those gathered for worship. “We have a parent who cares enough to come to us via special delivery” in the light of Jesus. In gratitude for this gift, Moffett said, “we are called to bear witness to the light.” Naming out the core components of the Matthew 25 movement, which has defined much of her ministry at PMA, Moffett said that this is what the work of bearing witness and “re-presenting Christ to the world” looks like: building congregational vitality, dismantling racism, eradicating systemic poverty, and working to combat militarism, heteropatriarchy and climate change.
Moffett highlighted reparations work in Juneau, Alaska organized by the Center for the Repair of Historic Harms. The delegation of PC(USA_ leaders, which included Moffett and the then-acting Stated Clerk, the Rev. Bronwen Boswell, revolved around addressing the racist closure of Memorial Presbyterian Church in Juneau in 1963 and seeking to offer apologies and reparations.
“Rays of light can be felt breaking through decades of darkness as we began talking about the repair work,” Moffett said, adding, “The embodied Word makes a difference.” This was a refrain that she repeated throughout her sermon as she called on listeners to engage in justice work like affordable housing, community centers, and economic corridors and to elect leaders who best align with the embodied Word.
“The light gives us power … Holy Ghost power to be effective with what we do,” she preached.
As Moffett closed her sermon, she took a moment to express gratitude for her time leading the PMA, saying that she “had a blast” and has “always had a joy” in her ministry. She spoke on the kind of leader she believes Christians are all called to be and that she has sought to be.
“A manager does things right, but a leader does the right thing.”
Six years of the Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett’s innovative ministry leading the Presbyterian Mission Agency were celebrated Wednesday at the Welcome Center in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Alex Simon)
Comments from others both before and after the sermon emphasized certainty that, while her time at PMA is over, Moffett’s commitment to God and ministry in the world will continue. Moffett herself affirmed this intention in her closing, quoting the famous Christian song in vowing, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”
Then, in keeping with the collaborative and empowering nature that many others had lifted up about her, Moffett finished by turning her own promise into a call to action for everyone else. “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine,” she repeated again and again, gesturing to the gathered as she returned to her seat amid a standing ovation.
Moffett concluded her tenure at PMA on Oct. 31 after spending her final days of service meeting with the PMA Board at its final meeting before it, too, concludes its work at the end of 2024.
Communications strategist Darla Carter contributed to this report.
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