National Capital Presbytery endorses GA moderator candidate

The Rev. Bill Teng seeks to restore ‘sense of hope’ in denomination

LOUISVILLE, November 29, 2007 – A desire to “go back to the basics” and help the denomination regain hope is what has propelled the Rev. Bill Teng to stand for the position of moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The Rev. Bill Teng

National Capital Presbytery endorsed Teng’s candidacy on Tuesday, Nov. 27. Teng served as moderator of the presbytery in 2004.

“Our denomination at this time really needs to have a sense of hope,” said Teng, pastor at Heritage Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Va.

With churches leaving the PC(USA) and the report of the General Assembly’s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church still unsettling, “there needs to be someone who could stand up and remind our church what its primary calling is, and that is to go back to the basics, to put our emphasis on mission and evangelism.”

“Bill has been a significant leader in this presbytery,” said the Rev. G. Wilson Gunn Jr., general presbyter. He has worked “tirelessly” at various issues, especially cross-cultural understanding, he said.

Teng was born in Hong Kong, China, and moved to the United States at the age of 18. He is a fourth-generation Presbyterian pastor and said he has a great sense of “gospel debt” to the denomination that led his great grandfather to Christianity.

“I look at myself as a product of Presbyterian mission,” he said. Teng said he is still developing his platform of issues but that he will emphasize “what’s important to the church” and what kind of witness it can have to the world.

He added that one thing that was particularly “edifying” to him in receiving his presbytery’s endorsement was the support shown from both conservative and liberal sides of the denomination. “I think that really meant a lot to me,” he said.