Notes about people

by Jerry L. Van Marter
and Evan Silverstein

      Gwen Crawley, a longtime official in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD), has been named interim coordinator of the denomination’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP).

      She temporarily succeeds the Rev. Peter A. Sulyok, who was fired in November 2004 for his role in an ACSWP delegation’s visit with representatives of Hezbollah — which is on the U.S. government’s list of terrorist organizations — in southern Lebanon on Oct. 17.

For many years, Crawley was head of the PC(USA)’s international health ministries. In 1996 she served as interim director of WMD after the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick left that post following his election as General Assembly stated clerk. She temporarily filled the post vacated by the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who was elected General Assembly stated clerk at that year’s General Assembly in Albuquerque. 

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       Allen Hines, 80, the husband of Synod of Living Waters Communications Director Jane Hines, died Jan. 17 in a Nashville hospital after a brief illness. The World War II army veteran was retired after a long and distinguished career in the advertising business. Hines, who first worked as a reporter for two Tennessee newspapers, founded the Hart Street Press in Nashville after he retired.

       A longtime member and elder at Nashville’s Second Presbyterian Church, he and Jane were married for 50 years. In addition to her, he is survived by a daughter, Emily Hines Seibert of Richmond, VA; a son, Stuart Hines of Nashville; and three grandsons, Dylan, Quinn and Alex Seibert.

       A memorial service was held at Second church on Jan. 21.

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       A reception was held Jan. 21 at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva, Switzerland, honoring the retirement of the Rev. John R. Moyer, director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Frontier Internship in Mission (FIM) program since 1990.

FIM was started in 1960 through the PC(USA)’s Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations and a number of ecumenical partners. The program was administered from the Presbyterian office in New York until the 1970s when it was internationalized and moved to Geneva.

       The aim of the three-year program is to train persons for ecumenical and international leadership. High priority is given to internships that stress the role of churches in supporting racial and economic justice and in places where cultures are in crisis. FIM is funded by more than 20 national churches around the world, including the PC(USA).

Prior to his work with FIM, Moyer was director of the Northern California Ecumenical Council in San Francisco and the National Ecumenical Student Council in Oakland, CA. A graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, he has also served as a campus minister in Berkeley and Fullerton, CA, and overseas in France, Romania and the Netherlands.

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       The Rev. Bruce G. Ingles, a longtime interim pastoral ministry specialist in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) died Jan. 12 in Spartanburg, SC, near where he was serving as interim pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville, NC.

       Ingles, who died of an aortic aneurysm, previously served as interim pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, MI, where he had also served an interim 11 years earlier. He served other interim pastorates in Michigan and Ohio, as well as installed pastorates in Summit, NJ, and Naples, FL.

       He is survived by his wife, Carolyn, two daughters who live, with their families, in the Detroit area, and four grandchildren.

       Memorial services were held Jan. 16 in Ann Arbor and Jan. 19 in Hendersonville.