What’s in a name?

LOUISVILLE — Goodbye, Interim Unified Agency.

Hello, Presbyterian Life & Witness.

On Thursday, the Unification Commission affirmed the new name, which takes effect immediately. The new moniker also comes with a tagline, “Serving God’s Mission in the World.”

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“There was a lot of work done thinking about values and purpose and getting clarity,” the Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and Executive Director of Presbyterian Life & Witness, explained to the UC. A committee evaluated a number of suggested new names and wrote a report about its work. Senior leaders “felt it was almost there but not quite,” Oh said.

A key piece that emerged was that the name Presbyterian Life & Witness wasn’t considered because one of the four work areas was already named Denominational Life & Witness, Oh noted.

“We thought, what if we called that something different?” Oh said. That name was changed to Denominational Identity and Formation.

Senior leaders then worked with members of the Communications Ministry to come up with branding options. “They gave us good guidance on thinking of a branded house versus a house of brands.”

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Asked to explain that, Oh pointed across the street from the Presbyterian Center to the Yum! Center. Yum! is better known by its component brands, Oh explained, including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. “Our approach is a branded house. It is the [former] agency as a whole, with the different areas being streams of the agency.”

Commissioner the Rev. Debra Avery asked about names well-known to many Presbyterians, including 1001 New Worshiping Communities, the Matthew 25 partnership and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, among others. How will they be known?

“We are in transition,” Oh said. “We will carry those things that are really recognizable for folks.”

Commissioners also saw a handful of logos developed by PC(USA) graphic designers. Among them: Ecumenical & Interreligious Relations, Advocacy & Witness, Leader Development, Restorative Justice, and Advocacy & Witness, each followed by “A Ministry of Presbyterian Life & Witness.”

Each includes the familiar PC(USA) cross, which includes a descending dove, a fish, a pulpit, an open Bible, and other denominational symbols.

“I really like this,” said Commissioner the Rev. Dr. Frances Lin, the presbytery leader for Riverside Presbytery. “It feels closer to our ministry, where we’re living this out.”

Oh said a standards guide will be published soon to ensure uniform usage moving forward.

Once they’d affirmed the new name, commissioners applauded.

Worship

Commission Co-Moderator the Rev. Dr. Felipe Martínez offered a homily during morning worship based on 1 Cor. 3:4-9 and 18-21. He went back to early days in his ministry, when Whitewater Valley Presbytery, where the church he was serving was located, was in partnership with churches in Mexico. They asked their friends in Mexico: if money were not an issue, what would you want to do in ministry?

Plant 10 churches in 10 years, their friends said, and so Presbyterians in Indiana began financially supporting church planters in Mexico.

They also sought support for building projects, which also occurred. The third request was to write Vacation Bible School curriculum in Spanish that could be used in faith communities in Mexico, with Indiana Presbyterians writing two days’ worth and Presbyterians in Mexico the other three days’. Martínez, who is bilingual, edited five years of VBS curriculum, and talented musicians and artists added their gifts as well. “We made it available to anyone who wanted it,” Martínez said.

At the peak of the exchange, around 2010, 10% of U.S. Presbyterians who headed south of the border on mission trips were from Whitewater Valley Presbytery, according to Martínez.

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“The seed God planted that was watered and tended to by hundreds of Mexican and American Presbyterians yielded surprising fruit,” Martínez said. “We have to be willing to live in whatever part of the story God places us.”

He noted that the UC had been working nearly four years on its General Assembly mandate to combine the former Office of the General Assembly and Presbyterian Mission Agency into its present form. “We have planted and we have harvested,” Martínez said. “We are now releasing the work, God’s work. God will take our imperfect labor and bless it as God’s holy work.”

Proposed 2027-28 unified budget

Commissioner the Rev. Scott Lumsden of the UC’s Resource Coordination Committee said the committee received the proposed unified budget for 2027-28 last week. The UC will consider the budget proposal before sending it on to the 227^th General Assembly this summer for its consideration.

“It’s balanced, as promised,” Lumsden said, adding his appreciation to Oh and to Ian Hall, president of the A Corporation, and to their teams. “We are aware of weekend meetings and long hours in the office to coordinate the budget,” Lumsden said. “It’s a rather large undertaking.”

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall, a senior director in Presbyterian Life and Witness, and the Rev. Edwin González-Castillo, director of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, discussed how dividing PDA into its national and international response components isn’t having a negative effect on the work that’s being done.

Some of the year-at-a-glance figures for 2025 include:

• $8.3 million granted in 38 countries and 28 U.S. states and Puerto Rico
• 147 National Response Team members deployed to 42 presbyteries
• More than 2,000 volunteers were housed at 13 host sites. Their donated work was worth more than $1.8 million.
• About $1.7 million in migrant accompaniment ministry grants were approved
• PDA’s sixth documentary film, “Evicting the American Dream,” premiered in Dayton, Ohio, and then was screened with community partners in 19 cities. The film is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
• PDA reached more than 800 people engaged in disaster response and recovery through emotional and spiritual care programs.
• The international response includes drought mitigation and disaster risk reduction in India; humanitarian support for conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Ukraine and neighboring countries that are hosting refugees; clean water projects in Haiti and Malawi; and food security, health care and other services in countries including Cameroon, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Sierra Leone.

“You see the numbers in the document and they’re impressive, and then you hear the stories of people working in communities, serving and making relationships,” González-Castillo said. “It’s work done for all God’s children, not just Presbyterians. That’s something we’re proud of.”

“PDA has always worked through mid councils,” Schlosser-Hall said. “Most of us aren’t reading about the Southern California wildfires now, but PDA is there.”

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“The idea of showing up and then leaving soon is not a true response. It leaves the aftermath of the situation untouched,” González-Castillo said. “One thing I love about PDA’s work is we recognize the need for long-term engagement.”

International response work taken on by PDA will be done alongside PC(USA) partners including Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Schlosser-Hall said.

“We don’t do this work alone. We recognize this is work done in partnership,” said González-Castillo, naming partners including the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People, Presbyterian Hunger Program, the Office of Public Witness and Global Ecumenical Partnerships.

Co-Moderators report

Martínez and his fellow co-moderator, Cristi Scott Ligon, said Presbyterian Life & Witness “is experiencing the benefit of having a single leadership role.”

“Jihyun has stepped into this role with incredible courage — the courage to make change in a system that doesn’t like to change fast, and the courage to lead her team in making difficult decisions for the [former] agency that serves a changing denomination.”

That single leadership role has been “particularly important in the unified budget process, leading the … staff in partnership with Administrative Services Group leaders to reshape and refine a budget process for this new unified organization,” they said. Oh has also “been intentional in collaborating with the senior leadership team by empowering them within their areas of responsibility, ensuring alignment with the vision and values they have articulated together.”

Staff members “are learning new collaborative ways of working within the structure, ensuring there are more voices at decision-making tables, and people across the [former] agency are in sync.”

The two said that “through our work since the UC took on the role of governance, we have focused on modeling the way in which we hope the new board that succeeds us will govern.”

The co-moderators said they would be “remiss if we didn’t take a moment to recognize” the nine other commissioners “for the many hours they have committed to the work and to one another. … For today, we want to say thank you for your dedication and your willingness to serve the church in such a forward-looking manner.”

Committees of the Unification Commission will meet Friday in closed session. The commission will meet online April 13 and 28 before its final meeting before the 227^th General Assembly, in person in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 21-22.