Nominee says society needs church to counter ‘alarming’ trends
A standing ovation honored a United Church of Christ nominee after she addressed the church’s General Synod Friday night, July 11, in Kansas City.
Receiving the applause was the Rev. Shari Prestemon, nominated for Associate General Minister and Co-Executive of Global Ministries. She had challenged Synod delegates not to tire in an “alarming” time in the U.S. and the world – and to offer the world pastoral care as well as prophetic courage.
“Some days it feels as if every core value we hold precious in the United Church of Christ, every scriptural command we take to heart, is under assault,” she said. In such times, the church’s work is “surely not easy” but “very important.”
Prestemon was no stranger to the 740 delegates she addressed. For 18 months she has the been the appointed, or “acting,” officer in the position for which she is now nominated. Delegates will vote Monday morning, July 14, on whether to formally elect her to that position.
“If it is God’s will and your will as General Synod, I’m ready to continue serving in this church that I have long loved,” Prestemon told them.
Her 30-year-plus UCC career has included work as a local church pastor, director of the well-known Back Bay Mission in Mississippi, and Conference Minister in Minnesota. She was nominated by the UCC Board in March. Its process and its praise for her are described here.
On Friday night, a longtime colleague, the Rev. Shayna Johnson, Conference Minister of the Illinois South Conference, introduced the candidate as “a cradle UCC’er who loves the church with her whole being.”

Prestemon noted the work she oversees now and will continue to if elected: the UCC’s ministries around the globe and at the United Nations, in public policy and advocacy in Washington, D.C., in disaster response, volunteer ministries, and migration and refugee services.
“We are living in times of immense anxiety and instability in this nation and around the world,” she said. “Fear is both a completely legitimate experience and a weapon used to intimidate and isolate us. Peace is a far too distant reality for siblings in many places – Sudan, Haiti, Gaza and Ukraine among them.
“People are disappeared, plucked off our streets, given no due process, detained and deported. There is an increasing price for lawful dissent and protest, an actual risk to prioritizing or even naming values like diversity, equity and inclusion. … We have slammed shut our nation’s door to refugees and largely abandoned our humanitarian support around the world.”
Political violence, she said, “is rising and deeply alarming, stoked by nationalist, racist rhetoric and ideologies.”
But lest the church lose hope, she offered three insights about why the UCC still has, and can have, an impact:
• “Authentic partnerships and genuine relationships” matter. “When our own government talks about turning Gaza into the Middle East Riviera and makes plans for Ukraine without Ukraine’s involvement, when we’re abandoning so much of our positive engagement in the world in favor of a hardened, America-first, imperialistic world view, building global relationships of mutual care and respect is a counter-cultural imperative.”
• “The prophetic and the pastoral are bound up together.” She said “quiet conversations and pastoral care” are as important as speaking out with courage. “Our prophetic witness is strengthened when we are also intentional about our pastoral presence, our willingness to be proximate to the pain.”
• “Small numbers don’t equal small ministry.” The UCC’s impact ranges from local churches’ work in their cities and towns to the 53,000 messages members sent to Congress “advocating for just and caring legislation” in the first 100 days of the current U.S. administration alone. “I will never underestimate our collective capacity to make a difference in this world, and I hope you won’t either.”
As a nominee for a churchwide office, Prestemon faces an unusual future.
If the Synod elects her, she may hold the office in its current form for only a limited time. That’s because Synod delegates – meeting through July 15 – may vote to change the UCC Constitution and Bylaws. If they do, and if the church’s Conferences (regional bodies) ratify the changes, Prestemon won’t be an elected officer anymore. Her office will become an appointed staff position sometime between now and 2028.
But none of that came up Friday night. Prestemon said that, if elected, she would be “ready to partner with you and build our relationships, to see you and listen deeply to you and to our global partners. … May God continue to grant each one of us courage in the ongoing struggle for justice and peace, and faith enough to trust in the future God has surely promised.”
You can watch a recap of Rev. Prestemon’s remarks below. Catch the full plenary session via our livestream LINK.
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