Second candidate jumps into moderator's race By Jerry L. Van Marter Presbyterian News Service Tuesday, December 5, 2000 Anderson Sale LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Presbytery of the Peaks has endorsed its general presbyter, the Rev. M. Anderson "Andy" Sale, as a candidate for moderator of the 213th General Assembly, which convenes here June 9 of next year. Sale joins Nancy Maffett, an elder from Colorado Springs, Colo., in Pueblo Presbytery, in the race for the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s highest elected office. Sale has led the Blacksburg, Va.-based presbytery for the last five years. He previously served as executive presbyter for Missouri Union Presbytery and has also pastored churches in Kentucky and Virginia. While acknowledging that the issue of human sexuality is very important to the church and will no doubt be the most hotly debated topic at the assembly, Sale told the presbytery that "there are more basic issues which are being left unattended, particularly the future well-being of our congregations and the strength of our clergy and lay leadership." He added, "A survivalist anxiety has captured the heart of this great and historic denomination which needs to be shaken off to address the spiritual needs of 21st century America." Sale said, "Voices from the left and from the right of our church have even called for a division of our fellowship, which has further sapped the spiritual energies of the broad middle of our Presbyterian Church." He called for "a re-forming effort" with its central focus "in the work of the 173 presbyteries, which are the middle governing bodies of the Presbyterian Church. This is where the well-being of congregations and their leadership are most immediately addressed." During his moderatorial year, Sale said, he would like to call together Presbyterian leaders and their counterparts from other denominations to a wide-ranging symposium on the challenges and strategies for congregation transformation and leadership development among mainline churches in 21st century America. Sale was born and raised in Charleston, W.Va. He graduated from Davidson (N.C.) College in 1964 and from Union Theological Seminary-PSCE in Richmond, Virginia in 1968. He did other post-graduate work at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and at Union-PSCE. He has three grown children with his spouse Frances Wood Sale, who is an elementary guidance counselor in the Lynchburg (Va.) City Public Schools.

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