January 2026 Leadership Council Highlights

The Leadership Council of the Des Moines Presbytery met on January 20. Some highlights:

• Plans for the Presbytery meeting on Saturday, February 14, were discussed. The Rev. Doug Baker, a retired PCUSA Teaching Elder who has served as a Mission Co-Worker in Northern Ireland, will be preaching and sharing with us about his ministry and work there. His theme will be Living Into Hope. The offering for that day will go to assist immigrant ministries in the Minneapolis area.

• As part of this year’s discernment process for the future of the 3 presbyteries, Listening Sessions are being planned throughout our Presbytery. These Listening Sessions will be located at Hartford, Allerton, Lenox, West Des Moines Covenant, and Atlantic. There will also be two Listening Session conducted as Zoom meetings. Look for future communiques about the date and times of these meetings. Each of these gatherings will be facilitated by two members of your Leadership Council. Their purpose is to provide a way for everyone to become involved in this time of discernment. We want your questions, ideas, concerns and most of all your prayers! Please try to attend one of these sessions.

• On January 22 the members of all three of the presbytery councils will be meeting for a joint zoom meeting. This three-hour gathering will be to orient new members of council, to receive training on how to facilitate the upcoming listening sessions, and to begin the nitty-gritty work of discernment. Three teams have been organized to do this work: Administration, Mission Values, and Communication. Each member of all three councils will be on one of these teams. We have set ourselves deadlines for completing this work so that by the Fall each of our Presbyteries will be prepared to discuss and vote on what we believe to be God’s will for the future of our Presbyteries.