Greenlake, WIS. -- Ministers Council Executive Director Rev. Dr. Kate Harvey, who has provided leadership for the only clergy advocacy group for American Baptist pastors for 14 years, announced her retirement effective August 2008.
In the interim, the executive committee will appoint an acting executive director who would begin duties immediately upon Harvey’s retirement. This three-year position will be held by someone who knows Ministers Council structure and is seasoned and well known among ABC pastoral leaders. In the meantime, the executive committee will conduct a national search for a permanent executive director.
“It has been a journey of profound joy, most of the time. There have been a few Elijah moments. Now it is time to be thinking about looking forward,” Harvey said.
Harvey leaves the council at a time when it is in “good financial standing, and not distracted by controversy that would move us away from our purpose,” according to Rev. Dr. Alice Greene, national president of the Ministers Council. “Kate’s imprint on this organization is powerful and positive and will be with us for a long, long time.”
Harvey has led the council through its growth and expansion of ministries which include collegial small groups, national conferences, and the building of stronger constituent councils. She was the architect of a national call for ABC pastors to hold local “Jerusalem Councils” for dialogue on the issue of biblical interpretation and homosexuality in the faith community.
“If anybody ever embodied grace under pressure it was Kate during the Jerusalem Council process,” said Dr. Joe Kutter, immediate past president of the Ministers Council.
Harvey is a graduate of Andover Newton Theological School, and has a D.Min. from Hartford Seminary. During a sabbatical, she received the Merrill Fellowship at Harvard Divinity School. Her studies there were the catalyst for the collegial groups, one the most successful programs of the Ministers Council.
“The capstone of an absolutely transforming ministry to the Ministers Council has been the TIM program,” Kutter said.