Rhonda Kruse is celebrated with a retirement cake by leaders from Lehigh and Lackawanna Presbyteries during a Synod of the Trinity regional gathering in Allentown, PA, earlier this year.
When Rhonda Kruse was called to Lehigh Presbytery in September of 2019, she was given the title of “transitional leader.” What exactly Lehigh was transitioning into at the time was still to be determined.
Fast forward nearly five years and everything is now clear regarding the path of the presbytery. Lehigh and neighbor Lackawanna Presbytery are in the process of merging into one presbytery, enabling the two regions to share staff and resources as they go forward. While there are still several formalities that need to be completed before the merger is finalized, the heavy lifting has been done to get to this point.
With her contract expiring after five years and the satisfaction of the upcoming merger in Rhonda’s back pocket, she has decided to retire from her position as a transitional leader, a post that she now holds at both Lehigh and Lackawanna Presbyteries.
“I feel like A) I’m tired,” she said. “B) I really did what I was called here to do, which was to help initially Lehigh, and then Lehigh and Lackawanna, become more sustainable into the future and find a new way forward that could help them better support their congregations, which is the mission of a presbytery.”
Denise Pass has been called as an executive presbyter to lead both Lehigh and Lackawanna Presbyteries. She started on Aug. 1, giving Rhonda a month to be a resource and answer any questions for Denise before she guides both mid councils on her own. While Rhonda would find pleasure in leading the presbyteries through the final mile of the merger, handing the reins over to Denise is something with which she’s very comfortable.
“I’m really good with where we are,” Rhonda said. “I’m happy to step aside. It’s really not about me. It is about the presbytery leadership carrying this forward. We have a merger coordinator (Karen Kinney) who is providing the continuity between me and Denise. I feel like I’ve done my job, I’ve done what I was brought here to do. It’s time for new energy.
“Doing the work of getting us this far has been different work than what is going to be needed when there is a new presbytery. The merger work is one thing, but living into the merger is different.”
When Rhonda was hired five years ago, it was initially for a three-year term. Then the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 disrupted the timing for many conversations surrounding the merger, and Rhonda agreed to stay on for two more years to help get Lehigh through the pandemic and continue to push forward with merger talks.
Lehigh Presbytery had been without an executive presbyter for four years when Rhonda was hired in the fall of 2019, and Lackawanna had a series of part-time leaders until Rhonda was called to guide that mid council in July of 2022. That stability alone helped those two presbyteries gain new traction as merger talks ramped up.
Initially, the presbyteries of Lehigh, Lackawanna and Northumberland were all involved in a merger conversation when Rhonda was hired in 2019. Northumberland eventually dropped out of the talks, and Lackawanna wasn’t quite ready to make that move five years ago.
“Lehigh had been ready since I got here,” Rhonda recalled. “That was what I was brought here to do was to find partners. We were ready to move on and find another option.”
Talks of merging died down for a few years until the spring of 2022 when staffing changes, specifically related to the stated clerk, treasurer and office administrator in both Lehigh and Lackawanna, led to the two mid councils sharing personnel. This eventually included Rhonda also splitting time between the presbyteries as their transitional leader. It was the first step in seeing that a merger of the two presbyteries could work.
“At the same time, we were focusing on building relationships among the people in both presbyteries,” Rhonda said. “The key to the success of all of this was that we were very deliberate about having in-person only meetings, starting in November of ’22. We got to know each other, started working on trying to make sure that relationships were being built.”
Rhonda Kruse holds a congratulatory bouquet of flowers while being surrounded by her colleagues on the Synod of the Trinity’s Governing Commission in Williamsport in June.
The merger of Lehigh and Lackawanna Presbyteries is certainly a feather in Rhonda’s cap, and she’s proud of the work she and her team has accomplished.
“For the presbyteries, it’s the bridge-building between the two presbyteries that have been neighbors waving across the fence,” she said when asked about the “sweet spot” of her time in Lehigh and Lackawanna. “The fact that I was able to be the bridge that connected them and really started moving toward partnership and eventually merger, I really feel good about that.
“Another thing, on a personal level, my relationships with my colleagues in the Synod are something that are very important to me. I really appreciated those relationships and will miss them.
“I really appreciate the Synod of the Trinity. All of the staff are wonderful. The Synod has been very supportive of me as well as the presbytery, and every synod is not like that. I have only positive things to say about being part of the Synod of the Trinity.”
The friendships she has made in the last five years are something Rhonda will miss and look back fondly on as she heads into retirement.
“I think being a presbytery executive is one of the hardest jobs in the denomination because you’re squeezed between congregational expectations and denominational expectations,” she said. “The job encompasses so many different facets of ministry. It’s hard, hard work, but what I’ll miss are the times when you see fruit being borne from that work.
“When a congregation does something creative with a grant from the presbytery or when you see congregations working together, these are glimpses of a really good ministry that you get sometimes. I’ll miss that, those success stories.
“I’ll miss the people. I’ve developed some good relationships with a lot of the people I’ve worked most closely with, and I will miss them.”
Upon retirement, Rhonda and her husband are moving to Wisconsin to be near their daughter, who is getting married in early September. But if you go to visit there’s no guarantee they’ll be home. Her goal is to see all the Major League Baseball parks as well as all the national parks, with a stop in Alaska at the top of her bucket list.
“The plan is to travel around the country and go to baseball games and national parks,” said Rhonda, a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. “There is a lot of this country to see and a lot of baseball parks that I haven’t been to.”
She’ll probably spend some time reflecting on her days in Lehigh and Lackawanna while on those journeys. She’ll have fond memories of those times, and all that God has allowed her to experience.
“The fact that I was brought here to serve as the transitional leader was the Spirit’s movement because it really brought together all the ministry that I’ve done through the years,” said Rhonda, a former mission engagement advisor for the Presbyterian Mission Agency. “All the experience and what I’ve learned from each of my experiences was really focal in my work here. The way that everything worked together, as far as the partnership and merger, was really the Spirit making an opening, God creating a way forward when I had sort of given up on that.”