Ruth Santana-Grace visited with descendants of Bikini Atoll now living in Ejit, Madura Atoll, Marshall Islands during her two-year term as co-moderator of the 225th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Bikini residents were forced to migrate due to nuclear testing by the United States between 1946 and 1958.
She traveled to Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Fiji in the South Pacific to learn of their witness and experience firsthand how climate change and migration is affecting that region. She visited Hawaii and met with local pastors. She visited with leaders in Puerto Rico and when visiting Italy, she met with leaders of the Waldensian-Methodist Church and she met the Pope.
To say that Ruth Santana-Grace’s two-year term as the co-moderator of the 225th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was an eye-opening experience would be a drastic understatement.
The 24-month service to the highest non-staffed elected office in the PC(USA) was extremely rewarding for Ruth, who continued to serve in her full-time role as the executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Philadelphia while co-moderating the denomination with Shavon Starling-Louis of North Carolina. Their terms ended in early July when Cecelia Armstrong and Tony Larson were elected and installed as the new co-moderators at the biennial gathering in Salt Lake City. Ruth has no regrets about her time as co-moderator.
“We were elected for a season, a season that was emerging from the pandemic, and our one goal as we understood it was to bring back hope, joy and incarnational presence to our denomination across the country,” Ruth said. “I believe we served the larger church faithfully and diligently. We tried to engage places that had not always been engaged in the past. I’m at peace and grateful for the time we had.
“Looking back I would say that we’ve had a love story with the congregations, leadership and pastors of our larger church. What a privilege to be able to say that. We were loved, blessed and embraced as we sought to love, bless and embrace those we encountered along the journey. I felt we did well for the season we were granted and called to.”
Among the highlights for Ruth were the different areas of the world to which she traveled where she experienced the hardships and day-to-day life of the indigenous populations in those lands.
“The trip to the South Pacific, Micronesia and Oceania, that was a world that I had never ventured into,” she explained. “I had the opportunity to learn about climate change, rising sea levels, forced migration; our delegation met with descendants of Bikini Island – listening to the stories of the forced relocations caused by USA nuclear testing. I was humbled and inspired by their hope and attempt to reclaim their narrative at a time when many of their islands are literally drowning.”
The excursion to the South Pacific marked the first time any moderator from the PC(USA) had traveled to that area to hear their stories and experience their culture. On her way, the PC(USA) delegation stopped in Oahu where one of the local Presbyterian pastors, The Rev. Ron Pfeifer of Mililani Presbyterian Church, hosted a gathering of leaders serving in Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, military contexts and schools.
The Rev. Ruth Santana-Grace spends a moment with Pope Francis at the Vatican in Rome in March 2024.
This “historic trip” was certainly a highlight for Ruth during her co-moderator term, with another being the brief encounter she had with Pope Francis in Rome. That very short conversation had a lasting effect on Ruth.
“What I loved about meeting the Pope was that I was witnessing this 87-year-old leader whose health is clearly vulnerable, still resisting systems within his more than 1,500-year institution that he believes need to be reformed. He is indefatigable in that effort,” she recalled. “It was a few days before Palm Sunday and there he was on his 13th anniversary – a joy in his face, a determination in his spirit.
“I came away encouraged for the task before us as a denomination, as we seek to reform our denominational institution that is 300-plus years old. In our brief exchange, I offered words of gratitude for his leadership, and he said something that I really came away with. He said, ‘Pray for me, not against me.’ Those words have stayed with me because I think we really could use some practice of that. It’s a reminder to pray for each other, not against each other, especially in times of stress.”
While being a co-moderator included lots of travel and relationship building, it’s what Ruth saw while visiting different areas of the United States that have impacted her.
“What I will miss is just the opportunity to experience firsthand the creative energy that is clearly being birthed and embodied throughout the country in our small, mid-sized and bigger churches,” Ruth said. “To experience that firsthand is quite the privilege.”
Among the relationships Ruth had to cultivate was the one with her co-moderator Shavon, someone she had never met until she was considering to stand as a co-moderator for the denomination in the spring of 2022. Despite their unfamiliarity with one another, this team flourished as the face of the PC(USA) for the last two years.
“It was all about the Holy Spirit,” Ruth said, referring to her new friendship with Shavon. “We talked for the first time in March (2022), and then we met in April. We had an easy run together. There was something unique about our relationship. We were very cognizant that we were ‘co’ (moderators). We didn’t want a ‘first chair’ and a ‘second chair.’
“We bought into our leadership model and leaned into each other. We clearly could have been separated by race and generation. Those things contribute to how we approach and view the world. But we were bound by our commitment to the local church, by our commitment to what is happening with seminary education, by our commitment to the LGBTQIA community. We believed and continue to believe that God is calling us to a new place. These values and theological conviction bound our spirits – we really had an easy and joyous time together.
“We were held close by a powerful spirit that kept us doing our dance. There was a spirit of grace that held us together, so it never became hard. It was a joy. We cried together, we laughed together, we worried about our families together. We are now bound for life.”
Rev. Ruth Santana-Grace and Rev. Shavon Starling-Louis moderate plenary at the 225th General Assembly in Louisville.
The duo spent many hours in the PC(USA)’s headquarters in Louisville attending denominational meetings. These were necessary gatherings that didn’t have the limelight of traveling to scenic islands or meeting the head of the Catholic church but that were just as important, nonetheless.
“When you finish an Assembly, one of your first tasks is to name the committees that were just formed, and those things require thoughtfulness,” Ruth explained. “These committees carry forth the work of the Assembly on behalf of the larger church. We were grateful for the staff in Louisville as they walked alongside us.”
Ruth and Shavon were able to bring greetings at five seminary presidential inaugurations during their tenures, something Ruth was excited to do but didn’t count on when she was named co-moderator. It was a historic season for our presbyterian seminaries. Another slightly unexpected surprise for Ruth during her term was her time at Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina where she honored her commitment to speak in front of more than a thousand high-schoolers, an agreement she made prior to being named co-moderator.
“I just preached at a church in Tennessee on their Rally Day because their youth asked their church leaders to invite me,” she said. “It was a surprise that I would connect with those students in a way that they still talk about. I didn’t know I’d rock with 1,200 high schoolers.
“That surprise serves as an affirmation that the church needs to make room for high schoolers, our youth, in more intentional ways, not simply view them as a program. Over two weeks of preaching, I experienced our youth as open, engaged, responsive, curious and full of grace. They were amazing. I’m so grateful that a world was opened up to me through them.”
All the knowledge Ruth has gained through these experiences she plans to bring back to the Presbytery of Philadelphia where she hopes to integrate what she’s learned into the ministries and missions of her own mid council.
“I learned that we need to continue to lean into our creativity, to be able to be flexible,” she said. “It emboldened my commitment to divine imagination and creativity. It gave me more permission to bring that spirit back. It helped me see the value of knowing what the left hand and right hand were doing, to be a word of encouragement for our communities of all sizes, especially our smaller churches as we consider new models of doing ministry. It’s made me reconsider some of the assumptions that have framed lots of our institutional patterns of leadership.”
As for what’s next, to Ruth’s knowledge, there isn’t any formal role for past moderators of the PC(USA) to continue serving in the denomination.
“I think this is an area where we might need to think about this a little more,” she said. “Former moderators and co-moderators have a unique insight into the denominational realities, the possibilities, the concerns. I think that’s an area of discernment and growth. I was grateful when the Unification Commission called on the former moderators for their insights.”
All told, it’s been an incredible two-year journey for Ruth, one that leaves her with so many memories and insights in a denomination that has led to not only a successful career, but a lifestyle.
“We were on eagle’s wings,” Ruth said of her time of service with Shavon. “Wherever we went, we were filled with this sense of gratitude for a people eager to tell their stories. It was clear God was with us from the beginning to the end.
“I am really grateful for the support I got from the Synod (of the Trinity) and my presbytery. The prayers, the rallying calls to keep going. No one knows what journey you’re embarking on. It’s a very unknown, uncharted journey and you make of it what you will. We were blessed by the communities which we serve.
“I also am mindful of the places I have stood that my parents – the late Rev. Felix Santana and Ruling Elder Carmen Santana – would have dreamt of on my behalf. I stand on their shoulders and on the shoulders of others who have struggled with finding their voices within our larger denomination. It has not always been an easy journey. I stand because others have stood!
“My prayers are now with Ceci and Tony as they lead through this next chapter. I am confident they will serve us well.
“And now, I’m glad to be back and focusing on the challenges and opportunities here in the greater Philadelphia area – with a greater appreciation for the challenges and opportunities everywhere.”
Ruth Santana-Grace received great joy from preaching at the Montreat Youth Conference in 2023.