General Presbytery Info

Like many Presbyteries in the PC(USA), the Presbytery of Tampa Bay has recently undergone a transformation process which has left us looking much different than we did even 10 years ago.

If you’re new to our Presbytery, you may want to read the information below that describes our committee structure and basic ideas about how we do presbytery. Additionally, you’ll want to read the report of the Transformation Team as well as the pages on the About menu of this website.

So how is the Presbytery of Tampa Bay unique? The main difference you may note from Presbytery as Usual is that we do most of our work regionally in commissions and focus on networks of like minded people. The Presbytery also adopted a new mission statement, some common values, and a more relational, bottom up model of doing its work.

Our Mission Statement, to identify and strengthen leaders so that every congregation makes new and mature disciples for Jesus Christ, helps us to keep our focus on leadership development and outreach.  Practically, this means that there is usually a component of training at Presbytery meetings, but also that there are intentional relational opportunities for us to get to know other leaders, particularly in our network groups.

The core values we adopted during the transformation were to be relentlessly congregational, meaningfully connected, faithfully constitutional and unapologetically Christ-Centered. We want to focus on helping our congregations succeed, our Teaching and Ruling Elders to know and lean on one another, our processes and meetings distinctively Presbyterian, while focusing not on ourselves but on our Leader, Christ.

Information about particular meetings of Presbytery may be found on the Presbytery Meetings page, although information about past meetings is limited to logged in users.

A Brief Overview of our Committees and Commissions:

• COM (Commission on Ministry)
  • The Commission on Ministry is the primary body responsible for making decisions about relationships between pastors and churches, whether a particular pastor may become a member of the Presbytery, etc. It does its work primarily in regions.
• CPM (Commission on Preparation for Ministry)
  • The Commission on Preparation is the primary body responsible for those seeking to become ministers, also known as Inquirers and Candidates.
• CCV (Commission on Church Vitality)
  • They have all kinds of expert advice, resources and money to give away to churches, with some left over every year.
• NRC (Nominating and Representation Committee)
  • Responsible for nominating Clergy and Elders to most committees and commissions.
• Trustees (Board of Trustees)
  • The Trustees handle the legal side of Presbytery business, implementing decisions of the main body, but also approving requests from churches for things like leasing their sanctuary, selling property, etc.
• CT (Coordinating Team)
  • As the leadership group of the Presbytery, the Coordinating Team is made up of the chairs of each group above, as well as the Moderator and Vice-Moderator. The outgoing Moderator acts as the chair of the CT (and convener for their Region), while the Treasurer, Stated Clerk and Presbytery Coach and Coordinator all serve as ex officio members of the Team.