The Presbytery of Yukon seeks to bear witness in the world to the saving and transforming grace of God by caring for and connecting local ministries in the service of the triune God and of all God's creation.
Adopted October 2017
The Presbytery of Yukon is a mid-council of the Presbyterian Church (USA) or PCUSA for short, kind of like how Alaska is a state within the United States. Our beliefs follow the Reformed Tradition of Christianity, which traces its roots back to John Calvin during the 16th century Protestant Reformation. The anchor of our tradition is the belief in the sovereignty of God. That assurance provides the foundation for our service in the world, responding to God’s call to work for peace and justice for all.
While our office is based in Anchorage, Alaska, the Presbytery of Yukon covers an incredibly large geographic area. Our 20 churches are located in large urban areas, small rural communities, and Alaska Native villages "off the road system," including the two communities on St. Lawrence Island, a small island only 50 nautical miles from the Chukchi Peninsula of Russia.
The PC(USA) has a storied and complicated history in Alaska from the founding of Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka to playing a role in the organization of the North Slope Borough in the 1980's. Our presbytery has been a leader in calling the denomination to account for its destructive role in colonization. In 2013, then-Executive Presbyter Rev. Curt Karns delivered an official public apology on the floor of the annual meeting of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) for the Presbyterian Church's active role in the Native boarding school movement and other actions that have caused ongoing intergenerational harm. In 2016, Alaska Native leaders in the presbytery invited denomination leadership to attend Kivgiq, a five-day Iñupiaq celebration in Utqiaġvik, where further apologies were offered along with ongoing commitment to reconciling actions.
In the Presbytery of Yukon, we celebrate our unity in diversity, recognizing the unique histories, cultures, and languages of our Iñupiat and Siberian Yup’ik congregations as well as those of our English and Korean speaking congregations. We hold fast to the PCUSA values of being “reformed and always reforming.”