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Despite church politics and a faltering economy, PC(USA) is proceeding with mission initiative

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is testing the waters to see what kind of support there might be for embarking on a proposed $39.5 million fundraising campaign to pay for the denomination's mission work internationally and also new church development and redevelopment in the U.S.


Here’s what the numbers look like.

By 2004, the PC(USA) expects to be running short – it likely will need $2.8 million more than it will have on hand to pay for the costs of international mission work.

Over the next decade, if the denomination were to do all it wants to in overseas mission work – the complete wish list of all that the PC(USA)’s international partners would like to see done – and in new church development and redevelopment, particularly among congregations that minister to racial-ethnic and new immigrant groups, it would need an additional $200 million.

And Marian McClure, who leads the PCUSA’s Worldwide Ministries Division, is spending part of her time these days making phone calls to test the feasibility of launching the new fundraising campaign – referred to now as “The Mission Initiative” – which would try to raise $39.5 million from 2003 to 2006.

Denominational leaders hope to decide by late this year whether to formally propose such a fundraising campaign – they’re in the process now of checking in with about 80 people who are supporters of mission work, and who might give a sense of how this idea would be received.

GAC Executive Director John Detterick told the GAC executive committee Wednesday in Tempe, Ariz., that a consulting firm is doing a feasibility study for such a campaign and the results will be reported to the council in late January. He noted that it would not be a churchwide campaign , but would seek out donors with special interests in the various areas it would serve.

“This current climate could affect the reception of an appeal for international mission funds – that’s got me a little concerned,” along with the rough economy, McClure said. But, based on her initial phone calls, “I’m really encouraged. People who are really disappointed with things going on in the denomination” have said to her that international mission and evangelism “is exactly what we need to be concentrating on” to bring people together.”

She added: “I keep having this image of Jeremiah buying that plot of land, knowing that the Babylonians were coming.” Sometimes a bold initiative – a deliberate move to do more – “gives people the hope and the vision to get them through the hard times.”

Some doubt if time is right

But some say they’re not sure this is the time to try to approach individual donors for a major fundraising drive, with the confessing church ovement attracting adherents and the denomination poised to vote on the controversial question of whether to remove from the church’s Constitution language that now prohibits the ordination of gays and lesbians unless they are celibate.

The Outreach Foundation was founded in 1979 to help the Presbyterian church send more missionaries all over the world, so the idea of expanding evangelism is “something we want to be supportive of,” said its assistant director, Jefferson Ritchie. “I see the need for it – we share a common vision.”

Ritchie’s personal opinion – not speaking for the Outreach Foundation – is that “the geo-politics of the denomination make it very unlikely that any denominational campaign should be attempted at this time.”

With the potential existing for a denominational split, “I think people are going to want to see how the denomination weathers the current storms over the next six to eight months,” Ritchie said. “Maybe this is not the best time to do it, although we see the need.”

Detterick told the Mission Support Services Committee that he thinks the economy – not church politics – will be the big factor in how the church’s finances fare in the near future.

Started with a 1998 overture

The impetus behind the new proposal comes in part from Overture 98-47, which was presented to the 1998 General Assembly from Southeast Illinois Presbytery and called for establishing a supplemental overseas mission fund. That proposal was referred to the General Assembly Council for study – and along the way, the discussion expanded to also looking for ways to fund new church development and redevelopment, particularly among racial-ethnic groups.

Embedded in this discussion are some hard realities about the way international mission work in the PC(USA) gets funded. The denomination is spending about $14.1 million this year for international mission personnel – including salaries, benefits, children’s education and travel costs. Next year, it’s expected to cost an average of $89,411 per couple or $44,705 per person for the denomination to support mission co-workers.

And Worldwide Ministries is supported extensively by restricted giving – currently, about 85 percent of its funding comes through some kind of designated giving, rather than from the general, unified fund.

“Americans are becoming more and more hands-on with their giving,” said Bill Simmons, coordinator for finance and administration for Worldwide Ministries. “Sometimes that’s great. Sometimes that comes at the expense of something else,” which the staff involved might see as a greater need.

Some denominations fund international mission work through special offerings dedicated for that purpose – for example, the Southern Baptist Convention, through its annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, an offering named after a Baptist missionary who worked in China from 1873 to 1912. Last year, the Lottie Moon offering raised more than $113 million, which accounted for nearly half of the budget of the Baptists’ International Mission Board. The Baptists also have the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering to raise money for mission work in the U.S.

Why is there a financial crunch now in funding Presbyterian international mission work? The answers are many. The PC(USA) continues to lose members, along with their financial contributions. The slump in the U.S. economy means the value of investments – and possible donations and bequests from estates – are declining. And patterns of giving have changed – with more people inclined to give for restricted purposes, to want more control over how the money is spent, rather than giving for mission work generally; and with more people considering charitable options outside the denomination – including organizations such as Doctor’s Without Borders or Save the Children.

Some also choose to give to organizations that have religious connections but are outside the denomination – perhaps, in some cases, because of dissatisfaction with the leadership of the PC(USA).

McClure said she thinks Presbyterian commitment to international mission work remains strong – and she does not believe the current financial concerns are the result of money being held back because of political disagreements within the denomination.

“It feels more benign,” and “my sense is that the funding patterns draw from sources that are drying up” generally, and not in response to denominational controversies, said Dave Hackett, executive director of Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, an independent organization committed to working with people groups around the world who may not have been exposed to Christianity.

But Hackett said he thinks the PC(USA) could do better at building relationships between local congregations and the denomination’s mission projects around the world. He heard, at a recent meeting of the Advisory Committee on International Evangelism, that only about 15 percent of PC(USA) congregations have a direct, ongoing relationship with any of the denomination’s mission co-workers – either by receiving information regularly about the work those people are doing or providing money or resources to support them.

“We don’t have successful efforts from Louisville to really lift up mission personnel” and to connect Presbyterians at the local level with them, Hackett said.

McClure agrees more could be done – “we’re going to need to do a better job of letting folks know how they can support us,” she said – and she sees benefits from such relationships for both the mission personnel and the congregations who support them.

This past summer, during the annual “Sharing Conference” – at which mission co-workers who are temporarily in the U.S. gather to share their impressions and ideas – one co-worker, Jay Boone, a mission co-worker in China, said he discovered he’d been receiving support from a small church in Florida that he knew nothing about. So Boone stopped by to pay the church a visit, and to ask why they were helping. He spoke to the church secretary, who told him, as McClure recounted it, that “we don’t have a pastor right now. But in the past what’s worked best for us in times of difficulty was to add a missionary.”

If the funds development campaign isn’t approved or more money isn’t raised, Worldwide Ministries will have to cut back, McClure said. But what she wants to do is expand the Presbyterian presence internationally – particularly in AIDS ministry and in leadership development in countries where Christianity is growing rapidly.

“The AIDS catastrophe is just so enormous” that the PC(USA) would like to hire a staff person “to really help mobilize Presbyterians for this kind of work,” McClure said.

In Ethiopia, the majority of pulpits on Sundays are filled with fairly recent converts who have enthusiasm but no theological training. In Eastern Europe, Presbyterians are trying to help shape Christian witness in parts of the former Soviet Union where the practice of religion was formerly discouraged. And the PC(USA) would like to develop a network of people with cross-cultural experience and strong linguistic skills who can bring great flexibility another layer of depth to the PC(USA) ministry internationally – to discern, for example, new possibilities for ecumenical and interfaith work or to devise responses to hunger and globalization issues.

The $39.5 million campaign, if it were to be approved, is being described as “Phase One” – leaving the door open for more phases down the line. If it’s not approved – and cutbacks are needed in the number of PC(USA) mission co-workers – international partners would be involved in the discussions of where those reductions would take place.

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