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Holy Week resources and reflections

GAC in Sacramento: Acting now for the PC(USA) of the future

SACRAMENTO -- There's been a lot of talk this week in California, as the General Assembly Council starts its fall meeting, about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) being on the verge of some kind of big, exciting change -- about this being perhaps a "tipping point" for the church, as General Assembly moderator Rick Ufford-Chase put it.

What do they mean?

First, several task forces are due to report this week on new ways of doing things. A governance task force is considering some kind of streamlined structure for the council itself -- considering different ways of selecting council members and organizing their work. A mission funding task force will discuss how the denomination gets the money to fund what it does -- what works in that funding system and what doesn't, and what needs to be done differently in a denomination that's losing members by the tens of thousands every year and in which there have been distinct shifts in the way that Presbyterians give their money.

Second, council executive director John Detterick, who's in his last year with the PC(USA), urged the council members during their opening session Sept. 21 to dream "bold dreams" and not to be afraid to take risks. But he also warned that more budget cuts likely are coming soon, along with more job cuts for the denomination's national staff in Louisville. Detterick met Sept. 16 with the staff to warn them of what lies ahead.

SACRAMENTO — There’s been a lot of talk this week in California, as the General Assembly Council starts its fall meeting, about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) being on the verge of some kind of big, exciting change — about this being perhaps a “tipping point” for the church, as General Assembly moderator Rick Ufford-Chase put it.

What do they mean?

First, several task forces are due to report this week on new ways of doing things. A governance task force is considering some kind of streamlined structure for the council itself — considering different ways of selecting council members and organizing their work. A mission funding task force will discuss how the denomination gets the money to fund what it does — what works in that funding system and what doesn’t, and what needs to be done differently in a denomination that’s losing members by the tens of thousands every year and in which there have been distinct shifts in the way that Presbyterians give their money.

Second, council executive director John Detterick, who’s in his last year with the PC(USA), urged the council members during their opening session Sept. 21 to dream “bold dreams” and not to be afraid to take risks. But he also warned that more budget cuts likely are coming soon, along with more job cuts for the denomination’s national staff in Louisville. Detterick met Sept. 16 with the staff to warn them of what lies ahead.

This time, the cuts will be made differently, based on a “holistic” vision of what are the essential things the church needs to do on the national level, Detterick told the council in California.

He said he envisions a much different scenario for the council in five to eight years. Detterick predicted the council will be vibrant, responsive and “much smaller,” that it will serve as a consultant to presbyteries and congregations that are involved in their own forms of mission work.

Third, the council is preparing to select Detterick’s successor, as he heads out to his retirement home in New Mexico. The PC(USA) will begin advertising the executive director’s position October 15, and the deadline for applications will be January 15, said Karen Dimon of DeWitt, New York, who’s leading the search committee.

Detterick urged the council to “boldly embrace the future” and Ufford-Chase described the church sitting on the edge of a new moment. He said he’s seen Presbyterians respond with love and generosity and creativity following Hurricane Katrina and regarding the difficulties in Colombia, but also asked: “Does it have to be a hurricane?”

Could Presbyterians be willing to live like that, Ufford-Chase asked — to be “desperate to step up and offer their help,” to share all they have with the less fortunate, to follow Jesus without knowing where it will lead — at times when there wasn’t a crisis?

Besides the council, four other Presbyterian groups are meeting this week in Sacramento — the Presbyterian Foundation, the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program and the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly. That’s partly because the church had intended to hold a General Assembly in Sacramento, but changed that plan when the denomination shifted to every-other-year assemblies.

By having all these groups meet at the same place at once, the denomination is fulfilling some contractual commitments in Sacramento for which it might otherwise have had to pay cancellation penalties.

The council also is road testing a new electronic system at this gathering — a so-called “paperless” approach using laptop computers — that’s the prototype for what’s expected to be used next summer at the General Assembly in Birmingham. Office of the General Assembly staff members explaining the system have been putting on hard hats to emphasize that it’s still a work-in-progress. 

There’s been a certain amount of moaning as some computers (and some people) cooperate and others resist the bold new day. But people are also giving the new technology a shot.

 “It’s all about choices,” the council’s chair, Nancy Kahaian of Indiana, said during the opening plenary session. Jesus said over and over, “Come, follow, be my sheep, love your neighbors, go into the world.”

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