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Reconfiguring middle governing bodies “absolutely crucial,” Kirkpatrick tells GAC

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council has approved the broad outlines of a plan restructuring the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- condensing the national structure into six program areas.

The council also confirmed the appointment of Joey Bailey as the PC(USA)'s deputy director for shared services, responsible for information technology, finance, human resources and distribution.    

While it considers how the denomination's national staff should be organized and the impact of this year's $9.1 million downsizing, the council also is being pushed to confront a hard reality at the regional level: that some of the 173 presbyteries and 16 synods are experiencing significant financial distress. Some say the denomination needs to look hard, and quickly, at the current system of middle governing bodies, to ask whether it's feasible to continue the current configuration with funds in such short supply.

LOUISVILLE — The General Assembly Council has approved the broad outlines of a plan restructuring the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — condensing the national structure into six program areas.

The council also confirmed the appointment of Joey Bailey as the PC(USA)’s deputy director for shared services, responsible for information technology, finance, human resources and distribution.    

While it considers how the denomination’s national staff should be organized and the impact of this year’s $9.1 million downsizing, the council also is being pushed to confront a hard reality at the regional level: that some of the 173 presbyteries and 16 synods are experiencing significant financial distress. Some say the denomination needs to look hard, and quickly, at the current system of middle governing bodies, to ask whether it’s feasible to continue the current configuration with funds in such short supply.

“I think this is one of the most important things we will do,” the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick, told the council, calling a reconfiguration of the middle governing body system “absolutely crucial.”

On Sept. 28, the council voted to create a task force to “explore the possibility of holding a consultation with presbyteries and synods to consider the issue of their future viability.”

But some contended that the PC(USA) can’t move that slowly — that it’s not enough to set up a task force to consider whether a consultation might some day be a good idea.

Conrad Rocha, a council member from New Mexico, proposed an amendment to say that the consultation with middle governing bodies should take place within the next six months.

Two presbyteries from the Southwest — the presbyteries of Santa Fe and of Sierra Blanca — have sent a letter to the council asking it to “convene a consultation at an early opportunity in order to address the viability and stability of the synods and presbyteries of this denomination.”

Others share that sense of urgency.

Gary Skinner, from the Synod of Alaska-Northwest, said only three of the seven presbyteries in his synod currently have executives leading them. Skinner said something must be done soon, unless the council is prepared in drafting the next budget “to maintain a life-support system” for presbyteries in places like the southwestern U.S., the Northwest and Puerto Rico.

But others cautioned that such a conversation needs to bubble up from presbyteries and synods, not be required by an order from the General Assembly Council, the national church.

“We don’t want a rushed decision in my synod,” said Zane Buxton, executive with the Synod of the Rocky Mountains. 

Kirkpatrick said any significant changes in the current system likely would require amendments to the PC(USA) constitution — and that requires approval from the General Assembly. He suggested moving forward quickly enough so any changes could be presented to the assembly in 2008.

 

Restructuring

This council meeting, held Sept. 26-29 in Louisville, is the first for the council’s new executive director, Linda Valentine. The council voted in favor of the restructuring Valentine outlined — a process of reorganization it started began before she began work — although council members asked a few questions about some of the details.

Valentine emphasized that the particulars of the plan are not as important as its guiding principles: that the national structure should be responsive, accountable, and collaborative.

After appointing Bailey, Valentine hopes to select two other deputy directors — one for mission, and one for communications and funds development — in the next few months.

Ten high-level positions (the jobs of nine associate directors plus the publisher of Congregational Ministries Publishing and Christian Education) are being eliminated as of Dec. 31, and are being combined into six reconfigured directors’ positions.

But Valentine stressed that she does expect creative collaboration across the lines of the new program areas.

“It’s how we behave that’s going to make the big difference,” she said, not exactly how things are structured on the flow charts.

        

Joining Hearts & Hands

The council also heard an update on the PC(USA)’s $40 million fundraising campaign from its new co-chair, David Peterson.

Peterson, who is pastor of Memorial Drive Church in Houston, was named last spring as the new co-leader (along with Joanna Adams of Atlanta) of the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands steering committee.

Peterson said he took that position because he thinks the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is the most important thing the denomination is doing — it’s bringing new life to a church struggling with decline, and is really about “making Jesus Christ available to the world.”

In a denomination too well acquainted with loss, the Hearts & Hands campaign offers Presbyterians new ways to think about reaching out to the world, he said.

Unfortunately, “we count it as a victory if we just don’t shrink too much each year,” if the denomination bleeds fewer than 30,000 members a year in losses, Peterson said.

But he thinks the Hearts & Hands campaign can change the focus;   that ‘we are in labor trying to push ministry out into the world,” and that can make a difference if the funds can be found.

The campaign so far has raised $25 million in pledges, with most of that going for new church development in presbyteries that have formed partnerships with the campaign. The remaining $15 million, which Peterson said he is confident can be raised,  would be used to support missionaries overseas.

But the reality is that most of the donations are being restricted for specific uses — which means the Hearts and Hands campaign doesn’t have enough unrestricted money on hand to pay its operating expenses for 2007. Some council members weren’t happy that news stories have been written about that — Linda Knieriemen of Michigan said she was “bewildered” that “there’s another piece of bad news coming out of the General Assembly.”

But Peterson said he hopes the council will elevate the campaign — and its focus on international mission and new church development — as a central focus of the PC(USA).

His own church, Memorial Drive, has given $1 million to the campaign, all of it in restricted funds. Most is going for new church development — but not, Peterson said, for the typical effort to plant new churches in the suburbs.

Some is being spent to try to start a new congregation in mid-town Houston, an area of apartments and condominium complexes that are full of young adults from multi-cultural backgrounds. Those neighborhoods are hard to connect with, Peterson said, because many are gated communities. He called the work “maddeningly difficult and incredibly exciting.”

Memorial Drive also wants to start a new church in a transient Hispanic area — where jobs aren’t considered solid and where nine out of every 10 students who start school in the fall move before the school year ends.

Peterson made the case that the PC(USA) is at a crossroads. In order to grow, to avoid an “exponential decline,” it needs to push ministry into new places, as his congregation is trying to do.

 But to raise the funds to support that, the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign needs Presbyterians to be willing to give unrestricted funds, Peterson said — to support not just specific projects, but the fundraising campaign as well.

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