LOUISVILLE — The General Assembly Council would be skinnier, trimmed down from the current 71 members to 47.
The budget for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) would be organized around eight priority goals — which means existing programs will have to make a case for how they fit in to one of those priorities, if they are to survive.
And the denomination’s budget will be less in 2007 and 2008 than it has been for the current biennium. The PC(USA)’s budget now stands at just over $116 million.
It’s “too early to say” what level of budget cuts might be announced this spring or how many jobs might be lost, said Joey Bailey, the denomination’s chief financial officer. But “we absolutely will have less money to spend in ’07 and ’08 than we had in ’05 and ’06.”
John Detterick, the council’s executive director, put it this way: “We do know that there will be a major reduction in funding for the next biennium.”
When it meets Feb. 7-11 in Louisville, the General Assembly Council will vote on the gist of these proposals — which are the results of the work of two council task forces that have been meeting to consider how the denomination can do its work more efficiently and more in line with the realities of mainline denominations in the 21st century.
Leaders of those two task forces — one on governance and another on the Mission Work Plan — revealed their basic recommendations on Jan. 23 to a gathering of the denomination’s national staff at the PC(USA) headquarters in Louisville.
They also said the council would be asked to give preliminary approval at its April meeting to a structure for the denomination’s national staff. But Detterick is retiring this summer — candidates for his replacement are being considered now, and the General Assembly is expected to approve the hiring of a new executive director in June.
So any preliminary approval of a staff structure that the council green-lights in April would then be evaluated by the new executive director, who might toss new ideas into the mix. The council would give final approval to the new staff structure, which could well involve significant remodeling of the current organization, in February 2007.
“I can only imagine how difficult it has been for you these past few years,” council member Carol Adcock of Texas, who leads the governance task force, told the national staff, expressing gratitude for their work.
Here are some of the highlights of what’s being recommended.
GOVERNANCE
The council would be gradually reduced from its current 71 members to 47. That would consist of:
– 39 elected voting members;
– Three others with votes — the current General Assembly moderator, the immediate past moderator, and the moderator of the Churchwide Coordinating Team of Presbyterian Women;
– Six corresponding non-voting members;
– Two ecumenical non-voting members.
Council members each would serve only one six-year term — no renewals.
One-third would be ministers, one-third laymen, and one-third laywomen. Twenty percent would be racial-ethnic persons. The transition to a smaller council would be complete by 2008.
Nine of the 36 elected members would be chosen from among General Assembly commissioners (three from the most recent assembly and three each from the two before that).
The council would meet three times a year during years when the General Assembly was meeting and twice a year when the assembly was on hiatus. One of the meetings during non-assembly years would be a joint meeting with presbytery and synod executives.
Adcock said she hopes the new structure would bring “stronger influence with fewer resources,” and Detterick said the restructured council would focus more on big-picture thinking and less on administrative details.
But one employee, during a question and answer session, said he was disappointed to learn that the council would be considerably smaller — but would still spend $25,000 more a year. “We are on the cusp of cutting an enormous number of staff,” he said, so the elected council should cut costs first.
MISSION WORK PLAN
All of the council’s work would be structured around eight priority goals — two each in four areas. The whole idea, Detterick said, is to try to build partnerships with presbyteries and congregations, and to improve communication.
Council member John Bolt of West Virginia, a Mission Work Plan task force member, said the goals are broad, because “that is our job. It is now your job to hang some numbers on them, to hang some programs on them” so the next two-year budget can be developed.
In an interview, Detterick said of the new approach: “I firmly believe it’s not the Presbyterian church doing less mission. It’s the Presbyterian church doing mission differently.”
The eight proposed priority goals are as follows:
EVANGELISM and WITNESS:
– Evangelism: Enable Presbyterians to evangelize locally and globally, particularly among those with no active religious affiliation.
– Multicultural: Support presbyteries’ efforts to develop congregations and fellowships that reflect a multicultural society.
JUSTICE and COMPASSION
– Poverty: Encourage and support partnerships to address the causes and effects of poverty.
– Peace: Enable congregations and presbyteries to seek non-violent solutions to conflict locally and around the world.
SPIRITUALITY and DISCIPLESHIP
– Reformed identity: Enable presbyteries and congregations to better understand their Reformed identity and how it can be applied.
– Families: Enable presbyteries and congregations to ground families, “in all their manifestations,” in Christian discipleship that helps them resist today’s idolatries.
LEADERSHIP and VOCATION
– Vocation: Enable presbyteries and congregations to help people discern that vocation is a call from God.
– Small churches: Facilitate the exchange and development of alternative models for leadership in small churches.
