LOUISVILLE — A search committee looking for a new executive director for the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) hopes to have a candidate to nominate by May — about a month before the General Assembly gets to work in Birmingham in June.
The General Assembly Council’s executive committee is asking that the council gather for a special meeting in Chicago on May 23 to consider nominating to the assembly whoever is picked as the top candidate. John Detterick, the council’s current executive director, intends to retire this summer to New Mexico.
On the executive committee, there was some discussion about whether to have the extra meeting in May, because of the expense — estimated at around $40,000 — and because the council already has a meeting scheduled in Louisville at the end of April.
But Detterick told the executive committee that it’s “critically important” for all of the council members to meet in person the candidate being considered, because “you’re selecting your head of staff for the next four years.”
Karen Dimon, a council member from DeWitt, N.Y., who heads the search team effort, said a search firm has been hired and applications are coming in. Dimon said the search committee won’t be ready to propose a candidate at the council’s April 26-29 meeting. And “it’s too important a decision to make by conference call,” she said, so that’s why an extra meeting is being requested.
In many ways, the council is at a crossroads — with a new executive director on the horizon, with more budget cuts anticipated this spring, with major reports being considered on how the council is structured and how it focuses its work.
A proposal from the council’s Governance Task Force is on the table to cut the council’s membership from the current 71 members to 47, and to change the way those representatives are selected.
The council also is talking at this meeting — Feb. 7-11 in Kentucky — about its Mission Work Plan, or how it decides where to focus its time and energy and resources for mission in 2007 and 2008.
Another task force considering the way the PC(USA) funds its work plans to report back in April. Some things that group already has learned, according to one of its leaders, Conrad Rocha, are that:
– Relationships and communication are important.
– Per capita funding — money that congregations give for each active member — works, and extensive consultation needs to happen before changes are made.
– Stewardship matters.
– People want to know who’s giving money and why.
– Leaders of middle governing bodies want to be involved in making the case for financially supporting PC(USA) mission.
During the opening plenary session Feb. 7, council members had a chance to raise questions and concerns, or offer praise, about the proposal to change how the council is structured. The Governance Task Force hopes that plan will produce a council that’s smaller, less hands-on in management and more strategic in its thinking.
“It’s not the answer, it’s an answer,” said Steve Benz of Tennessee, a task force leader. “We fussed and we fought,” but finally agreed on an approach the task force members thought was the right way to go.
Manley Olson of Minnesota said he’s heard concern that asking council members to serve for six years might seem too intimidating and could keep good people off.
Jim Collie, who serves on the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, said he doesn’t want the relationship between the council and COGA to erode — and fears that could happen if COGA is no longer represented on the council, and vice-versa.
How will it be decided which General Assembly commissioners serve on the task force, Carol Hylkema of Michigan asked? 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).
“I would hate to think it would be the ones who popped up the most often” to speak at the assembly, Hylkema said.
And Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly, stressed the need to include more young people in leadership of the PC(USA).
But the angriest response came from Kitty Rasa of Tennessee — who was unable to step up to the platform where the plan was being discussed, because no ramp for the disabled was provided. The plan calls for diversity in representation, but what about including the disabled, Rasa asked?
The council also talked about the Mission Work Plan — about how it wants to organize its work around particular goal areas and to work collaboratively to do mission in those areas.
Some examples of how the PC(USA)’s staff already is working across departmental lines are:
– In seeking ways to encourage teenagers and young adults to explore Christian vocation;
– In helping all Presbyterians pursue lifelong discipleship;
– And in providing leadership resources for congregations having difficulty calling a pastor.
How exactly the Mission Work Plan will play out remains to be seen. If the council approves it at this meeting, a plan for organizing the PC(USA)’s national staff around those goals — and structuring the work to provide for budget cuts needed because the money’s not there to do more — will be made in April.
