LOUISVILLE — At the opening of the General Assembly Council’s meeting April 26, John Detterick, the council’s executive director, predicted that “virtually every council member will find something to be unhappy about.”
That’s because a denomination that prides itself on caring for the world doesn’t have enough money to go around.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is facing a $9.1 million budget shortfall. The denomination is cutting its budget and eliminating dozens of jobs from its national staff. The exact number of positions lost hasn’t been announced yet, but the cuts unquestionably will be deep and painful.
The budget proposal presented to the council called for a mission budget for “essential work” in 2007 of $97 million, including more than $4.4 million drawn from reserves.
The council already has approved four Mission Work Plan goal areas, each with two objectives. The budget proposal calls for funding for the goal areas as follows:
– Evangelism and Witness: $16.7 million to be spent on evangelism and $2.6 million on multicultural work;
– Justice and Compassion: $22.7 million to address poverty and $3.1 million to work for peace;
– Spirituality and Discipleship: $9.3 million for building Reformed identity and $938,000 for ministry to families;
– Leadership and Vocation: $11.4 million for vocation and $558,000 for supporting small churches.
Much of the discussion of why certain areas will be funded and others won’t be will take place behind closed doors. Discussion was restricted to elected members of the council, leaving out at-large and corresponding members.
The council will vote on the budget April 29 and individual employees will be notified May 1 whether or not they still have jobs. Detterick warned “the cuts affect every level of the organization, including top management.” At the PC(USA)’s national offices in Louisville, the mood has been grim all spring.
And by taking these steps, the PC(USA) is conceding reality. Among the realizations:
– There are fewer Presbyterians. Membership in the PC(USA), now at fewer than 2.4 million members, has been plummeting for decades, down nearly 2 million members over the past 40 years. Everyone knows the story of the decline of the mainline denominations, in both members and influence, but this budget season drives it home like a baseball bat smashing a chandelier.
– Congregations are giving less money to the denomination — and more of what does come in is being designated for specific purposes, whether out of enthusiasm for that particular work or skepticism about what the denomination might do with the money if instructions aren’t given. “Churches are doing more direct mission work, as are presbyteries,” said Joey Bailey, the denomination’s chief financial officer. “We’re getting less.”
– The General Assembly Council’s work is being structured in a new way. The council itself will be smaller, dropping from 71 members to 48, and will focus its efforts around the Mission Work Plan goals. The denomination’s budget from now through 2008 — including what’s left and what’s being eliminated — is being structured around that vision.
So what does this mean for the PC(USA)?
In the short term, it means pain for the national staff, hit with the largest downsizing since $7 million was cut from the budget and 140 jobs eliminated in 1993.
It also means that, at least in the flow charts, things are supposed to be different for the PC(USA) now — more focused on what matters, more responsive to what the grassroots wants, less top-down.
“We are trying to prudently forecast future revenues and to live within them at a time of diminished funding at this level,” Bailey said. So the new budget is being built around the Mission Work Plan goals, including “those things that should and could only be done at our level. …We have to choose what we can do best. I think we have been very faithful to that.”
Along with the pain of what’s being lost, some see hope in what lies ahead.
Many Presbyterians “are genuinely interested in recapturing the ability to do mission themselves — they don’t want to do mission by proxy,” Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly, said in an interview. “For the next 50 years, it’s going to be all about active, regular Presbyterians doing more.”
That can be a challenge, he acknowledged, for small congregations short on resources. But “the local congregations are kind of starving the national church for both good and bad reasons,” Ufford-Chase said. They can’t do that, and still expect the denomination to fund the programs they want.
“You can’t have it both ways,” he said. “People at the local level are going to have to step up.”
The $97 million budget for 2007 compares to a budget for this year of $113.9 million, a difference of about $16.8 million. That includes $9.1 million in budget reductions and about $7.7 million in adjustments for other reasons.
Among the biggest: $5.6 million in both revenues and expenditures for Presbyterian camps and conference centers will no longer be counted in this budget. There are also changes in the rate in which certain restricted funds are being spent down; and variations in revenue.
But the bottom line is this: less money coming to the PC(USA) and fewer employees left. Detterick said his staff leadership team tried to identify what work was essential, what was helpful, and what the denomination could live without. At the end of the first round of discussions, when all the “essential” items were tallied, there still wasn’t enough money, Detterick said, so the cuts went deeper.
But Nancy Kahaian, a pastor from Illinois who’s the council’s chair, still finds reasons to hope.
“We can’t abandon hope,” Kahaian said in an interview. “There is still much good work being done. People are deeply faithful. … We know it’s difficult, but we know that God is at work.”
