LOUISVILLE — To stay in business, the major fundraising drive of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) needs to find money soon for operating expenses.
So the General Assembly Council’s Executive Committee has decided to provide $720,000 to cover those administrative costs. That means the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign should be able to keep working until the General Assembly meets in 2008, trying to raise the last $14.5 million of its five-year $40 million goal.
That $720,000 will be “essentially a loan” that would be repaid, said David York, Joining Hearts & Hands’ new executive director. The money to do that would come from a 5 percent administrative fee that would be taken out of restricted gifts made to the campaign — in other words, money that congregations, presbyteries or individual donors provide while specifying that it will be used for particular projects.
Operating the Hearts & Hands campaign costs about $60,000 a month, York told the executive committee, which met by conference call Dec. 7. The campaign will have about $300,000 in reserves left at the end of 2006 and has received a $62,000 unrestricted gift. That funding should cover the campaign’s operating costs through June 2007, and the money the council is providing should keep the campaign running through June 2008.
“We don’t dare have an unsuccessful campaign,” council member Tom Gillespie — who is the former president of Princeton Theological Seminary and has agreed to serve as honorary campaign chair for Hearts & Hands — said during the conference call.
“That will prejudice all future campaigns . . . We don’t dare cut this thing short at this time,” Gillespie said.
Several council members referred to a closer, healthier working relationship that seems to be emerging between the campaign and the PC(USA)’s national staff who work in worldwide mission.
And there was some discussion about how the denomination needs to do a better job of telling people about the work it does — and that the PC(USA) needs to find new ways to adjust to the reality that most Presbyterians want give money for specific causes or projects.
In the past, the attitude of the PC(USA)’s national staff seemed to be that “designated giving was bad and undesignated giving was good,” said council member Conrad Rocha of New Mexico.
Rocha was presenting a draft report from the Mission Funding Task Force, which has been working to consider how PC(USA) mission work is funded and what changes need to be made.
That report challenges the church to become at all levels “a listener, partner and encourager,” paying attention to how people all around the church are becoming involved in mission, and how they’re paying for it.
The task force points out that the denomination is currently funded both by giving for general mission, and by donations for specific programs. It proposes designing a funding model based on the assumption that unrestricted giving will continue to decline and “celebrating the value and worth of designated giving.”
The report states that “such a system would provide every governing body and individual Presbyterians, as well, an opportunity to `select’ the mission work they wish to support.” An administrative fee would be taken from such restricted gifts to cover costs associated with accomplishing that particular work.
Presbyterians would also be given the chance to provide unrestricted donations — the denomination would stress the importance of doing that. Per capita giving would also continue.
But the Presbyterian system traditionally has appealed to a person’s loyalty to the institution — “it says give because of who you are (a Presbyterian) rather than give because of what you can do (you can change the world),” the report states. “A more timely approach would focus on giving because of what it can do (how it can make a difference).”
The task force is proposing an annual PC(USA) “Season of Giving’ in which the stories of how the denomination is making a difference around the globe would be told.
“We have to be able to tell the story,” Rocha said.
The executive committee voted to name a task force to consider whether the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation should takeover as publisher of Presbyterians Today magazine. That task force is expected to report back in September 2007.
The executive committee also confirmed the hiring of Tom Taylor as the PC(USA)’s new deputy executive director for mission.
Taylor, chosen from a pool of about 50 candidates, has been senior pastor of the 1,400-member Glenkirk Presbyterian Church in Glendora, California, near Los Angeles. He’s also a lawyer, the son of an independent preacher, a graduate of Yale Divinity School (M.Div.) and a doctoral candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Taylor said he joined the PC(USA) at about age 30, intentionally, after experiencing what he described as a crisis of faith in his 20s and then searching for a church with which to become involved. He was attracted to the PC(USA), Taylor said, because “it’s so incredibly diverse” and “it was a place where I could be myself and be honest.”
Taylor describes himself as an evangelical. Asked to describe what he means by that, Taylor said he understands that word has been applied to everyone from James Dobson to Tony Campolo — quite a theological range. For him, it means “sharing the gospel in word and act,” Taylor told the committee.
Linda Valentine, who was named last summer as the new executive director of the General Assembly Council, said she was unknown to lots of Presbyterians when she was selected, but said people have been willing to give her a chance.
She said some are concerned that “Tom is from California, he’s a tall-steeple pastor, he’s an evangelical.” Valentine urged the church “to meet Tom as you’ve met me, with open hearts and minds,” and said some of the qualities she appreciates in him are “a demonstrated ability to bring people together” and a combination of confidence and humility.
Valentine tried to shoot down one rumor making the rounds: that Glenkirk has been withholding funds from the PC(USA) in recent years.
She said Glenkirk has been a “faithful supporter” of the denomination — Valentine said both congregational and presbytery records indicate Glenkirk has paid its per capita, even though the records of the national church were in error about that.
In response to a question, Taylor said Glenkirk signed on to the Confessing Church movement as a way to uphold the PC(USA)’s confessions, not with any intent to use the movement in “vitriolic ways.”
Taylor said both liberal and conservative Presbyterians agree on the need to help the world. And he thinks sticking together in the denomination, despite theological differences, keeps people honest and informed.
“We’re really better followers of Jesus Christ, is my view, when we stick together,” Taylor said.
Presbyterians are better followers when the family stays together, he said, and better messengers for Jesus as well.
