LOUISVILLE — Most Presbyterians don’t sit around thinking about how the top levels of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are organized. But just understand this:
· The reorganization of the denomination’s national staff is continuing with the recent announcement of a key appointment in communications and funds development.
· The General Assembly Council, which met March 14-16 in Louisville, is itself in the midst of a major reconfiguration: becoming smaller and reorganizing its committee structure. Past evaluations showed that members thought the council was too big and lacked vision, and that its work felt disconnected from the concerns of congregations and presbyteries.
· Linda Valentine, who was named the council’s executive director in June 2006, spoke of how she hopes the new alignments will allow the council to focus more on big issues and less on day-to-day administrative matters. Valentine spoke of the need for “adaptive thinking, generative thinking, strategic thinking” in the PC(USA).
Staff appointments
On March 16, the council confirmed the appointment of Karen L. Schmidt of Chicago as the PC(USA)’s new deputy executive director for communications and funds development.
“My soul started singing” when she learned of the job, Schmidt told the council. “I’m here by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Schmidt, an elder at First Church in Glen Ellyn, Ill., has a résumé packed with experience in senior corporate marketing and sales roles, including the development of branding strategies –an idea some say could have significance for a denomination struggling with internal conflict. Schmidt has been a senior executive with companies including LandAmerica and Andersen Consulting (now known as Accenture).
Schmidt is a Lutheran-turned-Presbyterian, with a heritage in her family of relatives serving as Lutheran pastors and missionaries. Before joining First Church in 1994, Schmidt “surreptitiously” attended worship at Fourth Church in Chicago for four years. Her biography acknowledges, “taking the step to become Presbyterian in the face of her Lutheran heritage was difficult.”
According to Valentine, Schmidt’s pastor, Jerry Andrews — co-moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition, an evangelical group — has described Schmidt as “one of the strongest elders I’ve ever worked with.”
Schmidt said she tells the fifth graders in the Sunday school class she teaches to “believe in Jesus Christ, transform the world.”
When she finished, one council member said quietly: “That’ll preach.”
The council also was introduced to two new PC(USA) staff leaders — Rhashell D. Hunter, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in Flint, Mich., who will be the new director of racial ethnic ministries and women’s ministries; and Eric Hoey, co-pastor of Alhambra True Light Presbyterian Church, a congregation from Alhambra, Calif., that worships in both English and Cantonese. Hoey will be the PC(USA) director of evangelism and church growth.
“There are things that the Presbyterian Church does better than anyone else in the world,” Hunter told the council. “And in my ministry I hope to focus on these things and to celebrate them.”
Schmidt’s appointment rounds out the top layer of leadership changes Valentine has initiated. Another of her three deputies — Tom Taylor, the deputy executive director for mission — told the executive committee that his first few months on the job have been “an unbelievable amount of fun” and “a tremendous amount of work.”
Taylor said he’s “obsessed” with connecting the denomination’s national offices with congregations and people in the pews.
It’s clear, despite the reorganizations and the high hopes for the future, that the PC(USA)’s troubles are far from over. Now, the Office of the General Assembly needs to cut seven jobs from its staff.
It’s asking its 70 employees to consider taking a voluntary separation package in order to avoid layoffs. In the spring of 2006, the council cut $9.1 million from its budget and about 75 employees of the national staff lost their jobs.
The council also held elections for its own leadership at this meeting, re-electing Allison Seed, a pastor from Missouri, as its chair for the next year, and Charles Easley Sr., an elder from Atlanta, as its vice chair.
