While the overture focuses on the General Assembly, the discussion impacts most of our synods and presbyteries because they also use a per-capita assessment to fund their ministries.
I support this overture because I think that the use of per-capita assessments has become less and less helpful to the life of the church.
1. The use of per capita effectively creates two budgets in our governing bodies, one funded by per capita and the other funded by general benevolence gifts. Two budgets make it impossible to establish a unified mission for our church.
2. Because per capita is assessed and perceived as a tax, there is a bias to pay per capita even when it means a decline in general mission giving. Those items funded by per capita thus have greater financial security even if they are not the more important parts of our church’s life.
3. There is confusion about the use of per capita because it is not used consistently among the governing bodies. Sometimes per capita, directed toward administrative costs and meeting expenses, is used to support specific mission programs. What began as a travel reimbursement plan for our colonial church now includes much of the administrative costs of our institutional life.
4. Our congregations adopt a unified operating budget, ask for a single mission pledge from members, and interpret all the costs of the church in a unified way. The governing bodies need to consider the value of modeling a similar approach to funding the mission of their parts of the church.
5. Most importantly, per capita creates reluctant givers because it is perceived as a tax. Christ wants people who understand his mission and passionately give to the church. The church’s mission funding system will be better served in the future and with younger generations if it is built on the call to faithful stewardship and not some expectation of institutional taxation.
Anecdotal comment
Last fall, the Office of the General Assembly wrote a paper on per capita that begins: “Presbyterians have a deep concern for good stewardship, the decent and orderly administration of funds, and the best use of limited financial resources.” I believe I am one of those persons.
I joined the Presbyterian Church in 1972, during my seminary studies. As an associate pastor and later co-pastor of two new church developments, I understood per capita to be a “fair share” way we Presbyterians fund the administrative expenses of the church. I accepted this as a given. In those days (1970s and ‘80s), the total per capita for all three governing bodies (presbytery, synod, General Assembly) was less than $10.
When I became an associate executive of a presbytery in Michigan, I began to see a different view. There was little enthusiasm for per capita in the pew. It was viewed as a “tax.” There was little enthusiasm from the pulpit. It was accepted as a given. And I saw that per capita could be used to simply balance budgetary deficits; to offset decreased membership or decreased giving, we increased per capita. One year, the office manager simply raised the per capita to balance the office costs and there wasn’t much question about those office increases, or oversight or interest from the elected leaders.
A move in 1990 to Oklahoma (Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery) and later Texas (Grace Presbytery) took me to a part of the church that funded its mission quite differently. Years before my arrival, the Synod of the Sun and all but one of its presbyteries had agreed to discontinue per-capita assessments (stemming from the tradition of the former Presbyterian Church US that did not use per capita, I believe). As a new executive, I was nervous at the thought of funding the whole mission from one general pledge, but that was short lived. Sessions pledged one gift to the larger church, which was divided among the three governing bodies (presbytery, synod and General Assembly). The Presbytery established a single budget from its percentage share. So did the Synod. Because the General Assembly continues to receive per capita, we sent the General Assembly’s percentage share in two checks: one for per capita and one for mission. When I inquired about this different way of mission funding, one minister simply said: “It’s all mission. How many times we meet, whether or not we pay a stated clerk or an executive, how much we support the Native American congregations, what kind of office we lease, what we give to the camp … these are all mission decisions. They all reflect our values and priorities and all of it should be considered on the same basis when we build the budget each year.”
Through these years I learned that our congregations will support the mission that matters to them, even the boilers and furnaces of administrative costs. We worked hard to develop the interpretation and pledging literature, consulting with GA and synod staff and including all three governing bodies in our brochures. In my ten years as executive of Grace Presbytery, our congregations were generous and steady in their mission giving, and I was privileged to see them contribute nearly $25 million to general benevolences.
While no one can know definitively, I believe that using a single mission funding appeal was helpful in nurturing this steady congregational support.
Resources and arguments
The General Assembly’s new Web site, just posted in March of this year, is a helpful resource. It is part information (historical and current) and part promotion — well worth a look.
At the assembly, I expect the conversation will include several talking points:
1. Despite its somewhat politicized history (conservative folks upset by how some of the per capita is used), you will hear that 96% of the General Assembly per capita is paid. Taken alone, this sounds great. But placed in the context of our total giving (per capita and benevolences combined) the picture is not so bright. Total giving through our denomination’s funding system is declining. Per capita may be paid because most people will pay what they perceive as a tax first, but what gets shortchanged is the non-per-capita side of the church’s work … its mission budget.
2. You will hear that per capita is not a tax. It is a “voluntary assessment” and, according to the October 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Book of Order: sessions cannot be forced to pay per capita, but sessions have no right to withhold per capita as a form of protest; rather it is presbyteries that are required to pay per capita, if they have the money! Very confusing! Most people, I suspect, see it as a requirement of our church’s life and don’t see the interplay between paying per capita and our benevolence pledges. Elders on Sessions do because when finances are tight, they’re the ones who will reduce their mission pledge to offset an increase in per capita!
3. You will hear that per capita supports those things that make us Presbyterian, i.e. our efforts to be a covenant people discerning God’s leading together. The things supported by the per-capita assessment should have a favored status because they under- gird our ability to meet and make decisions. Forgetting all the non-meeting uses of per capita (historical society, legal services for immigration issues mentioned on the Web site), is it our meetings that define our Presbyterian identity? Or is it our mission? Maybe we should be asking every Presbyterian to pay his/her fair share of the missionary’s salary, or the curriculum writer’s benefits plan, or that new church development project.
4. You will hear, I suspect, that per-capita assessment is so imbedded into our institutional life that we would do great harm to eliminate it from our mission funding system: that is, congregations won’t adjust their giving if we no longer have an apportionment. Sessions will keep the “savings” instead of increasing their mission pledge. That kind of fear doesn’t serve us. We can do whatever we understand God calls us to do, including putting all of our General Assembly work into one mission budget or asking our congregations to support all of that work with one mission pledge. Sure, it will take some effort and education and adjustment and not becoming anxious, but the benefit of living as our congregations live with one budget and one pledge from members is worth it.
Institutionally, the elimination of per-capita apportionments simplifies and strengthens our mission funding system and creates a “level playing field” for the whole work of our General Assembly. Missionally, we send the message that everything we do is for God’s work in the world, including our administrative costs and meeting expenses. It’s all mission or we shouldn’t be doing it. Generationally, we encourage the next generation of Presbyterians to be faithful stewards, giving because of their passion for Christ’s mission and not because of institutional obligation. The future mission funding system for our church should help the younger generations best express their faith at work — theirs, not ours.
Go well into your conversation at this General Assembly.
Dave Wasserman is co-pastor of Trinity Church in Tucson, Ariz.
