“I would love to do a second term,” Valentine said in a recent interview with the Presbyterian News Service. “I’ve felt a great sense of call and boundless energy. The more people ask me (about a second term) the more clear it becomes.”
Valentine reflected on her first two years atop the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s $100 million-a-year mission enterprise — and on where she believes the GAC has come and
where it’s going.
“In a word: ‘change,’” she said, referring to the immediate aftermath of her arrival just before the 217th General Assembly in May 2006.
“The previous organization had been dismantled but not put back together,” she said. “So that entire first year was spent putting the new organization in place and getting the right people. I’m really pleased with the talent we have, their collaborative spirit and their great love for the church.”
With a new senior staff now in place — only a handful of holdovers from the previous administration are still present — “we’re really getting some momentum going,” Valentine said, “and a better focus on what it is the GAC can do best in partnership with congregations, synods and presbyteries, and other mission initiators.”
Valentine has spent much of her first two years on the job traveling to synods and presbyteries. She said she’s learned that Presbyterians most want the GAC to “connect people, share best practices, provide select resources and tell the amazing stories of what Presbyterians are doing in mission.”
Last fall’s “Mission Challenge ‘07” was particularly instructive and successful, she said. Nearly 50 PC(USA) mission workers spent the month blanketing the denomination — more than 75 percent of the 173 presbyteries participated — telling their personal stories and seeking spiritual and financial support for the denomination’s overseas mission. “So many Presbyterians were surprised by the extent of our mission work and reconnected with our mission workers it was remarkable,” she said.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is another “connector,” she said, referring to the relief and development agency’s work in Hurricane Katrina relief along the Gulf Coast and support for those who ministered to the Virginia Tech community after last year’s shooting rampage. “So many Presbyterians have told me how meaningful those efforts were because of the helplessness people feel when such tragedies strike.”
Valentine is also aware of the challenges that lie ahead. With the 218th General Assembly in the offing — it convenes in San Jose, Calif., on June 21 — she conceded that “it’s discouraging to have all of ‘Louisville’ painted with the same brush. People don’t like the policies the Assembly approves and so they blame staff,” she said. “We need a lot more education about Presbyterian polity and how our polity works.”
She’s looking forward to her first General Assembly as executive director. “The strength of the Assembly is the strength of the PC(USA) — it’s democracy and openness,” she said. “I also think it’s a great opportunity to look forward and focus on the good news.”
It’s important to keep debating the issues on which Presbyterians disagree, Valentine continued, “but I’m really looking forward, particularly to worship and to the incredible energy commissioners bring to the Assembly. Martin Marty (the famed religious historian and commentator) told me these denominational gatherings are like family reunions, with all the fun, fighting, laughter and tears, squabbling … and then the next time, they all come back for more.”
The 2006 Assembly was notable for an extravagant public pledge of $150 million to PC(USA) mission by Elder Stan Anderson of Denver. The Assembly’s elation at the announcement quickly faded with reports that Anderson had fallen on hard times.
“No money has come through and there’s no evidence that it will,” Valentine said. “We continue to pray for Stan Anderson, who we know to be a man of good will, but we have no expectation that the pledge will be met and have no plans for spending it.”
Other financial news is hopeful, though, Valentine said. In 2007 giving to all categories of General Assembly mission exceeded the budget for the first time in many years. As a
result, the proposed 2009 and 2010 mission budgets include no staff cuts, restore an office of environmental justice
that was eliminated two years ago and, most dramatically,
increase the number of overseas mission personnel for the
first time in 50 years.
“Presbyterians are generous, giving money to a host of
causes,” she said. “They will give generously to things they can see and believe in, so our telling good stories has great potential to generate more support, as we saw with ‘Mission Challenge.’” Reserves — $3.5 million in both 2009 and 2010 — are included in the balanced mission budgets. Valentine said use of reserves is good stewardship. “We’ve budgeted reserves in seven of the last eight years but haven’t used them so they’ve built up. That money was given to be deployed, not stashed away some place,” she said.
Valentine said lots of lessons have been learned from the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands (MIJHH), a five-year, $40 million campaign to raise funds for new overseas mission personnel and for church development in this country, particularly racial ethnic and immigrant congregations.
The campaign, which concludes at this Assembly, will fall well short of its goal — about $22 million has been pledged to date. “I believe the campaign was vastly under-resourced,” Valentine said, “and there are many thoughts and opinions about it. But 25 new mission workers have been deployed by MIJHH gifts, with more likely when final results are in, and it’s been a catalyst for lots of new church development and church growth efforts all across the church.”
Alerting Presbyterians to “some last minute momentum — watch for it,” Valentine said “this campaign will end but the need for support will go on — I hope we’ve learned the lessons and can build more momentum for Presbyterian mission and move on productively.”
Several efforts in that direction will be reported to the San Jose Assembly, she said. The “Dallas Covenant” — which grew out of a broad-based mission consultation last winter has “laid the groundwork for cooperation and collaboration by the widest variety of Presbyterian mission initiators ever,” Valentine said, and a new evangelism initiative — “Growing the Church Deep and Wide” — will gather best outreach practices in use throughout the church in what she
said is “a concerted effort to grow Presbyterian congregations in numbers, discipleship, and diversity.”
The PC(USA) “is not what it was 30 years ago,” Valentine said. “Some presbyteries are struggling terribly and in too many places there’s too much focus on angry churches. “And yet,” she continued, “in a lot of places new church developments and others are getting new energy. My prayer is that we’ll stop making excuses and get on with mission. So much ministry is happening so fast that it’s hard to manage and how exciting is that?”
Valentine has instituted an approach in Louisville that goes by the acronym CARE (collaborative, accountable, responsive, excellent). “I hope we’re seen as valuable, trustworthy, competent, and that we can help heal the distrust and discouragement we’ve all experienced too much,” she said.
“We really are here for a gospel purpose.”
