Domestic Mission Task Force. The council received for information an update on the work of the Domestic Mission Task Force, which is considering the future of work that for more than a decade has been funded by the Mission Partnership Fund, which is being phased out.
The General Assembly has decided that the Mission Partnership Fund, used to fund particular work in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), will end on Dec. 31, 2013. Those funds have a somewhat long and twisting history, but since the mid-1980s it’s basically worked like this: just under 10.5 percent of the denomination’s unrestricted revenue has been put into the Mission Partnership Fund and used to fund campus ministries, new church development, racial ethnic ministries, and the staff costs of governing bodies.
But unrestricted giving to the church has declined, as has the PC(USA)’s membership. So the dollars available for the Mission Partnership Fund have dropped.
And now a Domestic Mission Task Force has been created, to make recommendations to the General Assembly in 2012 about the ministries and work now supported by those Mission Partnership Funds, “including ramifications of ending that support” and possible ways of paying for some of the ministries those funds had financed.
That task force has met twice, and also conducted three short sessions with middle governing body representatives when the assembly met in July.
“Clearly these funds were very important to some synods and presbyteries whose programs and staffing depend on those funds,” the report to the council states. “Others feel it is less important as they’ve found other sources to fund these needs.”
– Among the questions up for discussion: Should staffing of small churches be a priority of mission work in the U.S.?
– What kinds of partnerships should exist between synods and the council?
– What other funding sources might be available?
– Is it still valid to keep as priorities of domestic mission the particular areas — campus ministries, new church development, racial ethnic ministries, and governing body staff costs – that these funds have in recent years supported?
Mission Responsibility Through Investment. The council voted to create a task force to consider proposed revisions for the procedures by which the Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee operates, and to report back to the council in March 2011. That committee is responsible for implementing socially-responsible investment efforts on behalf of the PC(USA).
One question that a background paper on the matter raises is whether members of the Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee should be elected members, or people chosen from around the church for their particular skills or expertise.
Ghost Ranch. Both the Ghost Ranch Conference Center, in New Mexico, and the Stony Point Center, near New York City, are trying to work their way towards financial self-sufficiency – to break even in their budgets. As part of that effort, the governing board of Ghost Ranch has decided to close down its operations at the Plaza Resolana property it owns in Santa Fe – and the General Assembly Mission Council has authorized the Ghost Ranch to put that property up for sale.
Ghost Ranch director Debra Hepler told members of two council committees Oct. 7 that Ghost Ranch has lost more than $1.5 million running the Plaza Resolana property over the last 20 years, and that the property needs a significant amount of work. A report to the council states that the building has “significant structural needs;” that it would need to be modernized to better appeal to guests; and that it needs a new roof and work on its heating, water, and sewage systems, among other repairs.
The report also states that “it is in no way the intention of the Ghost Ranch staff or governing board to abandon programming in Santa Fe.”
It also states that “we are aware there has been vocal opposition to this decision,” although others support it.
Hepler said the Ghost Ranch staff met recently in Louisville with members of the denomination’s national staff to develop a new covenant agreement between Ghost Ranch and the PC(USA), to replace an older one drafted in 2001. That conversation “built a lot of trust,” she said.
Hepler also outlined some of the initiatives Ghost Ranch is taking to try to improve the bottom line, including the possibility of negotiating additional water rights with the city of Albuquerque and of developing conservation easements, and the expansion of year-round programming. Ghost Ranch hopes to at least break even in 2010, she said, and is committed to paying off about $800,000 in debt it owes to the PC(USA).
Mary Holmes College sale. After years of discussion and the disappointment of a few near-sales that fell through, the PC(USA) has sold the campus of the former Mary Holmes College in West Point, Miss., which closed in 2004.
The property was sold to the Regional Foundation for Mental Health and Retardation, Inc. The council has approved a plan for dispersing $1.75 million from the sale, with more than $530,000 going back into the Christmas Joy Offering, which funds racial-ethnic education and Board of Pensions assistance programs; $635,000 going into denominational reserves; and about $530,000 going into an endowment fund to support racial-ethnic schools.
Generative thinking. The council spent much of the morning Oct. 8 in small-group discussion and “generative thinking” about a series of issues, ranging from the denomination’s communications strategy to what approach congregations should take with people who regularly come to worship but show no inclination to join the Presbyterian church.
Roger Gench, chair of the council’s Justice Committee and a pastor from Washington, D.C., led a discussion on how Presbyterians deal with tension and conflict.
Gench said he lives in one of the most polarized cities in the country and has preached on such divisive issues as homosexuality, immigration, and the war in Iraq. But some of the strongest feedback he received was when he raised the issue of the interest rates banks and other lending institutions charge on consumer debt and loans. When Gench complained to his own bank about its raising the interest rate on his credit card to nearly 30 percent, the bank’s representative responded by saying, “What do you care? You pay off your balance every month.”
Gench told that representative that as a pastor, he has to care about the rates charged to people who can’t afford to pay off their balances every month — pointing out that the interest rate on advance payday loans can be as high as 300 percent.
Personally, “I avoid conflict like the plague – I don’t like it,” Gench said. “But I know we don’t move without it – without tension.”
Sometimes tension and conflict are needed to move from the world as it is, Gench said, to “the world that God envisions for us.”
