LOUISVILLE – The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board will wait until April to figure out what will come next for Stony Point Conference Center – giving leaders of both the center and the denomination time to sift through possibilities.
Center co-directors Rick and Kitty Ufford-Chase acknowledge that almost everything is on the table – including whether the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) supports the center’s emphasis on interfaith ministry and peacemaking; whether it can become financially self-sufficient; and whether it might be better aligned with another entity, such as the Synod of the Northeast. Some have also raised the possibility of selling the Stony Point property and using the proceeds – which come with some restrictions from donors – to support other PC(USA) ministries.
This issue also has tested relations within the denomination – Rick Ufford-Chase described the negotiations up to now as feeling “a bit like there’s this train wreck” ahead he wanted to avoid, but couldn’t. During a Finance Committee discussion, participants spoke with some candor of their conflicts over this issue – using words such as misunderstandings, disagreements, suspicion, mistrust, miscommunication.
In the end, the board voted to follow the lead of Presbyterian Mission Agency executive director Linda Valentine, deputy executive director for mission Roger Dermody, and Rick and Kitty Ufford-Chase, who have agreed to work together in the next two months and try to return to the April 23-25 meeting with some kind of plan for Stony Point. Among issues they’ll try to through are what to do about the accumulated debt which denominational leaders say Stony Point owes the PC(USA); and what the prospects are for the center, located near New York City, to become financially self-sustaining.
Conrad Rocha, who served on the evaluation committee that recommended against separate incorporation for Stony Point, also raised the question of “where is this ministry best lodged?” Should it be part of the Presbyterian Mission Agency or completely independent?
“We have scarce resources,” said Molly Baskin, another member of the evaluation committee. “We can’t be all things to all people. We don’t have that luxury. Where are our scarce resources best used?”
In addition to parsing the procedural details, board members also pointed to what they consider to be some learnings from what’s happened. Among those points:
- A formal decision-making process sometimes gets in the way of discernment. “Our very processes at times work against us,” Dermody said. “It becomes very adversarial.”
- As dollars become more scarce, the PC(USA) is struggling to figure out what to do about its camp and conference centers. “We are ambivalent about our camps and conference centers,” said board member Kears Pollack. While Stony Point does make some money, it is not yet self-sustaining. If the denomination had another ministry that covered a significant amount of its costs, “we would celebrate,” Pollack said. “But we look at the glass being 100 percent empty because we look at it as an investment,” not a ministry. With so many presbyteries closing church camps and conference centers, “we’ve lost a whole generation of young Presbyterians.”
- The board can learn from what’s happened with the Stony Point dispute. “Where did it break down?” asked Melissa DeRosia, chair of the Transitional Task Team which recommended separate incorporation of Stony Point. “How did it break down? What occurred? How can we learn from that?”
