Stony Point, finances, communication and more: Presbyterian Mission Agency Board executive committee prepares for this week’s meeting

LOUISVILLE – The executive committee of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, meeting on the morning of Feb. 7, is giving a glimpse into some issues the board is taking up as it meets in Louisville Feb. 7-9.

Here’s some of what the executive committee talked about.

Stony Point Center
A strategic team considering the future of the Stony Point Center outside New York City is not bringing a formal recommendation to this meeting – but expects to bring a report in April including a capital request for deferred maintenance.

Molly Baskin, representing that five-person team, said that after the team made two visits to Stony Point, held many conversations and conducted detailed analysis of finances, program and mission, it has determined that the outlook for Stony Point looks positive.

“We believe Stony Point is now on a sustainable path on an operating basis,” Baskin said, adding that “nobody’s more shocked than I am” that’s how the analysis turned out.

What has changed? Occupancy at Stony Point has doubled over the past two years, from 22 percent to 45 percent, Baskin said. For two out of three years, Stony Point met financial milestones the board set for it in 2014. The Stony Point leadership team contracted with a hospitality and hotel consultant “and they went through it with a fine-tooth comb,” Baskin said.

She alerted the executive committee that Stony Point has about $2.5 to $3 million in deferred maintenance costs – and that the team likely will bring a capital funding request to the board’s meeting April 25-27. That includes improvements needed to make the facility more comfortable (such as replacing bedding and upgrading conference space) as well as deferred maintenance.

“Stony Point is part of us and we are part of Stony Point,” Baskin said. “We have to look at this as a ministry.”

Ken Godshall, a pastor from Kentucky who serves as the board’s chair, said voicing support for Stony Point could be an opportunity to demonstrate PC(USA) commitment to the kind of interfaith and ecumenical work done there.

Finances
Paul Moretti, who is serving as the acting director of shared services for the Presbyterian Mission Agency on a contract basis, following the departure in late 2017 of Earline Williams, gave the executive committee a brief financial update.

Preliminary year-end results for 2017 show that gross receipts were up for the Presbyterian Mission Agency – coming in at $80.5 million, about $22.4 million above the $58 million that had been budgeted for the year.

About 75 percent of that – $12.8 million – is due to donations to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance following the hurricanes that blasted the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico in the fall of 2017. Presbyterians gave $6.3 million in relief aid following Hurricane Harvey, and $3.8 million following Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and there were contributions to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance for other needs as well.

There also have been gifts that will benefit the Presbyterian Mission Agency, including a $2 million bequest (half for disaster assistance and half for Self Development of People) and a $4.4 million bequest for global mission.

Governance Task Force
The board will be considering changes to the bylaws and manual of operations that its Governance Task Force is suggesting, and which are needed to put into effect changes in the board size and structure the board voted last fall to implement. These are large, detailed documents – Godshall described them as “our version of War and Peace” – that the board will discuss in plenary later in the meeting.

Communications
Kathy Francis, communications director for the Presbyterian Mission Agency, said the communications directors for the six PC(USA)’s agencies – a group known as Six Comm – met recently, and are pursuing several initiatives of interest to the Way Forward Commission and All Agency Review Committee, both of which have asked the Six Comm group to discuss what work needs to be done. Francis said the Six Comm group is working towards:

• Developing a strategic communications plan for the PC(USA).
• Working with an outside consultant to develop a brand identity for the denomination.
• Identifying an authority structure for making those things happen.

Francis said the group also wants to improve navigation on the PC(USA) website, but said that’s more a “digital Band-aid” as the group seeks guidance from the Way Forward Commission regarding “really big substantive changes” that would be needed to make the six agency websites “appear to be a part of the same family.”

Mission Work Plan
The board will be asked to approve a Mission Work Plan (P.002 Mission Work Plan 2019 2020) for 2019-2020 – a document with a theological foundation that will guide the development of PMA’s operating budget for those two years.

Presenting that, Sara Lisherness director of Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries for the mission agency, described the Mission Work Plan as a “living document” and an effort to live into concerns addressed by the 2016 General Assembly. That assembly added the Belhar Confession from South Africa to the PC(USA) Book of Confessions and spoke to white supremacy and structural racism, she said.

The proposed Mission Work Plan considers “what’s happening in the world that we in the church need to be in the middle of,” Lisherness said.

That proposal includes these directional goals with specific emphases:

• Evangelism & Discipleship. Grow, proclaim and live out our faith in Jesus Christ by working with our partners, here and around the world, to build communities that witness to the gospel of Christ’s love for the rich diversity reflected in all humankind.
  • 2019-2020 emphases:
    • Congregational Vitality, where churches prioritize faithfulness over self-sufficiency;
    • Poverty, where the denomination fights unjust economic systems perpetuating destitution and need.
• Leader Formation. Seek, develop and energize diverse leaders who are answering God’s call to equip the church to be a welcoming place of worship, mission and spiritual nurture for all of God’s children, especially those who have been marginalized.
  • 2019-2020 emphasis:
    • Structural Racism/White Supremacy, where Presbyterians dismantle structures and ideologies oppressing people of color.
• Justice & Reconciliation. Galvanize the church to act on issues of racism, violence and poverty as a prophetic witness to Christ’s transforming justice by speaking and living out God’s truth and compassion as we call ourselves and the world to account for injustice and oppression.
  • 2019-2020 emphases:
    • Poverty, where the denomination fights unjust economic systems perpetuating destitution and need;
    • Structural Racism/White Supremacy, where Presbyterians dismantle structures and ideologies oppressing people of color.