On the way to GA: Proposed changes to the Session Annual Statistical Report  

The 2018 General Assembly is being asked to authorize changes in the questions congregations answer in compiling the annual statistical report for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – in part “to simplify and streamline the report for our changing church,” the recommendation states.

The Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) is recommending the proposed changes to the Session Annual Statistical Report – among them, adapting the racial ethnic categories used to include a category of “multiracial.”

Some questions are being dropped (such as the number of deacons) and others reconfigured.

The recommendations also acknowledge the reality that some of the answers provided (for example, regarding the age breakout and ethnic composition of a congregation) rely on someone, often the clerk of the session, making an educated assessment.

There is some pushback to the recommendations, however, particularly from the General Assembly Committee on Representation and the Advocacy Committee on Racial Ethnic Concerns – both of which ask the assembly to disapprove the recommendations, and ask for more time for discernment.

Both groups are raising concerns about the potential impact of ceasing to collect statistical information about women in leadership in congregations and about people with disabilities, and about the realignment of the categories for racial ethnic composition of congregations.

History

The recommendations are the result of a period of study that has involved consultation with a number of groups across the church. The chronology includes:

• The 1984 General Assembly created the Special Committee on the Statistical Needs of the Church, given the responsibility for determining what congregational statistics the PC(USA) needed, and how that data would be gathered and reported. Now, 34 years later, “there has been little change to the questions we ask or the things we choose to measure,” the report states.
• In 2009, COGA created a Statistical Revision Task Force to review the annual statistical report and propose changes to the 2012 General Assembly. That group came up with a new approach, and circulated it to mid councils and sessions for feedback. “COGA heard concerns about this draft from constituencies and caucuses representing concerns of people of color, women, and people with disabilities,” the report states, so COGA opted to spend more time in discernment and conversation rather than recommending changes then.
• The 2016 General Assembly considered two overtures related to the statistical report, specifically regarding what questions it should pose regarding race and ethnicity. That assembly referred those overtures to COGA, which set up a working group to incorporate those matters into the work of the Statistical Revision Task Force, and to complete the work. That working group included current and former presbytery stated clerks, members of the Office of the General Assembly staff, and others.
• That COGA working group consulted with the General Assembly Committee on Representation regarding which racial and ethnic categories to use in the report. “They asked us good questions … that helped us think more carefully about how it should be designed,” the COGA report states.

Goals of the revision

The report states that COGA sought to propose revisions that would serve the needs of a changing church – recognizing that more than 60 percent of PC(USA) congregations have fewer than 100 members. The Statistical Revision Task Force agreed on three principles to guide it in formulating questions, determining that the annual statistical report should gather:

• Information that is readily available. The statistical report “should not be a task, that creates work for its own end,” but should gather information already at hand – information congregations are likely to already know about themselves.
• Information that is statistically reliable.The intent is “to provide as accurate a picture as possible.”
• Information that is useful for ministry.“Simple curiosity is not sufficient reason for requesting information. The reasons for requesting information should be either immediately obvious or simply explained and have a clear relation to the ministry of the church.”

The COGA working group also considered several other factors, the report states:

• Simplicity. While the overall reporting rate for the annual statistical report has held fairly steady, there have been “significant declines” in the submission rates from congregations on the more complex parts. Reducing the number of questions may result in higher rates of submission and better data quality.
• Those gathering the information often are clerks of session “who rely on ‘best guess’ and ‘loose estimate’ techniques to fill in gaps in data that is at times difficult to quantify without receiving an extensive census-like questionnaire from each and every church member,” the report states. The COGA working group tried to keep the questions “as simple and straightforward as possible so that clerks could complete it easily and without making too many ‘best guesses.’ ”
• Opportunity for supplemental questions.The report includes a recommendation that COGA work with the broader church to create and distribute a supplemental questionnaire to gather additional information beyond what’s required. That supplemental questionnaire “would offer space for deeper reflection on issues of immediate importance to the church or respond to particular needs of General Assembly entities” for statistical information regarding congregations, the report states.

What’s left out

The recommendation calls for some questions previously included in the annual statistical report to be omitted. Among them:

• Christian education enrollment.The recommendation calls for removing a “highly specific breakdown of the number of persons enrolled in various age groups of Christian education programs.” Those statistics are no longer used to guide the creation of PC(USA) curriculum, and are of limited value for congregations concerned about faith formation, the report states.
• Number of giving units and other financial breakdowns.The recommendation removes “outdated, overly complex, and confusing references” to financial data, replacing those with “simpler, shorter questions that seek to provide a straightforward picture of the average PC(USA) congregation’s financial health.” Those questions cover annual income, annual expenses, the amount of money given to mission, and the amount spent on personnel and facilities.
• Number of deacons.“The role of deacons in PC(USA) churches is very fluid at present,” the report states, with some congregations using Stephen Ministers instead of deacons or giving the responsibilities of deacons to the session. The recommendation is to only ask congregations “do you have deacons?” — not to quantify how many people are involved.
• Disability data. Feedback to the 2009 task force and anecdotal reports from presbytery stated clerks made it clear this data was more of a “best guess” from session clerks rather than self reporting by individuals from the congregation, the report states. So the recommendation is not to include it.
• Gender breakdowns.The recommendation is to not collect data on the gender of church members and leaders. “The question disaggregating female members from overall membership was originally included to track the differences between the proportions of male and female members overall and the proportions of men and women serving in leadership positions,” the report states. Over the past 35 years, there has been no significant change in the percentages of men and women serving as ruling elders or as deacons; also, the binary categories in the current statistical report “are inadequate to express the church’s emerging understanding of God’s gift of gender.”

In a letter to COGA, the General Assembly Committee on Representation wrote that not collecting information regarding gender or disability would have the effect of “erasing the church’s ability to examine its inclusiveness in relation to the prevalence of persons with these identities in its membership. Lacking this information will further disenfranchise and renders invisible the needs of the individuals participating in congregational life.”

And the recommendation regarding statistics kept on Christian education don’t match recommendations also coming to this assembly from the Special Committee to Study the Reformed Perspective of Christian Education in the 21^st Century. That committee is asking the assembly to instruct that the statistical report collect “disaggregated data on certified Christian educators and non-certified Christian educators (employed or volunteer who are functioning as staff).”

The Special Committee, in its rationale for that recommendation, states that “during our research to find the current trends and employment for Christian educators and certified Christian educators, we discovered that there is no statistical documentation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) of Christian educators, currently employed, retired, or deceased. We do not know who they are, where they carry out their ministry, or how they are active in the denomination. Updating the statistical report could:

• Identify Christian educators in the PC(USA);
• Assist the Board of Pensions in their recommendations/changes, and presbyteries in writing compensation guidelines in implementing benefits;
• Aid the Educator Certification Committee in identifying educators to encourage to enter the certification process; and
• Aid mid councils in identifying educators to serve on committees and as resources.”

Some of what would be asked

• Membership information. The recommendations propose few changes, although a congregation that had audited its membership rolls would be able to report a different beginning membership for a given year than the ending membership of the prior year, with a note that an adjustment was made.
• Congregational life:
  • Baptisms. Baptisms would be reported for those “presented by others” (for example, children presented by their parents) and those who present themselves (“at confirmation” or “all others”).
  • Average worship attendance. The definition “has been clarified and simplified,” the report states, to count not special worship services but the “weekly average of all regularly scheduled worship services.”
  • Age distribution. Age distribution would be reported in these categories:
    • Youth/emerging adults (25 years old and younger);
    • Young adults (26-40 years);
    • Younger middle-aged adults (41-55 years);
    • Older middle-aged adults (56-70 years); and
    • Older adults (71 years and older).
  • Friends of the church. This is an attempt to quantify people who aren’t members of a congregation, but who participate in its life and worship.
  • Number of ruling elders on session.
• Financial information. The current statistical report asks roughly 20 questions related to finances — but for the most part, leaders of mid councils and congregations regularly requested or used only data from three, the report states. The recommendation is to consolidate that information into “five simpler and yet more comprehensive questions that offer a picture of all income and expenses that a congregation expects to receive and use in a particular year.”

Racial ethnic composition of a congregation

Feedback on the current categories used in the statistical report has been “nearly universally negative,” the report states.  The categories currently used are: Asian, African, African-American, Black, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Native American, White, Other.

The work group considered a number of options for alternatives, choosing to slightly modify a set of categories approved by the 2016 General Assembly to identify diverse supplier groups— categories that “were developed in consultation with the racial ethnic caucuses of the PC(USA) and reflected a long period of engagement” of these groups by the General Assembly Committee on Representation.

The report also states:

“These categories, like any listing of racial groups, are deeply constrained by the complex history and sociology of race and ethnicity. Since race and ethnicity are social constructs, we believe that self-identification is the most effective and appropriate way to collect this data. However, the constraints of the statistical reporting process make it impossible to allow each individual to directly identify their racial ethnic identity. Clerks of session have often made well-meaning assumptions regarding individuals’ racial ethnic identity to fit the categories of the SASR that have the unintended consequence of suppressing this important identity further.

The temptation, then, is strong to eliminate collection of this data entirely. Yet our Constitution requires otherwise: “The unity of believers in Christ is reflected in the rich diversity of the Church’s membership. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, God unites persons through baptism regardless of race, ethnicity, age, sex, disability, geography, or theological conviction. There is therefore no place in the life of the Church for discrimination against any person” (F-1.0403). We hope that the proposed list of categories and the collection of this data, even in this imperfect form, will help the whole church to see a more complete vision of its wide diversity and help open space for greater conversation, learning, and understanding about these matters in congregations, presbyteries, and our whole denomination.”

The General Assembly Committee on Representation describes the proposed new categories involving race and ethnicity as “problematic” — for example, the idea of putting all who are multiracial into one category “despite diversity of identities.”

It also states that changes to the statistical report “present the opportunity to transform the way the denomination approaches representation and equity.”

At the 2018 General Assembly, which meets in St. Louis June 16-23, the Committee on General Assembly Procedures will consider the COGA recommendation on the statistical report.