LOUISVILLE – The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board approved a plan Sept. 28 for considering the finances of Stony Point Center – giving a Round Table led by Diane Moffett, the president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, roughly six months to consider ways to improve the bottom line of the center and integrate it into the agency’s broader mission work.
That vote comes with the recognition that Stony Point is operating in the red this year – running a deficit of $174,000 through the end of August and facing roughly $3 million in capital costs.
But there is excitement about the ministry of Stony Point as well – particularly the interfaith focus and its social justice work. Moffett said she thinks the center can serve as a laboratory for the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s mission emphases of addressing poverty; structural racism and white supremacy; and congregational vitality.
So the board voted Sept. 28 to take two actions regarding Stony Point:
- To approve the creation of a Stony Point Round Table, under Moffett’s direction, that will bring recommendations to the board’s meeting next spring. That would include recommendations “for the steps that must be taken to reasonably ensure the economic viability of Stony Point, and to prioritize the ministry of Stony Point, in relation to all other ministries and missions” of PMA.
- To extend until April 2019 authorization to spend the remaining $411,400 for capital needs that the board allocated last spring, at the discretion of the staff.
Earlier in the day, two board committees discussed the needs of and hopes for Stony Point in considerable detail. Read here for more about that discussion.
The board also approved other items Sept. 28 brought by its Resource Allocation and Stewardship Committee, including approving revised PMA budgets (A.102 – Revised 2019-2020 PMA Budget and Capital Plan) of $71.4 million for 2019 and $70.6 million for 2020.
And it agreed to make a change in a deliverance to give the PC(USA)’s Investment and Loan Program flexibility to make loans for capital projects to nonprofit organizations that have been approved as a validated ministry of a presbytery.
James Rissler, president and chief executive officer of the Investment and Loan Program, explained during the committee’s meeting that Presbyterians increasingly are doing ministry in partnership or in contexts where “we don’t have to have that control or ownership to be very involved in an important mission.”
Previously, the deliverance required that the program give loans to organizations that were either majority-owned or majority-controlled by a PC(USA) congregation, governing body, theological institution or educational institution related to the PC(USA) to enable that organization to acquire or improve real property.
“Can we change what we mean by ‘related to the PC(USA)?” – to broaden the scope to include validated ministries as well, Rissler asked the committee.
The request arose when an inquiry came to the investment and loan program regarding assisting an immigrant and refugee center in Detroit. The executive director is a PC(USA) minister and one Presbyterian congregation has already established a covenant relationship with the organization, and the presbytery has approved it as a validated ministry..
Now, with the change in the deliverance the board approved, the investment and loan program can approve a loan for the immigrant and refugee center to renovate a building it has purchased in “an area that’s showing real promise,” Rissler said.
“This is a home run,” said Warren Lesane, vice-chair of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board.
