A quickly approaching deadline
With less than a year remaining to finalize a major restructuring of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s national office in time for the 227th General Assembly, the Unification Commission offered new clarity during its July meeting.
Meeting in Louisville on July 24-25, the commission approved the makeup of the yet-to-be-named replacement for the previous Presbyterian Mission Agency Board and the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, which had been responsible, respectively, for the denomination’s mission and its ecclesial work. Those areas were combined last year under the Interim Unified Agency (IUA) led by Jihyun Oh, General Assembly stated clerk and the IUA’s executive director.
“We are grateful for the progress the Unification Commission and the staff have made,” Unification Commission Co-moderator Felipe N. Martínez said after the two-day meeting. “We are trusting in God as God leads us in this process. We have confidence in the amazing [Interim Unified Agency, Unified Mission Office and Administrative Services Group] staff who are working tirelessly in support of unification.
“Our commission is focused and motivated as we work towards those hard deadlines,” he said.
The Unification Commission’s report is due Feb. 22, 2026, 120 days ahead of the assembly’s convening in Milwaukee on June 22. The report will include recommendations for a final governance document, recommendations for amendments to existing standing rules, manuals, and/or other governing documents, and any additional recommendations related to the new agency structure.
Filling the new governing board
The commission was given wide-ranging authority to restructure the denomination’s bureaucracy. On the first day of the two-day meeting (July 24), the commission approved the job description to provide to the General Assembly Nominating Committee as it seeks candidates for the new governing board. Broadly, the job will be to: “provide oversight of the Unified Agency and steward relationships with the General Assembly, mid councils and congregations (and) with the broader church in the world.”
Specifically, its members will:
- Advise, guide, evaluate, support, and collaborate with the stated clerk of the General Assembly and executive director of the unified agency.
- Oversee the operations and performance of the unified agency.
- Fulfill fiduciary responsibility by establishing budget development and approval processes; presenting a budget developed in collaboration with the unified agency to the General Assembly.
- In collaboration with the stated clerk/executive director and the president of the Administrative Services Group, establish and maintain standards of accountability throughout the unified agency.
- Ensure effective communication within the unified agency itself and with General Assembly commissioners, mid-councils, and congregations.
- Maintain and nurture relationships with the other national entities of the PC(USA).
While the size of the new board has yet to be determined, the Unification Commission adopted guidelines in the July meeting for the type of individuals who should be nominated. Their gifts and experiences should include:
- Faith in Jesus Christ, who alone is head of the church (F-1.0201).
- General knowledge of the PC(USA) and the functions of the General Assembly.
- A known history of serving with “energy, intelligence, imagination, and love” (W-4.0404h).
- Capacity to embrace, lead, and envision change.
- Working well with others, including those who represent the diversity of voices and opinions within the PC(USA).
Other skills needed are leadership and professional development; strategic, analytical and critical thinking; governance and policy; financial literacy; change management; human capital management; communication; and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Surviving a ‘time of fatigue’
In her report to the commission, Oh characterized the current atmosphere at the Interim United Agency as “a time of fatigue.”
“There’s a lot of change and unknown related to unification, and so that’s also creating fatigue,” she said. “And of course, the general state of the world, I think, and the desire to do something and feeling like there’s so much happening, I think, is also creating that sense of fatigue as well.
“So all of those things, I think, are merging on top of whatever else life things might be happening to create some of that fatigue,” she said. “I think we’re having to sort of remind ourselves, remind folks to sort of be patient, use tools that we have for resilience.”
The commission also heard the results of meetings with IUA staff from Cynthia Ganote, the change management coordinator of the current Unification Management Office.
“[IUA] Staff members were thoughtful and engaged, and they brought candor, deep insight and commitment to the process,” she said. “A number of people were cautiously optimistic by the end of the session, but there was also some skepticism about whether these words could turn into real behavioral change.”
The Unification Committee’s next scheduled meeting is Sept. 25-26.
(The Presbyterian News Service contributed to this report.)
