The Presbyterian Outlook

News and Articles from the The Presbyterian Outlook

Top Search/Contact Area

Eileen Lindner on generosity and giving to the church

by Leave a Comment

Eileen Lindner wants churches to talk about money. Specifically: about the immense transfer of wealth that’s coming as the Baby Boomer generation passes away, and about the recognition that younger people are developing new patterns of charitable giving. Lindner is a retired Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor and a sociologist of religion who formerly served on the Way Forward Commission. She now has contracts to do research for the boards of the Presbyterian Foundation and the Presbyterian Mission Agency on generational giving trends. And what she’s discovered has convinced Lindner of this: Pastors and mid councils need to know more about changes in charitable giving, and need easily accessible tools to give guidance when Presbyterians are ready to donate to the church. Here’s some of what she would like church leaders to know. Wealth transfer is impending The exact amount will depend on a number of factors – including how the stock market performs – but Lindner says … [Read more...]

Tagged With: stewardship

Money talk in the PC(USA): Per capita, who makes decisions, and more

by Leave a Comment

We know, most Presbyterians don’t sit around all summer thinking about the denomination and money. There are, however, at the top levels of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ongoing conversations about per capita funding and financial sustainability that will result in reports to the 2020 General Assembly. Here are some of the threads of the funding conversations that have wound through a series of recent meetings. Per Capita. A team from the PC(USA)’s Special Committee on Per-Capita Based Funding and National Church Financial Sustainability that’s looking into the denomination’s per capita funding system is in the process of holding consultations with synod and presbytery representatives. Among the points of discussion: How do mid councils collect and use per capita? What do mid councils do if congregations don’t remit per capita, the per-member assessment that congregations are supposed to send to support the work of the broader church? If the PC(USA) didn’t use a … [Read more...]

Tagged With: A Corp • per capita • PMA board

A tour of Baltimore: What do you see?

by Leave a Comment

BALTIMORE – Pay attention. Drive around the city where you live, and see the disparities. In Baltimore, where the 2020 General Assembly will meet next June, they’re not hard to spot. Baltimore is “a very hyper-segregated city, racially and economically,” said Kate Foster Connors, director of The Center, a ministry of the Presbytery of Baltimore that connects visiting church groups with the work of local congregations, giving them a starting spot for thinking abut issues of race and class back home. As in many places, the disparities in Baltimore are embedded in the city’s history. In Fells Point, a neighborhood in southeast Baltimore, tourists and locals now drink beer in the bars and restaurants and snap selfies on the cobblestone streets. In the late 1700s to the mid-1800s, enslaved blacks were held in sweltering “slave pens” on these same streets, and marched in chains to the harbor to be forced aboard slave ships heading south to the plantations. "I saw a mother … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Baltimore • BigTent2019

“Our budget reflects who we are”: Conversations on funding priorities

by Leave a Comment

BALTIMORE – Here’s an idea. What if the Presbyterian Mission Agency picked one clear mission focus for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – the idea of being a Matthew 25 denomination – and stuck with it for five or 10 years? The Matthew 25 vision that the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) unveiled in April has three key emphases – on congregational vitality, confronting structural racism, and eradicating systemic poverty – so the work it calls Presbyterians to is important. One approach for building PMA’s budget for 2021 and 2022 might be to stick with Matthew 25 for at least two more years – making that the top funding priority – and continue to build on the energy of that biblically-based vision. That possibility got some traction in the last day of a consultation on budget priorities that the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board held with mid council leaders August 4-5 in Baltimore. The board wanted to get a sense of what mid council leaders are seeing at the grassroots and … [Read more...]

Tagged With: PMA board

Considering PC(USA) priorities: Presbyterian Mission Agency Board holds consultation shaped by Bible study and church leadership

by Leave a Comment

BALTIMORE – What priorities should shape the budget of the Presbyterian Mission Agency for 2021 and 2022? What are presbytery and synod leaders seeing at the local and regional levels of the church that members of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board should take into account as they craft the budget? Those questions are at the heart of a 24-hour consultation being held August 4-5 in Baltimore, just after Big Tent 2019. Joe Morrow, a minister from Chicago and chair of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, said this is the first time such a consultation has been held – and said the intent is to “ask deep questions about what the church should be doing” as the board begins the process of developing PMA’s budget for 2021 and 2022. Close to two dozen mid council representatives are attending this consultation — representatives from the denomination’s synods, and from a mixture of small, medium and large presbyteries as well, plus two non-geographic presbyteries (Presbytery … [Read more...]

Tagged With: PMA board

Co-moderators to Big Tent: Go forth with your sacred questions

by Leave a Comment

BALTIMORE – Now that Big Tent 2019 is over, what will Presbyterians take with them as they go home? What will they carry in their hearts? What changes will they make in their lives and their ministry? The co-moderators of the 2019 General Assembly, Cindy Kohlmann and Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, led a “sending out” session following closing worship Aug. 3. Cintrón-Olivieri said the co-moderators had told the Big Tent planning team they wanted to create a space where people could process what they’d heard and seen and experienced over three intense days.  Often at the end of a conference, we go home “all hyped up, worship was wonderful,” but “how do you live this once you are home?” she asked – speaking first in Spanish, next in English. So the co-moderators instructed the Presbyterians to sit in small groups at round tables, and to start by sharing their answers to these questions with one another:   Where were you born? Where do you live? Where is your heart … [Read more...]

Tagged With: BigTent2019

CONTACT US: