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Discussion continues on the future of Stony Point Center

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The question is this: will the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board support a proposal that calls for spending at least $10.3 millionon capital improvements at Stony Point Center over the next decade? Also part of the proposal: Spend $300,000 over the next three years for additional staffing for Stony Point, and another $75,000 in a capital campaign feasibility study. The answer to how much support there is for the plan likely will come to light when the board votes on the first part of the proposal at its meeting Sept. 26-28 – a meeting actually being held at Stony Point, just north of New York City. No clear answer emerged Sept. 13, during a webinar called to give board members a chance to learn more about the proposal and to ask questions. A few board members voiced enthusiasm about the proposal – for example, Kathy Maurer, who served on a board task force on Stony Point, said: “I’m really excited about the direction.” One in particular – Ken Godshall, a pastor from … [Read more...]

Tagged With: PMA board

What is the future of Stony Point Center?  Mission Agency Board to consider $10.3 million proposal

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A group within the Presbyterian Mission Agency considering the future of Stony Point Center is recommending spending at least $10.3 million on capital improvements at Stony Point over the next decade, plus $300,000 over the next three years in additional staffing and another $75,000 in a capital campaign feasibility study. The future of the Stony Point – a conference center just north of New York City – has been an enduring question for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in recent years, as Stony Point has not been financially self-sustaining and has required periodic infusions of cash from the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA), both for urgent deferred maintenance and to support operational costs. This new recommendation – which the board will consider during its Sept. 26-28 meeting at Stony Point – describes a vision in which Stony Point becomes “the conference center for PMA” and a “Christian conference center designed for transformation.” Diane Moffett, executive director and … [Read more...]

Tagged With: PMA board

Eileen Lindner on generosity and giving to the church

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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