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Sacramento Presbytery acts on property, scruples, per-capita giving issues

Sacramento Presbytery, in a vote that is catching the attention of folks around the country, has passed a resolution that apparently would allow congregations that wanted to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do so with their property.

It also voted not to grant any exceptions to the PC(USA)'s ordination standards, not to recognize any "scruples" involving individual conscience, and not to allow the presbytery to make up the difference if congregations withhold their per capita payments to protest policies of the national church.

The presbytery met for more than four hours on Sept. 9 in a specially-called meeting requested by three pastors and three elders, who presented four resolutions for the presbytery to consider. All four passed, including one that would allow congregations that want to leave the denomination to do so without forfeiting their property. That resolution -- approved by a 73-65 margin -- states that the presbytery "shall take no action to enforce any general trust interest" involving property of congregations within the presbytery.

What exactly this will mean in practice remains to be seen.

Pastors need ministry, support, too; ways to help

Being a pastor isn't easy.

National studies show that while ministers often feel a sense of satisfaction from their work, they also feel the pressure of having too much to do, too little money, ambiguous expectations placed on them, and conflicted relationships in their congregations.

So some presbyteries, conscious of the difficulties of pastoral work, are trying different models of both providing pastoral support and of challenging ministers to do the best and most ambitious work possible.

In Pittsburgh Presbytery, Jim Mead's title is "pastor to presbytery" -- but that should not be interpreted as primarily a therapeutic or counseling role, Mead said in an interview. Instead, his emphasis is intentionally missional: encouraging pastors to be bold in mission, to take risks, to follow where God is calling them to go.

"The pastor to the presbytery's number one job is walking with pastors while they try to help their congregations walk with God in what God is doing," Mead said, or "asking pastors to do difficult things and to pay the price that comes with change."

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10 Minutes With … Jay Hein

c. 2006 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON -- On Aug. 21, Jay Hein became the third director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In his new role, the former think-tank president intends to continue toward President Bush's goal of giving religious groups equal access to federal funding for social services.

Despite the initiative's tendency to be controversial because of its location at the intersection of church and state, Hein is convinced of its purpose and hopes to see it have greater influence on the local and state level.

Hein stepped down as elder of his nondenominational church in an Indianapolis suburb, but he expects to eventually return to the area and resume his work with Sagamore Institute for Policy Research. RNS spoke with Hein, 41, about his plans at the White House.

Global scope, homeland churches: PC(USA) faces immigrant issues

ATLANTA  -- What does it mean for an established church, in which tradition is revered, to see the world changing all around it?

What can a mostly-white church do to be truly welcoming to those of other cultures and other colors -- to share power and faith with those who speak many languages and have their own ways of doing things?

Those are hard questions for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination that is more than 92 percent white and has been losing both numbers and influence for a long time. But some Presbyterians are exploring exactly those questions -- are excited about what could be and at the same time somewhat apprehensive about the challenges.

"There are all kinds of people from all over the world right here in small-town America, and we don't know how to deal with that," said Tracie Mayes Stewart, director of Christian education at First Church in Statesville, N.C.

Baylor Religion Survey explores Americans’ faith, practices

Used by permission

Conventional wisdom, backed by some research, has suggested that the United States is becoming a more secularized nation - one where the significance of religion is declining. But results released Sept. 11 from the Baylor University Religion Survey paint a different picture.

In 2004, the General Social Survey reported that 14.3 percent of the population had no religion, but by using a more detailed measure in the Baylor survey, researchers determined that only 10.8 percent of the population or approximately 10 million Americans are unaffiliated.

"We believe, and are going to argue, that it [the statistics] has more to do with how you ask about the religious connection than what it says about the commitment of the average American to their faith," said Kevin Dougherty, assistant professor of sociology and one of the Baylor Survey researchers.

Gardner Taylor inspires new generation of preachers

c. 2006 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

RALEIGH, N.C. -- He's 88 years old and technically retired. But the Rev. Gardner C. Taylor still shows the preaching skills that have placed him on virtually every list of America's greatest contemporary preachers.

As a guest preacher in pulpits across the nation, Taylor continues to charm -- and enlighten -- worshippers as he has for more than six decades. But he says preaching is always a tenuous endeavor.

"It is quickly lost," he recently told the PBS show "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly." "It's uttered, heard, and sometimes lost. But it is the mystery of preaching that it survives, and that it has survived so much of our bad preaching."

By most accounts, little bad preaching can be traced to Taylor, who moved here after retirement.

GAC seeks answers for MIJH&H queries on meeting mission and operational needs

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council made it clear Sept. 29 that it wants some questions answered about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s $40 million fundraising campaign -- significant questions, such as how many international missionaries the denomination actually is sending out and how much money is available to support them.

At the same time, the council does not want to signal that it's pulling back its support for the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign, which is raising money for new church development in the United States and for international mission work.

Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216^th General Assembly, said during the council's meeting in Kentucky that the denomination's primary story line needs to be "we want to lift mission up and are looking for ways to support that."

Ufford-Chase said he recognizes that the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is now "the public face of the General Assembly Council's commitment to mission" -- and that because of it, money has been raised for mission work that the denomination would not have otherwise had.

But the push for public accountability of the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is gaining steam because the campaign's leadership announced this week that they don't have enough unrestricted funds available to pay their operating expenses for 2007 -- they expect to run about $500,000 short.

Further PC(USA) funds found missing after audit; part of Golliher embezzlement

LOUISVILLE -- An internal audit has determined that Judy Golliher, the former treasurer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), took more money from the denomination than had first been detected when the PC(USA) fired her last summer for embezzlement.

The audit shows that, in addition to the $102,000 that a preliminary investigation showed was missing, $21,912 in unauthorized charges were run up on Golliher's corporate credit card, and $8,925 that was disbursed from General Assembly bank accounts cannot be documented or reconciled.

So the investigation concluded that Golliher misappropriated $132,837 from the PC(USA), according to an Audit Committee report to the General Assembly Council Sept. 29.

Reconfiguring middle governing bodies “absolutely crucial,” Kirkpatrick tells GAC

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council has approved the broad outlines of a plan restructuring the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- condensing the national structure into six program areas.

The council also confirmed the appointment of Joey Bailey as the PC(USA)'s deputy director for shared services, responsible for information technology, finance, human resources and distribution.    

While it considers how the denomination's national staff should be organized and the impact of this year's $9.1 million downsizing, the council also is being pushed to confront a hard reality at the regional level: that some of the 173 presbyteries and 16 synods are experiencing significant financial distress. Some say the denomination needs to look hard, and quickly, at the current system of middle governing bodies, to ask whether it's feasible to continue the current configuration with funds in such short supply.

Hearts & Hands funding questions raised;
GAC to discuss further Sept. 29

LOUISVILLE -- After the news hit that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s major fundraising drive doesn't have enough unrestricted money to pay its operating costs for 2007, the question naturally came up: what to do about it?

And that dilemma is leading members of the General Assembly Council to ask other questions.

How successful has the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign really been? The General Assembly birthed the campaign in 2002, saying it wanted the PC(USA) to raise $40 million for church growth and redevelopment in the U.S., and for missionary work overseas. So far, the campaign has more than $25 million in pledges, most of it for new church development projects here in the U.S.

Presbyterians need to imagine possibilities, Hart tells leaders

LOUISVILLE -- Don't worry about suppressing the pain. No doubt, it's still circulating like a continuous loop of hurt in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

But think for a bit about possibilities. What could things look like in 2010, if Presbyterians could take a leap or three of faith and do things differently?

Now, "we go to GA (General Assembly) to solve our problems," and when the assembly goes home, "we continue to talk about the problem," Graham Hart, general presbyter for Peace River presbytery in Florida, said during a Sept. 27 session bringing together national and regional church leaders.

Instead, Hart encouraged people to spend some time in "appreciative inquiry" -- to imagine what could happen if Presbyterians focused on the positive, built on strengths, dared to take risks.