wfn.org | NCCCUSA Executive Board Feb. 16-17

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org; Web: www.ncccusa.org

19NCC2/19/99      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BOARD ACTS TO STRENGTHEN NCC'S PUBLIC WITNESS, ADMINISTRATION

 NEW YORK, Feb. 19 ---- The National Council of Churches' 
Executive Board took steps at its winter meeting here Feb. 16-17 
designed to strengthen the Council's public witness and internal 
administration.

It approved six public policy priorities for the ecumenical 
community's most concentrated attention in 1999, and participated 
in a social development policy briefing at the United Nations.  
The Board also adopted recommendations of the Pappas Consulting 
Group, which for the past 11 months has been engaged in extensive 
review of the NCC's financial and human resources management.  

ECUMENICAL PUBLIC POLICY PRIORITIES

 Concern to build racial justice and global peace undergird 
all six public policy priorities, recommended by 81 
denominational and ecumenical public and social policy leaders at 
a Jan. 13-15 consultation in Washington, D.C., and ratified 
Wednesday (Feb. 17) by the NCC Executive Board.

 The six priorities are: 
1)  supporting Jubilee 2000, the campaign to cancel the 
crushing debts of impoverished countries by the new 
millennium.
2)  making Social Security more secure, with special 
attention to the needs of the most vulnerable 
populations.
3)  changing U.S. immigration law to safeguard the rights of 
asylum seekers, and reforming and restructuring the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service.
4)  protecting the environment, including continued pressure 
on the U.S. government to sign the Kyoto Agreement, which 
calls on developing countries to cut emissions of heat-
trapping gases that come from burning fossil fuels.
5)  reducing poverty, including attention to the impact of 
the 1996 welfare law.
6)  improving public education and protecting the religious 
liberty rights of students.

Participants in January's "National Religious Leadership 
Conference on Public Policy Priorities" included representatives 
of the NCC, 20 of its member communions, regional and local 
ecumenical agency leaders and others engaged in work to advocate 
for more just governmental policies at the national, state and 
local levels.

 "While the various offices will continue to work on many 
additional issues, these are the priorities all of us agree are 
of superior importance and to which we will put our common 
energies through the National Council of Churches, in particular 
the NCC's Washington Office," said the Rev. Dr. Thom White Wolf 
Fassett, Chair of the NCC's Advisory Committee on Public Policy 
Ministries.  Dr. Fassett is General Secretary, United Methodist 
Church Board of Church and Society, Washington, D.C.

UNITED NATIONS BRIEFING

 The Executive Board on Feb. 16 attended presentations on 
"The Market as Ideology: Social Impacts" and "Principles for 
Global Corporate Responsibility: Bench Marks for Measuring 
Business Performance" - both sponsored by the Ecumenical 
Delegation to the United Nations' Commission on Social 
Development.  The Ecumenical Delegation offers its faith-based 
values to the Commission's deliberations.

 The Board also met with John Langmore, Director of the U.N. 
Division for Social Policy and Development, who described the 
commission's work and the process of formal preparation - 
launched Feb. 16 - for the U.N.'s Special Session on Social 
Development, set for June 2000 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The special session will evaluate progress on 10 commitments 
made by 186 countries at the March 1995 Summit for Social 
Development, held in Copenhagen, Denmark.  NCC General Secretary 
Joan Campbell was a member of the U.S. delegation to Copenhagen 
and the NCC had an active presence there.

"PAPPAS REPORT" ON NCC ADMINISTRATION

 The Executive Board met in executive session for several 
hours on Tuesday and Wednesday and "adopted as an interim 
measure" the recommendations of the Pappas Consulting Group, 
Inc.'s 31-page "Final Report," "making the case for the redesign 
of the administrative structure of the NCC" and proposing "next 
steps" for strengthening of NCC human resources management and 
financial systems.

 The new administrative structure is "similar to that of a 
performing arts organization - most especially the symphony 
orchestra or the opera," the report says.  The General Secretary 
continues as the Council's principal executive officer, 
responsible for "providing dynamic leadership, articulating the 
mission(s) and purpose of the Council, providing spiritual 
guidance and vision, symbolizing the vocation of Christian unity 
in service and witness, maintaining relationships with 
communions, and implementing and interpreting policy."

 With the General Secretary serving as the NCC's "ecumenical 
director" (i.e. music director), the General Manager - a new 
position - serves as the organization's "managing director," with 
responsibility for the day-to-day management of the Council.  By 
Executive Board action, new job descriptions for the General 
Secretary and General Manager become immediately operative, and 
the search for a General Manager - "to be hired and in place 
within three months" - is to begin immediately.

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