wfn.org | Group to Review Special Offerings Meets

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9-March-1999 
99095 
 
    Group to Review Special Offerings Meets 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-A task group set up by the Congregational Ministries 
Division (CMD) to review the Presbyterian Church's pattern of special 
offerings - a review which takes place every four years - has announced 
that it will conduct public hearings at the upcoming 211th General Assembly 
in Fort Worth, Texas, in June. 
 
    Few, if any, changes are expected to be proposed when CMD reports the 
results of the review to next year's Assembly.  Each of the denomination's 
four special offerings - the Peacemaking Offering, the Christmas Joy 
Offering, the One Great Hour of Sharing and the Pentecost Offering - 
increased in 1998 and the Assembly has repeatedly rejected the addition of 
any more special offerings to the existing ones. 
 
    The most recent change in the special offerings was the renaming of the 
Witness Offering to the Pentecost Offering and shifting it from mid-winter 
to Pentecost. 
 
    The first meeting of the task group was held in Louisville March 8-10. 
Following the General Assembly hearings, the group will meet once more -- 
Aug. 17-19 -- , after which it will formulate its report and 
recommendations to the CMD committee. 
 
    The review process was established by the 1991 General Assembly, which 
called for  "a process for an in-depth review and evaluation on a four-year 
cycle, beginning in 1995, of the causes that are supported by Special 
Offerings and for consideration of new proposals in light of established 
criteria, assessment of current mission priorities, program management, 
content, budget allocation, financial control, and accountability." 
 
    The 1995 review resulted in the Witness-Pentecost Offering shift. 
 
    The task group is chaired by the Rev. Mary Robinson-Mohr, pastor of St. 
James Presbyterian Church in Bellingham, Washington, who served on the 
previous task group evaluating special offerings in 1995.   The other 
members are Barbara Campbell Davis, executive presbyter for  the Presbytery 
of New Hope; the Rev. Katherine Killebrew, shared ministry consultant for 
mission and stewardship in West Jersey, Monmouth, and Newton presbyteries; 
the Rev. Karl Travis, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Roswell, 
New Mexico; and Alfred S.Warren, Jr., clerk of session at the Grosse Point 
(Michigan) Memorial Presbyterian Church, and a co-opted member of the 
General Assembly Council's Mission Support Services Committee. The task 
group is staffed by Sandra Sorem, CMD's associate director for stewardship, 
and Alan Krome, manager of the special offerings office in CMD's Mission 
Interpretation and Promotion team. 
 
    The public hearings will be held during General Assembly on Wednesday, 
June 23, from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the Radisson Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas. 
A sign up sheet will be posted at the Assembly.  Communications to the task 
group should be addressed to the Rev. Mary Robinson-Mohr in care of Dena 
McGowan, Room 1043A, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, 40202-1396. 

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