wfn.org | Walking the walk: For Mission Initiative chairs, it's not 'do what I say' but 'do what I do'

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7426 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

13-September-2002
02351

Walking the walk

For Mission Initiative chairs, it's not 'do what I say' but 'do what I do'

by Evan Silverstein 
and John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - The co-chairs of the steering committee that will direct the $40
million Mission Initiative campaign for the Presbyterian Church (USA) are
Lucimarian Tolliver Roberts, of Biloxi, MS, and Bill Saul, of Long Beach, CA.

They are in the final stages of choosing the 15 at-large members of the
committee, whose first meeting will be held in Chicago in November. The
fund-raising will begin in earnest next year.

The campaign goal is to raise $21.5 million to add 115 new full-time
missionaries and mission volunteers over the next decade to the PC(USA)'s
current worldwide roster of 400; and $18.5 million to support 50 new-church
developments per year, principally in racial-ethnic and immigrant
communities, over the five years of the campaign.
Commissioners to this year's General Assembly (GA) approved the initiative by
a vote of 426-8 and budgeted $1 million for administrative expenses.

Roberts, 78, is an elder member of First Presbyterian Church in Bay St.
Louis, MS, which she joined in 1976. Her pastor, the Rev. Ted Hanawalt, calls
her "a salt-of-the-earth person ... very important to us." She and her
husband, Lawrence, a retired Air Force colonel, have three daughters, a son
and six grandchildren. One of their daughters is Robin Roberts, the New
York-based television anchor often seen on ABC and ESPN. 

Lucimarian Roberts, a former chairman of the New Orleans branch of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, has served on the boards of the Presbyterian
Investment and Loan Program, Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA,
and the Mississippi Power Corp. She also is a past member of the Permanent
Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of Mississippi and of the PC(USA)'s
national Self-Development of People Committee.

She was a member of the Mississippi Coast Coliseum Commission for 16 years,
its president for 10. The 1987 GA of the PC(USA) was held at the coliseum, in
Biloxi.

Roberts was employed as a social worker (in Ohio and New Jersey) and as an
elementary school teacher and counselor. From 1984 to 1993, she served on a
nine-member "lay board" of education, with a special interest in breaking
down racial barriers in Mississippi schools. She has long been active in the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National
Council of Negro Women, the Genesis Foundation, and the John S. and James L.
Knight Foundation. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from Howard
University.

"The Mission Initiative, to me, is more than just raising funds," she says.
"It's more a matter of giving people opportunities to give back. ... People
want to know that the money they give will be used in God's service, and this
is really what the Mission Initiative is about, so I'm very excited about it.

"I look at it more like an opportunity, where God says, 'I'm giving you
another chance to work for me.' I really, really believe in that scripture,
'I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.' That's in (Paul's
Epistle to the) Philippians."

Roberts says she is confident that the Mission Initiative will accomplish its
goal.

"Again, I go back to my scriptures: 'Nothing is impossible with God.' And all
the resources are His ... and we're counting on (Presbyterians) to give as
was given to them."

Saul is a longtime elder in the Presbyterian Church who may be known best
nationally as chair of the committee on local arrangements for the 2000 GA in
Long Beach, CA. He has been moderator of the Synod of Southern California and
Hawaii and of the Presbytery of Los Ranchos, and has served the PC(USA) on
many other boards, committees and task forces and in several stewardship and
capital campaigns. He was a GA commissioner in 1960 and 1987, and he is
becoming a member of the General Assembly Council this year.

Saul, who has degrees from McPherson College, Wayne State University and the
Wharton School of Business, is retired from a long career in the automobile
industry. He owned five dealerships in partnership with his two sons (one now
deceased), and still works as a consultant to car dealers in Southern
California. He is a former president of the Southern California Chevrolet
Dealers Association.

Saul also is a trustee of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, and
president of Christian Outreach Appeal, a non-profit corporation that serves
homeless and low-income people in Long Beach. (The organization, whose name
was changed recently to the more descriptive Christian Outreach in Action,
serves 300 meals a day and provides homes for scores of poor men and women.)

Saul and his wife, Marilyn, members of Lakewood First Presbyterian Church in
Long Beach, have three grandchildren.

About 30 years ago, Saul made a commitment to devote "at least 25 to 30
percent of my time" to the PC(USA) and "the service of Jesus Christ." He says
he has been "easily true to that" through the years, and has never regretted
the decision. "I just thought that was what God was telling me to do," he
says with a shrug. "I mean, do we really believe what we say, or not? Or is
it just a club?"

Saul says he hopes and believes that the Mission Initiative "will do more for
the church than just the money." He thinks it's a chance to capitalize on the
positive mood that characterized this year's GA, which he calls "the best
atmosphere and feeling in 10 years." Presbyterians might quarrel about many
matters, he says, but surely they can all come together in support of
missions and new-church development.

"I feel like our dream needs a big success," he says. "We need to be pulled
together. ... I believe this can be a bonding thing for the church."

Saul, who describes himself as a realist and "a let's-get-it-done-type
person," has no doubt that the campaign will reach its goal. "I see 40
(million dollars) as a minimum," he says, arguing that the present state of
the economy might be an advantage: "I think it's better to be starting at a
low ebb, so we'll be doing this as the economy is looking better. And I do
think the economy is going to get better. This could be the very best time.
... Of course, I'm always a 'half-full' guy."

What he likes best about the task before him, Saul says, is that "everybody
involved is more capable than I am."
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