wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] H&H campaign gets $300,000 boost

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Note #8106 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

H&H campaign gets $300,000 boost
04064
February 9, 2004

H&H campaign gets $300,000 boost

Korean Council's gift meant to help PC(USA) be 'a missional church'

by Jerry L. Van Marter

SAN FRANCISCO - A $40 million campaign to raise money for Presbyterian Church
(USA) overseas missionaries and new churches has received a $300,000 infusion
from the National Korean Presbyterian Council.

The gift to the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH) was
announced during the campaign steering committee's Feb. 3-4 meeting here by
Dr. Yushin Lee, the Korean council's executive general secretary.

The gift represents a tithe of the council's "3M Campaign," a $3 million
dollar drive marking the 100th anniversary of Korean immigration to the
United States. Lee said it represents the council's interest in making the
PC(USA) "a missional church in the 21st century."

It brings total pledges to the five-year MIJHH to nearly $6.5 million in its
first year.

And more help is on the way.

The Rev. Robert Langwig, former vice-president for development for the
Presbyterian Church (USA) Foundation, told the committee that he has
recruited 17 former Foundation regional representatives to serve as volunteer
fund-raisers for the MIJHH campaign. The volunteers were recently let go by
the Foundation in a massive downsizing brought on in part by the downturn in
the financial markets.

"These folk have 250 years of combined experienced, all are licensed and
credentialed, and have all been part of the Presbyterian Foundation at one
time or another," said Langwig, who hired most of them when he was at the
Foundation. "They were hired there for mission and ministry ... and they have
missed that mission and ministry. and hearing of the opportunity to serve,
they started calling me."

Langwig guaranteed that the new volunteers will raise the $40 million, and
said flatly: "We're going to double that."

The reinforcements will not be working only with their own contacts, said Jan
Opdyke, the new director of the campaign. In a little over a year, the MIJHH
staff has identified more than 1,500 prospective large-gift donors, she said,
and the list is growing.

The Rev. Marian McClure, director of the Worldwide Ministries Division, said
WMD is turning over its donor list of 30,000 names for "screening" by the
MIJHH staff to determine how many are capable of making large gifts.

The steering committee also welcomed two consultants to the campaign: the
Rev. Tom Norwood, a former development officer at Davidson College in North
Carolina who now runs his own financial consulting firm; and Elder Scott
Buchanan of Sherman, TX, a former development officer for Austin College with
close ties to the Texas Presbyterian Foundation.

"Initially, they are going to help us with strategic planning," Opdyke said
of the consultants. "We're going to rely on them to help us put a strategic
plan together, and then hold our feet to the fire to make sure we follow it."

Officials are beginning to develop strategies for spending the money. The
Rev. Doug Wilson, associate director for Presbyterian evangelism in the
National Ministries Division (NMD), outlined "a very preliminary" plan to
deploy Evangelism and Church Development office staff from Louisville to
selected presbyteries to help bolster new-church development efforts.

Wilson envisions a pilot project in which staffers will identify the 10
fastest-growing areas in the United States and approach the presbyteries in
those areas "to see how we can help them develop a vision and strategic plan
for planting new churches, and then assist with the coordinated allocation of
resources, locally and nationally."

The Rev. David Peterson, of Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston and
the Rev. John Huffman of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach,
CA, urged Wilson to include congregations in the plan, citing the growing
movement of new-church plantings spearheaded by congregations rather than
presbyteries.

Wilson agreed, saying, "There's pretty much been a single model (for starting
new churches) around since the 1950s, and it doesn't always work."

At the urging of the Rev. Joanna Adams of Atlanta, John Detterick, the
executive director of the General Assembly Council, said NMD and MIJHH
representatives will be involved in further development of the plan.

McClure outlined the projected "80-70-500" results of the campaign for
overseas mission personnel. "We strive to add 80 persons with long-term
commitments (two years or more) and 70 people in short-term (one year or
less) commitments," she said, adding that some of those missionaries will be
volunteers. "Another way to speak of this," she said, "is to think of it as
adding 500 person-years of mission service through the PC(USA)."

McClure went through a list of 15 overseas positions for which WMD is now
recruiting missionaries - from a college administrator for Forman Christian
College in Pakistan, to a community health nurse in Sudan, to an evangelist
in South Korea.

The steering committee successfully navigated its way through a pointed
confrontation between its most liberal and conservative members that began
when Huffman, calling it the "elephant in the living room," criticized Adams
for recent statements she made as co-moderator of the Covenant Network of
Presbyterians supporting an effort at this year's General Assembly to
overturn an "authoritative interpretation" of the constitution that bans the
ordination of "self affirming practicing homosexuals."

"I signed on to this campaign with the understanding that there's an open
window until 2006 (when the Assembly's Theological Task Force on the Peace,
Unity and Purity of the Church is scheduled to make its final report on the
ordination and other issues)," Huffman said. "This kind of activity closes
that window."

In response to Huffman's charge that their support of the measure violates a
private agreement, Adams and another Covenant Network board member, the Rev.
Tim Hart-Andersen of Minneapolis, said they had agreed not to pursue the
removal of G-6.0106b from The Book of Order, calling the rescinding of the
authoritative interpretation that buttresses the constitutional ban "a
separate issue."

Huffman disagreed, calling it "a stealth weapon" that will bring about "the
big blow-up in our church, and bring down the Mission Initiative with it."
Peterson agreed that action on ordination standards at this General Assembly
presents a dire threat to the MIJHH's success.

The committee unanimously adopted the following statement, co-authored by
Huffman, Peterson, Adams and Hart-Andersen:

We, the members of the Steering Committee  of the Mission Initiative: Joining
Hearts & Hands, reaffirm our unequivocal and unanimous support of the goals
for the PC(USA) $40 million campaign: expanding global mission and developing
churches.

We represent a range of theological positions and differing perspectives on
some matters that are divisive in the life of the church, including
ordination issues and questions of biblical authority and interpretation.
Yet, we remain united behind the Mission Initiative.

We trust that God will work through the church to resolve these matters in
God's own time and way. In the meantime, we call all members of the PC(USA)
to step forward and join us in fully supporting the Joining Hearts & Hands
campaign. Together, by the grace of God, the church will be renewed for the
mission of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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