wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Not taking the fifth

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

Note #8111 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Not taking the fifth
04071
February 10, 2004

Not taking the fifth

GAC panel rejects additional churchwide special offering

by  Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE - The executive committee of the General Assembly Council (GAC)
voted Tuesday to approve a recommendation that a new special offering not be
established in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

	The suggestion came from a Special Offerings Review Task Force
elected by last year's 215th General Assembly to consider two overtures
calling for a Witness Season Offering to support international mission
personnel and new-church development.

	If the full council agrees in its meeting later this week, the
PC(USA) will continue receiving the four existing offerings - the One Great
Hour of Sharing, the Peacemaking Offering, the Christmas Joy Offering and the
Pentecost Offering.

	"The feedback we got indicates that congregations will support four
offerings, prefer three, and definitely do not want five," said the task
force chair, the Rev. Karl Travis, a pastor in Grosse Ile, MI. "And their
primary interest is in youth and at-risk children's ministry - not national
or international mission."

	That could be explained in part by the fact that the denomination
already has embarked on a five-year, $40 million campaign - the Mission
Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands- to support overseas missions and
new-church development and congregational transformations in this country,
especially in racial-ethnic and immigrant congregations.

	"It simply makes no sense to overlap a new special offering with the
Mission Initiative," Travis said.

	The task force also is recommending changes in the Christmas Joy
Offering, which now is divided 50-50 between Board of Pensions assistance
programs and the church's racial-ethnic schools and colleges.

	The recommended change would allow the Board of Pensions to allocate
its portion in response to immediate needs, and let officials of the National
Ministries Division (NMD) explore using some of its share "to support
racial-ethnic education and leadership training beyond the historically
racial-ethnic schools and colleges."

	Travis said Bloomfield (NJ) College - a PC(USA)-related institution
with a significant racial-ethnic population, but not one of the eight
historic racial-ethnic schools - had sought offering funds for its
racial-ethnic educational and leadership-development programs. The task force
referred the request to NMD

	Another factor involved in the school-funding recommendation was the
closing last fall of one of the traditional beneficiaries of the offering -
Mary Holmes College in West Point, MS.

	The task force is also recommending a permanent shift in the
distribution of the One Great Hour of Sharing Offering - now divided among
the Presbyterian Hunger Program, 32 per cent; Presbyterian Disaster
Assistance (PDA), 36 percent; and Self-Development of People (SDOP), 32
percent - to reflect actual practice.

	For years, 4 percent of the offering has been dedicated to ministries
to the homeless run by the Presbyterian Hunger Program but funded from the
PDA share. Under the new formula, PDA and SDOP each will receive 32 percent
of the offering, and the Hunger Program will get 36 percent.

	In other actions, the GAC executive committee:

	*Endorsed several recommendations from the Independent Committee of
Inquiry (ICI) that investigated sexual abuses of children by Presbyterian
missionary Bill Pruitt in the Congo between 1945 and 1985. Among the ICI
recommendations: a retreat for survivors, to be held next month; maintenance
of a hotline and Web site to receive additional complaints, if any; the
naming of a new panel to investigate allegations of abuse in Cameroon and
Egypt between the 1950s and 1970s; and 10 changes in The Book of Order to
strengthen the church's disciplinary procedures in cases of abuse.

	*Approved a recommendation from another task force that the Office of
Stewardship in the Congregational Ministries Division (CMD) and the Mission
Funding and Development Office in the GAC deputy executive director's office
be merged into a new Office of Stewardship and Mission Funding.

	The new office will be responsible for stewardship education and
training; development of stewardship resources; consulting with governing
bodies and congregations on visioning, strategic planning and capital
campaigns; development of multiple channels for Presbyterian contributions to
mission; and relationships with middle governing bodies and validated mission
support groups.

	*Approved a rationale providing for 420 staff members at this year's
General Assembly in Richmond, VA, about the same number as in 2002 and 2003.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please send an email to
pcusanews-subscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org or
pcusanews-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org

To contact the owner of the list, please send an email to
pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org