wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Phoenix rising

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Note #8569 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04502
November 11, 2004

Phoenix rising

NCC health is 'robust' after near demise four years ago, leader says

by Jerry L. Van Marter

ST. LOUIS - Four years after a financial crisis that threatened to sink the
National Council  of Churches (NCC) and a painful administrative and
financial separation of the NCC and Church World Service (CWS), both
organizations are now "robustly healthy," their leaders say.

	In a report to the joint NCC/CWS General Assembly here Nov. 10 NCC
President-elect Michael Livingston - a Presbyterian who directs the
International Council of Community Churches - praised NCC General Secretary
Bob Edgar "for bringing financial stability" to the NCC. "Three years of
balanced budgets and clean audits is a clear cause for celebration,"
Livingston said.

	CWS has recently completed a strategic planning process, and the NCC
is embarking on one at this Assembly. The CWS process "has created a new
fabric for our work," CWS Board Chair Betty Voskuil said. And the NCC process
will involve "an intense period of reflection and discernment on our mission,
goals and objectives," Livingston said.

	Voskuil led the 250 Assembly delegates in a recitation of the CWS
mission statement: "Church World Service is Christians working together with
partners to eradicate hunger and poverty and to promote peace and justice
around the world."

	CWS is engaged in mission in 70 countries around the world in five
program areas:
	Emergency response
	Immigration and refugee resettlement
	Social and economic development
	Education and advocacy
	Mission relationships and witness

The Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Presbyterian Disaster Assistance works
closely
with CWS.

	Livingston outlined steps that have been taken by the NCC in recent
years to stabilize its mission, including:

       the development of a partnership document to define its working
relationships with a variety of other organizations
	 a Memorandum of Understanding between the NCC and CWS
       a "delegation protocol" to ensure that NCC delegations are
representative of the 36-communion-member organization and that their
activities are "consistent" with NCC policies
       active participation in new ecumenical developments such as the
fledgling Christian Churches Together (CCT)

	Talk about the formation of CCT began at the height of the NCC's
financial crisis in 2000, leading to speculation that it was being designed
to replace the NCC as a  broader-based ecumenical organization in the United
States. In addition to "the usual suspects," Livingston said, the CCT talks
include the Catholics, Pentecostals and evangelicals.

	He insisted that CCT - which hopes to incorporate next year - poses
no threat to the NCC. "If there are new challenges to us," Livingston said,
"there will also be new opportunities for broader ecumenical unity and
participation."

	The challenge for CWS, Voskuil said, is to maintain a comprehensive
vision of its ministry while it seeks to meet immediate human need in this
country and around the world. "We're known as the 'Kits of the Heart' people,
as the CROP walk people, as the blanket people," she said. Our task is to
continually answer the biblical question 'What does the Lord require of us?'
and be the people who bring hope."

	Both leaders are encouraged, they told Assembly delegates.

	"There's growing good energy and spirit around the (NCC Executive
Board) table," Livingston said. "We're still not all in agreement on a lot of
things, but if here's not conflict, there's probably not enough of substance
to warrant the time and expense of meeting."

	Voskuil spoke of the hope she witnessed on a visit to CWS economic
development projects in Afghanistan and seeing children flying kites in a
village in that war-torn country. Floating a couple of tissue paper kites she
had purchased from the children out over the crowd of delegates, she said,
"It's so nice to see the kites flying again."

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