wfn.org | Call System Report Will Not Include Book of Order Amendments

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22-October-1996 
 
 
96419          Call System Report Will Not Include  
                     Book of Order Amendments 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Acknowledging the need for "appropriate adjustments," the 
Advisory Committee on the Call System (ACCS) says it will recommend a new 
system to next year's General Assembly that provides much more flexibility 
than the original design, which was sent back by the 1995 Assembly for more 
work.  The revised system will require no amendments to the Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.) "Book of Order." 
 
     "The basic task of the advisory group is to adapt the good work of the 
past to meet tomorrow's needs," said ACCS member Jack Plattner of 
Cincinnati after the group's recent meeting.  "So much has changed in the 
PC(USA) since the call system work began in 1987 that appropriate 
adjustments must be made." 
 
     Most of those adjustments involve providing options "wherever 
possible," the committee reported.  The system changes increase flexibility 
for search committees, church professionals seeking job changes and 
governing bodies. 
 
     Key among the changes is the abandonment of a previously proposed 
requirement that presbytery Committees on Ministry be split into two 
separate bodies -- one working specifically with church professionals and 
another working with churches and other employing agencies seeking new 
staff.  That requirement would have required a change in the "Book of 
Order." 
 
     Instead, the ACCS will propose that the Assembly "affirm the right of 
each presbytery to organize its Committee on Ministry in whatever ways best 
meet its needs for administration of calls within its boundaries." 
 
     The committee has also abandoned earlier proposals to charge fees for 
use of some components of the new call system.  Instead, the ACCS will 
recommend that funding for the new system come from the unified 
(undesignated) portion of the General Assembly mission budget. 
 
     The revised proposals still strongly encourage the use of the 
Leadership Effectiveness Analysis (LEA) personal assessment tool for church 
professionals and its companion piece for search committees, the Strategic 
Directions Questionnaire.  But the report also "recognizes and supports the 
various ways church professionals and search committees meet each other," 
such as self-referrals, face-to-face events and computer matching through 
the Call Referral Services office in Louisville. 
 
     The report "affirms the crucial role played by middle governing bodies 
in the call system" and pledges to support the work of synods and 
presbyteries in call system-related activities such as regional assessment 
and face-to-face events. 
 
     The newly revised system will be tested at face-to-face events this 
fall in Seattle and Indianapolis, in cooperation with the Synods of 
Alaska-Northwest and Lincoln Trails. 
 
     The current revisions and testing were launched by the 1995 General 
Assembly when it asked that further refinement and testing be done on the 
new call system before it is submitted to the 209th General Assembly (1997) 
in Syracuse next June for final approval. 

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