wfn.org | New Call System: "Approve it and Move On"

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

9-June-1997 
97244 
 
            New Call System: "Approve it and Move On" 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--After nine years of seemingly endless study, reflection, 
testing and refinement -- and one delay by the General Assembly -- the 
Presbyterian Church's new call system is back for what proponents hope will 
be final approval by the 209th General Assembly in Syracuse. 
 
     "Let's approve [the new system] and move on," General Assembly Council 
vice chair Jinny Miller of Mishawaka, Ind., said during the June 4 National 
Presbyterian Teleconference.  Miller has chaired the Advisory Group for the 
Call System, a seven-member panel appointed to conduct more testing and 
further refine the new system for matching church employers seeking staff 
with church professionals seeking calls after the 1995 General Assembly 
asked for more work to be done on the proposal. 
 
     Development of a new call system was begun in 1988.  The charge to the 
original Call System Task Force was to devise a system that was simpler, 
required less paperwork, shortened the timeline for filling vacancies and 
included more church professionals -- such as educators, musicians and 
business administrators -- in the denomination's formal call system. 
 
     The proposal coming to this year's Assembly asks that the 
"recommendations of the 1995 report of the Call System Task Force be 
acknowledged as a valuable resource in reshaping the existing call system." 
However, the report concedes that "many of the concerns which led to the 
review of our current system have shifted again" since the formation of the 
task force in 1988. 
 
     Foremost among those changes, the advisory group says, is a continuing 
"shift toward decentralization."  As a result, the original plan to develop 
a universal system with most services emanating from the General Assembly 
offices in Louisville "no longer appears in the best interest of the church 
and its servants."  And so it has given way to a proposed system in which 
"the role of the national church should be in providing referral services 
only." 
 
     As a result, a system that two years ago recommended a number of 
mandatory processes and a redesign of presbytery Committees on Ministry and 
staffs to administer them now includes virtually no required processes and 
leaves presbyteries free to organize their ministerial and other church 
professional placement services any way they wish. 
 
     Another major change from the 1995 proposal is the elimination of fees 
for the "core services" of the new system.  Instead, the refined proposal 
recommends that the new system "continue to be funded through the budget of 
the General Assembly."  
 
     The two major questionnaires developed for the new system -- the 
Leadership Effectiveness Analysis (LEA) for church professionals and the 
Strategic Directions Questionnaire (SDQ) for church employers -- originally 
proposed as required for all call system participants are now asked to "be 
affirmed as optional components of the call system." 
 
     The new system seems to offer some promise of accomplishing the 
original goal to streamline the call process.  The proposal asks that the 
Call Referral Services office in Louisville "be instructed to redesign the 
Church Information Form (CIF) and the Personal Information Form (PIF) to 
make use of current information technology, and that the length of the 
narrative portion of the forms be no more than two single-sided pages." 
 
     The new system also meets the goal to be more broadly inclusive.  The 
proposal recommends "that the call system services be available to all 
church professionals and that all forms and procedures be developed to 
reflect such common use." 
 
     The proposal, noting that "in an age of growing accusation and 
litigation and in fairness to colleagues in ministry it is imperative" that 
accountability be strengthened, asks that a statement be added to the PIF 
in which the stated clerk of the presbytery of membership certify that any 
job candidate using the system "is a person in good standing, against whom 
no charges are pending or have been sustained." 
 
     In commending the proposed system to this Assembly, the advisory group 
report concludes, "With the help of the Holy Spirit, it is expected that 
more effective and efficient partnerships between church professionals and 
calling bodies will result."   

------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
  phone 502-569-5504             fax 502-569-8073  
  E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org   Web page: http://www.pcusa.org 
  mailed from World Faith News <wfn-news@wfn.org>  

--