wfn.org | Andersen Report Response Sent to General Assembly

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

18-June-1997 
GA97059 
 
                         Andersen Report 
                Response Sent to General Assembly 
 
                           by Dee Wade 
 
SYRACUSE--In its Tuesday afternoon session, the Assembly Committee on 
Mission Program Coordination acted on the Andersen Report -- an 
organizational and management assessment of the way the national offices of 
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) conduct business.  After hearings on 
Monday and further comments received on Tuesday morning, the committee 
generally agreed to the General Assembly Council's responses to report. 
Amendments, however, were applied.  The Andersen Report itself was received 
as information. 
 
    The action which lead to the Andersen Report came out of the 208th 
General Assembly (1996), on the recommendation of that year's Special 
Committee for the Review of the General Assembly Council.  The consulting 
process called for a look at the executive director's office of the General 
Assembly Council (GAC), and at the levels of conflict among the various 
agencies, or entities, of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.). 
 
    The Rev. John Evans, member of the executive committee, and a member of 
the writing team which responded to the Andersen Report, spoke before the 
committee.  He said that the GAC generally agreed with most of the 
recommendations of the Andersen Report.  For instance, the job of executive 
director is described by the report as a "mission impossible."  Evans was 
even more explicit, calling it a "chew 'em up and spit 'em out" 
proposition. 
 
    He reviewed for the committee the work over the last year, led by 
interim executive director the Rev. Frank Diaz, as doing much to heal much 
of the conflict which had existed among the staff leadership of the 
national church.  The Diaz- initiated "Covenant of Leadership" signed by 
all six executive directors of General Assembly entities was lifted-up as 
an especially effective model.   He also noted that steps had already been 
taken to simplify the mission of Corporate and Administrative Services, 
allowing it to concentrate on accounting and information services, which is 
consistent with the Andersen Report. 
 
    "Andersen is important to the life of the church and we are dead 
earnest to implement it," Evans said.  But when it comes to restructuring 
the whole of the General Assembly, Evan said that the church "doesn't have 
the energy" for such an endeavor.  The report calls for the creation of a 
"Blue Ribbon Commission" to propose a new organizational design for the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  The General Assembly Council feels such a 
step is presumptive, until its recommended "Committee of Fifteen,"  which 
would be formed to review the General Assembly, has done its work in a wide 
array of areas, including overall vision and operational procedures. 
 
    The Assembly Committee on Mission Program and Coordination seemed to 
agree with much of what Evans and other speakers from the GAC said.  They 
did, however, amend the response from the GAC to leave the idea of 
wholesale restructuring more of an open possibility.  They also approved a 
motion which would create another special committee to develop a vision 
statement for the Presbyterian Center in Louisville.   

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