wfn.org | Discussion Launches BOP Efforts to Interpret its Benefits Plans

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

28-July-1997 
97297 
 
    Panel Discussion Launches Board of Pensions Efforts 
    to Interpret the "Community Nature" of its Benefits Plans 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
PHILADELPHIA--The "community nature" of the benefits plans of the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Board of Pensions "is the only thing that 
makes us unique in the world of benefits plans," says Board president John 
Detterick. 
 
    But only about half of all plan members are familiar with the 
"community nature" of the plan, so the Board has launched an educational 
effort to acquaint Presbyterians with this unique aspect of the church's 
major medical and pension programs. 
 
    The effort started here July 10, when Board members gathered early for 
their summer meeting to hear a panel discussion on "community nature."  The 
Board's Office of Communication is also preparing a printed resource 
describing it for distribution to all plan members. 
 
    All participating church employers pay a combined 28 percent of their 
employees' "effective salaries" into the Board's benefits plans.  The 
resulting benefits are not dollar for dollar based on contributions. 
Rather the total dues paid in are used to provide benefits to all plan 
members.  Thus wealthier employers (large churches, for example) help 
provide resources to provide medical and retirement expenses for employees 
of less wealthy church agencies (such as small churches). 
 
    Such a plan -- in which all sacrifice for the sake of the health of the 
whole community -- is part of the biblical model, said the Rev. Charles 
Heyward, pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church in Charleston, S.C. 
Citing God's covenant with Abraham, he said biblical communities "are tied 
together emotionally, spiritually and financially."  One of the roles of 
such a community, he added, "is to take care of its own as God gives the 
resources." 
 
    Jesus, Heyward continued, "suffered not for one, but for the whole 
community, and I give thanks that the Presbyterian Church, through the 
community nature of the Board of Pensions plan, is willing to give 
sacrificially in the same way." 
 
    Responding to concerns that have been raised by some church employers 
that they can acquire medical and pension coverage for their employees less 
expensively, the Rev. John McFayden, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of 
Dale City in Woodbridge, Va., said, "Freedom of individuals is inevitably 
limited for the sake of the community as a whole." 
 
    Pointing to the story of the feeding of the 5,000, McFayden said the 
biblical record is "of the boundaries of the community always being 
expanded" and reminded Board members that the community nature of the 
benefits plans "is the living out of the biblical mandate to provide 
justice and mercy to the whole people of God." 
 
    The community nature of the Board of Pensions benefits plans, said the 
Rev. Deborah McKinley, pastor of Old Pine Presbyterian Church in 
Philadelphia, is one place "where all Presbyterians continue to connect 
with each other."  Because the community of the church starts with the 
lordship of Jesus Christ, McKinley said, "such a community, therefore, is 
open-ended and not something we create, but [something] in which we 
participate." 
 
    She praised the community nature of the Board's benefits plans "as an 
antidote to the disconnectedness people feel in their lives.  There is not 
a lack of community in the world, but a lack of the experience of 
community, and through these [benefits] plans people are enabled to 
experience a community that will carry them through even the most difficult 
times of their lives." 
 
    General Assembly stated clerk the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, speaking 
via videotape, praised the Board's benefits plans for "being based on 
Christian community, not market forces."  Citing First Corinthians 12, 
Kirkpatrick said the community nature of the Board's plans "witnesses to 
the gospel truth that the body is only fully functional and alive when all 
its parts are healthy." 
 
    Moreover, he said, the community nature of the Board's plans 
"concretely fulfill" the "Book of Order" injunction that the "church serve 
as a provisional demonstration of the realm of God." 

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