wfn.org | Panel Would Streamline GAC, Make it Strictly a Mission Agency

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21-January-1999 
99027 
 
    Panel Would Streamline GAC, 
    Make it Strictly a Mission Agency 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A plan to separate management of mission and 
ecclesiastical work within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is headed for 
the General Assembly - minus a controversial recommendation to drastically 
downsize the elected bodies that oversee church administration. 
 
    While members of the Special Committee to Review the General Assembly 
quarreled about how aggressively to reduce the number of elected people 
overseeing denominational programs, they were in agreement that the 
embarrassing bureaucratic feuds of recent years resulted from a lack of 
clear lines of authority and a failure to provide a workable means of 
resolving inter-agency conflicts. 
 
    The committee won't recommend a restructuring of Assembly staff, but 
will propose several changes aimed at improving management, including: 
 
   *   Creating a 21-member Council of the Assembly to coordinate the work 
       of the denomination's multiple entities -- the mission agency (now 
       called the General Assembly Council), the Board of Pensions, the 
       Presbyterian Foundation, the Presbyterian Investment and Loan 
       Program (PILP), and the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation (PPC) -- 
       with authority to resolve inter-agency disputes between Assemblies. 
       No group has that authority now. 
   *   Electing three General Assembly commissioners each year to 
       three-year terms on the council, and giving Assembly moderators a 
       leadership role. 
   *   Transferring the work of the current 16-member Committee on the 
       Office of the General Assembly (COGA), including Assembly planning 
       and the $13.5 million per-capita budget, to the new council. During 
       the council's first year, six current COGA members would serve 
       ex-officio without having votes; three would do so in the second 
       year. 
   *   Establishing a separate mission board with the sole responsibility 
       of overseeing Presbyterian mission, rather than combining mission 
       oversight and administration in a sprawling 86-member General 
       Assembly Council (GAC). 
   *   Directing that a still-unnamed mission agency bring a plan within 
       two years to the General Assembly for a "possible reduction" in its 
       size.  (An early draft of the special committee's report proposed 
       cutting membership to 30.) 
   *   Asking General Assembly commissioners to devote year-long stints to 
       interpreting the work of the Assembly - as the Book of Order implies 
       -- rather than simply attending the Assembly and making a single 
       report to local governing bodies. 
   *   Instructing the Office of the General Assembly to present the 
       findings of its current study of the feasibility of biennial 
       Assemblies to the Council of the Assembly by January, 2001. 
 
    "The stated need was for better coordination and communication," Keith 
Groty of Mason, Mich., told the Presbyterian News Service after the special 
committee hammered out the final draft of its report here in mid-January. 
"What we're really doing  is reshaping the ways the denomination's agencies 
communicate and coordinate. ... We're trying to formalize a structure that 
will better support the coordination and cooperation that is already 
growing." 
 
    The rationale behind the proposed Assembly Council is to head off 
conflict before it arises by having agency representatives deal with 
problems together and develop more cohesive visions for ministry at all 
levels of the church. 
 
    The immediate past moderator of the General Assembly would serve as 
vice chair of the council, while the moderator of the second-past General 
Assembly would serve as chair. The current moderator would have a seat on 
the Council, as would three commissioners, one from each of the last three 
General Assemblies. 
 
    "This puts all the leadership and commissioners at the same table where 
they can discuss and resolve issues," Alvin Puryear of the Bronx, N.Y., 
said of the proposed council. Puryear is a member of the PILP board who 
served on the GAC during a particularly contentious time several years ago. 
 
    "It is another layer [of management]," he said, "but it takes fewer 
people, fewer meetings and fewer coordinating bodies. "This is just such a 
superior process that I hope it doesn't get shot down. There's been so much 
distrust. And we're beginning to alleviate that." 
 
    The distrust became public in the mid-1990s, when squabbles broke out 
between the GAC and several other denominational agencies. The GAC, 
established as both a mission and a management agency, was stymied when it 
found itself embroiled in conflicts it was charged with mediating. 
 
    In 1997, Arthur Andersen Consultants, Inc., conducted a management and 
organizational survey of the denomination and concluded that the inability 
of the GAC and other entities to coordinate their work and resolve 
conflicts had led to poor morale and crippled leadership. 
 
    The Andersen report, to the 209th General Assembly, led to the creation 
of the special committee. 
 
    The special committee proposes to turn the GAC into a mission agency 
only, with the 72 members who will remain when at-large representatives 
rotate off of the present council. Its committees will correspond to the 
existing Congregational, Worldwide and National Ministry Divisions, as well 
as Mission Support Services. Its members would be nominated by the General 
Assembly Nominating Committee. 
 
    The special committee's vote to require the mission agency to come up 
with a plan for a "possible reduction" in its membership drew the most 
debate - culminating in a tie vote on whether to make the reduction 
mandatory. The vote of moderator Gay Mothershed, of Charleston, W.Va., 
clinched the less restrictive language. 
 
    An earlier draft of the report recommended that the current GAC be 
trimmed to 30 members. 
 
    "I'm amused at the concept that the bigger the organization, the bigger 
the board," said Price Gwynn of Charlotte, N.C., a former General Assembly 
moderator. "That's not the case at all. If it were, General Motors' board 
would have 600 people on it. 
    "You can set policy with five people." 
 
    Groty was a bit more circumspect. He said the question of the council's 
size is "is of secondary importance to the coordination issue and ... the 
trust problem. Numbers are a symptom of the trust issue, and you can't deal 
with the numbers without dealing with the trust." 
 
    The committee, while acknowledging that restricting council membership 
to 21 could make it harder to achieve diversity, said in its report that a 
smaller group would be  "more conducive to the building of trust and (to) 
discernment of the will of God." 
 
    "The special committee envisioned `representation' as flowing from the 
General Assembly commissioners," it added, "understanding that their 
election to the Council of the Assembly is governed by the diversity goals 
of the church." 

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