wfn.org | Budget Woes Don't Deter NCC's 50th Anniversary Celebration

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

16-September-1999 
99306 
 
    Budget Woes Don't Deter 
    NCC's 50th Anniversary Celebration 
 
    Gala Event is Slated for Nov. 9-12 in Cleveland 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-Despite a $3.4 million budget deficit for 1999, the 
National Council of Churches (NCC) is proceeding with its gala 50th 
anniversary celebration Nov. 9-12 in Cleveland. 
 
    The celebration, entitled "Unity in Christ: Gift and Calling," will 
feature an array of workshops, caucus meetings, service projects, tours of 
ecumenical projects in the Cleveland area, a business meeting, a concert by 
the Cleveland Orchestra and an anniversary banquet that will include the 
installation of Andrew Young as the new president of the NCC. 
 
    Young was U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the Carter administration 
and has also served as mayor of Atlanta and as a member of the U.S. 
Congress. 
 
    Keynote speakers will be United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, 
South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cleveland Mayor Michael R. 
White. 
 
    Events will follow five "tracks" - Exploring Our Faith, Sustaining Our 
Environment, Transforming Our Society, Shaping Our Culture, and Celebrating 
Our Unity.  Weaving themselves around and into the anniversary fete Nov. 
7-13 will be "Equipping the Saints," a seminar for theological students and 
young pastors in the history, tradition and contemporary challenge of 
ecumenical thought and witness, coordinated by the Fund for Theological 
Education, based in Atlanta, Ga. 
 
    Concern about the event has been expressed this summer and fall as the 
NCC's budget deficit mounted.  However, the $300,000 cost of the 
anniversary celebration, which is not a part of the NCC budget, has been 
fully underwritten, so the gala will go ahead as planned.  The Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.) has contributed $25,000 to the event.  The largest single 
underwriter is the United Methodist Church, at $50,000. 
 
    The NCC Executive Board met Sept. 7 to address the budget crisis. 
According to PC(USA) associate stated clerk and ecumenical officer the Rev. 
Eugene Turner, "the NCC has been in [financial] trouble for quite awhile." 
He said the council, which has an annual budget of about $56 million, has 
used up all of its unrestricted reserves, and thus "the budget problem is a 
cash flow problem and a serious cash flow problem." 
 
    Turner, who represented stated clerk the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick at 
the meeting, added that the depletion of reserves was due in part to huge 
expenses run up by financial consultants who were called in to help 
restructure the financial operations of the NCC. 
 
    The Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory of the Presbyterian Washington Office, 
who also sits on the Executive Board, told the Presbyterian News Service 
the NCC's financial problems "are really our problems - the member churches 
created the NCC and it is our responsibility to see that the council is 
adequately funded."  She said "a lot of proposed solutions were on the 
table" at the Sept. 7 meeting. 
 
    Turner said the current proposal asks the United Methodist Church to 
advance $2 million to the NCC, with the other 30-plus member churches 
reimbursing the Methodists for half that amount. 
He said a group of Presbyterian officials will meet Oct. 6 to set an amount 
for the PC(USA) and to identify sources for the PC(USA) contribution, which 
he said "needs to be several hundred thousand dollars." 
 
    The remaining deficit under the proposal would be covered by Church 
World Service (CWS), which would be asked to absorb up to $1.4 million of 
its administrative costs, which total between $4 million and $5 million 
annually.  More than 80 percent of the NCC's total budget is CWS-related. 
 
    The PC(USA) contributes $408,000 annually to the NCC's operating budget 
and about another three-quarters of a million to various programs of the 
council, mostly to CWS. 
 
    More information about the National Council of Churches 50th 
anniversary celebration is available by calling 1-800-328-NCCC or by e-mail 
at <50th@nccusa.org>. 

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