wfn.org | GAC tentatively OKs mission fund drive

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Note #7043 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

02-February-2002
02054

GAC tentatively OKs mission fund drive

Council attaches strings to its approval of $40 million campaign

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE - The General Assembly Council (GAC) has given its "tentative" approval to a $40 million fund-raising campaign to support international mission personnel and church growth in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

No opposition to the campaign, known as the "Mission Initiative," surfaced during the Feb. 2 GAC meeting here. But instead of giving instant approval to its executive committee's recommendation to go ahead, the council asked that five issues "be addressed" between now and the GAC's next meeting in June, when the council may give its final approval.

The five issues to be addressed:

* Completion of a "case statement" in support of the campaign, including examples of specific projects to be funded

* Recruitment of a campaign committee, including a chairperson

* GAC participation in the identification of 1,000 potential "major" donors

* Pledges in support of the campaign from at least 90 percent of GAC members

* Presentation of a staffing plan for administration of the campaign.

GAC Executive Director John Detterick and his chief deputy, Kathy Lueckert, said those issues - except for the GAC members' pledges, which are up to individual members - would have been addressed in any event.

The vote to replace the executive committee's wholesale approval with the more cautious approach - proposed by the Rev. Gary Skinner, a retired synod executive from Seattle -was 29 to 28. Skinner's plan then passed without dissent.

"There is no way I want the press to interpret my substitute as being opposition to this campaign," Skinner said. " But I can assure you that in the Seattle area, there are folk who a year ago were feeling fat and sassy, who today are in trouble. I want to be able to go back and say that there is serious thought going into this, and not, 'By the way, the GAC approved a $40 million campaign and I hope you'll support it.' Friends, that won't fly - at least not in the Northwest."

The directors of the two divisions that would receive the bulk of the funds explained the potential benefits of the Mission Initiative.

The Rev. Marian McClure, director of the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD, said division staff members have engaged in two years of "needs assessments with our partner churches, our mission personnel and with PC(USA) mission pastors," and come up with a list of 12 categories of mission workers that will be needed in the next decade.

They include "anchors" - long-term missionaries who will "add a depth of understanding of language, culture and the needs of our partner churches to our traditional mission work in those places"; regional health consultants (some already at work in Africa), who will address needs on a regional basis for the church and its partners; and mission workers who will help partner churches host the growing number of PC(USA) work and study groups traveling to mission fields around the world, taxing the resources of partner churches in some places. 

The newly-reelected director of the National Ministries Division (NMD), the Rev. Curtis Kearns, said the church growth needs of the PC(USA) are roughly twice what current budgets can absorb.

"We're losing between 35,000 and 50,000 members each year, and to turn around those losses into gains will require increasing the number of new-church developments from the current 30 per year to at least 60 each year," Kearns said. "The Mission Initiative will put us in position to offer mission program grants and church loans that will produce that number of new churches." 

Marj Carpenter, a former General Assembly moderator who is perhaps the best-known champion of mission in the denomination, said: "Both of these causes have been asked for over and over for years by General Assemblies. This is no time to be backing down the hill. The church wants more missionaries, not less - and this is the only way we can do it."

By its action, the GAC committed $600,000 in campaign start-up costs this year. The executive committee asked for $1 million for the 2003 budget. That recommendation will be taken up in June.

The Mission Initiative was a topic of energetic discussion throughout the council's five-day meeting. Detterick told several gatherings that he had changed from being skeptical to solidly supporting the initiative as he examined its prospects.

"I expected Marts and Lundy (a firm that conducted a feasibility study on the campaign) to come back and say, 'You know, with the economy sour and all this controversy in the church, this isn't a very good idea,'" Detterick said. 

What the consultants found instead, he said, "was a cry among many in the church for 'a great victory' that the denomination could create and rally around."

The campaign will be targeted at major donors (of $25,000 or more) and will take four to five years. 
The campaign staff will eventually total seven people.

Detterick visited each of the ministry division committees this week to explain his rationale for supporting the campaign. He told them the campaign is important for "at least three reasons":

* "The General Assembly told us to do it" - GAs have repeatedly asked the GAC to find more money for church growth and for missionaries.

* "Down the road, there will be insufficient funds to do what we do currently in these two areas, let alone meet future needs." 

* "Old forms of funding mission aren't working now and won't work in the future." Detterick noted, for example, that while 20 years ago more than two-thirds of the GA mission budget was funded by unrestricted gifts; that percentage stands at 30 percent today. 

Detterick repeatedly referred to the campaign as "phase one" of a fundamental shift in the way PC(USA) mission is funded. "We've been passive, waiting for folks to give," he said. "We need to learn to be more interactive and proactive. This campaign will help us learn, while we raise money for two specific parts of our work."

Marts and Lundy - the same firm that recommended against proceeding with the ill-fated Bicentennial Fund campaign 15 years ago - said it found more than ample support in their interviews with 74 selected pastors and governing-body executives. 
The consultants said the campaign's two purposes are "unassailable."

Detterick agreed. 

"I simply can't conceive of a time when church growth and international mission would not be among this denomination's highest priorities," he told the Presbyterian News Service. "With the possible exception of education, no other activities have played a more prominent role in our denomination's history."

The consultants sounded some cautionary notes, warning, for example, that the campaign, if it is to succeed, will be labor-intensive for "key leaders" of the church, among them Detterick, Kearns and McClure, who will have to devote as much as one-third of their time over several years.

Leaders of the denomination will have to develop and effectively communicate a vision for the church and a rationale for the campaign, the consultants said, and to work closely with local churches and middle-governing-body leaders in marshaling support.

Detterick said the church and its leaders are ready. 

"The Mission Initiative will help us set a true course for the Presbyterian Church (USA)," he said. "It will be not just a catalyst for giving, but a unifying force that helps ensure our denomination's future. It is the opportunity many now seek to demonstrate our commitment to spreading the gospel at home and abroad."
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