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Note #8691 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05173
March 31, 2005

Brainstorm

Task force seeks GAC, COGA input on mission-funding system

by Toya Richards Hill 

LOUISVILLE - A Mission Funding Task Force has invited members of the General
Assembly Council (GAC) and the Committee on the Office of the General
Assembly (COGA) to help make sure it's on the right track. 

	In reporting to a joint meeting of GAC and COGA on Thursday, the task
force called on GAC and COGA members to share their thoughts on how the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ought to revise its mission-funding procedures.

	"We want this to be a very collaborative process," said the Rev. Paul
Masquelier, chair of the task force and vice chair of GAC. "We're going to
take seriously what we hear from you." 

	The group has been charged through the 2005-2006 Mission Work Plan
with developing and proposing a conceptual framework for a new
mission-funding system for the PC(USA). It is to report its findings to the
2006 General Assembly. 

	Masquelier said the task force has been gathering data from a wide
range of people, including staff at the Presbyterian Center and
representatives of PC(USA) middle governing bodies. 

	In April, task force members also plan to meet with representatives
of the Reformed Church in America to discuss its handling of mission funding.

"This is bigger than GAC," Masquelier said. 

	A research subcommittee of the task force has drafted a document
outlining concepts that might part of a plan, but on Tuesday it asked GAC and
COGA members to provide data to be compared with what it has come up with. 

	The subcommittee will test that information "against what we have
written," said Conrad Rocha, chair of the subcommittee. That process will
help determine whether what the committee has written is "valid," Rocha said.
 
	The GAC and COGA members were asked to address three questions:
 
	What works and what doesn't work in the present mission funding
system?

	If you could change three things in the system, what would they be?

	How does targeted fundraising affect your work area?
 
	Although answers weren't forthcoming during Thursday's meeting,
PC(USA) staff member Will Browne, who helped record the responses, said
participants talked about differences of opinion on mission funding between
older and younger church members, and the idea that the funding system should
be open to all.
  
	"There was a feeling that people were not really aware of the current
system," said Browne, who is associate director of ecumenical partnerships
for the PC(USA).

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