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07599 September 21, 2007
Sea change
New PC(USA) staff transform evangelism and world mission efforts
by Bill Lancaster Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE - New staff people are bringing about a sea change in the way the Presbyterian Church (USA) carries out its ministries in evangelism and world mission.
Tom Taylor, deputy executive director for mission, Eric Hoey, director of evangelism and church growth, and Hunter Farrell, director of World Mission, outlined their new approach to the Evangelism and Witness Goal Area Committee of the General Assembly Council meeting here Sept. 20.
Taylor wants to develop a culture of evangelism and mission in the whole denomination. Outlining the scope of the work of Evangelism and Witness, he said, "Every one of our four goal areas is a lens through which each of the mission areas sees the world."
The goal areas - the framework for the GAC's 2007-2008 Mission Work Plan - are: Evangelism and Witness, Justice and Compassion, Spirituality and Discipleship, and Leadership and Vocation.
The GAC's staff work is organized into seven program areas, which have been renamed "ministry areas": Peace and Justice, World Mission, Evangelism and Church Growth, Vocations, Theology, Worship and Education, Relief and Development, and Racial Ethnic Women/Presbyterian Women.
"Evangelism and Witness has all these seven tools through which to do evangelism," Taylor told the committee.
He also told them that every time the staff makes a decision, they ask if it conforms to CARE (evaluation) criteria- Collaborative, Accountable, Responsive, and Excellent. Taylor invited and challenged the committee to operate in the same way.
Eric Hoey reviewed the mandates by which his program area works. He said The Book of Order spells out the responsibilities for the GAC, including the carrying out of the eight current Mission Work Plan objectives.
Though the biennial General Assembly gives directives to the GAC, Hoey said "the structure has changed the mandates are up to you. It is a new day."
Hoey, formerly a pastor in southern California, said he has spent much of his first weeks on national staff learning what his staff understands their work to be. He said they lack focus and cohesiveness and are somewhat dispirited by uncertainty about funding and the continuation of their positions as the new GAC structure unfolds.
He said he has been trying "to grasp a vision of what is here, and at the same time frame my vision of what we need to do," adding that vacancies that need to be filled, and that he is trying to figure out "how we can drive evangelism that is a hodge podge of these offices."
Instead of hiring experts in new church development or congregational transformation, for example, Hoey said, "We will have an office that is very good at connecting resources from around the country."
Hunter Farrell, who just joined the staff as director of world missions August 1 after serving as a PC(USA) missionary in Peru, said he wants to re-shape the table around which world mission is planned and carried out.
"We are well equipped to do what the church asked us to do 30 years ago. But now we need to ask what the church wants us to do today," he said.
He said he has been developing relationships with three groups of people: international partners and mission personnel, congregations and mission initiators, and world mission and other GAC staff and elected people.
"We are trying to involve the players, including those sitting around this table, as stake-holders," he said. "We are trying to reshape the table around which we decide how we are to do mission work as Presbyterians."
He said he wants to bring together the new Presbyterian Global Fellowship, middle governing body executives, seminary professors of mission, the Witherspoon Society, Antioch Partners ( a joint effort of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and the Outreach Foundation), General Assembly mission staff and others. "All these groups have their perspective about what God is doing in this world."
Instead of each group doing their own thing, he wants them to see how they can more effectively accomplish mission together.
Bill Lancaster is associate executive presbyter for new church development for Foothills Presbytery.
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