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07803 December 10, 2007
Riverside Presbytery partners with Joining Hearts & Hands in $500,000 campaign
80% will support new churches, 20% to fund a new missionary
by Emily Enders Odom Communications Associate
SAN BERNARDINO, CA - Riverside Presbytery, headquartered here, voted at its Nov. 13 meeting to launch a $500,000 campaign in partnership with the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH).
MIJHH is the five-year campaign of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to raise $40 million for new international mission personnel and for church development in the U.S., particularly racial ethnic and immigrant congregations.
MIJHH will continue to receive pledges toward its $40 million goal through the 218th General Assembly (2008), with payments accepted through December 31, 2012.
According to the approved Riverside Presbytery proposal, the presbytery's New Church Development Task Force has been charged with developing and implementing a plan to raise $500,000 over the next two years. $400,000 of the campaign goal will be used for new church development within the bounds of the presbytery, and $100,000 in support of a PC(USA) mission co-worker.
"We've been in frequent conversation since October with Riverside Presbytery because of the California wildfires," said Linda Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
"The presbytery's expression of generosity in the light of their own critical needs is a remarkable Christian witness," she added. "In the midst of the devastation caused by these fires, they remain committed to outward and missional thinking for the sake of Christ's church, for which we are extremely grateful."
With its 34 congregations and 7,000 members, Riverside Presbytery is home to the two fastest-growing counties in California - Riverside and San Bernardino.
"It is critically important for us to do new church development here," said the Rev. Dr. Jack Schutte, acting executive presbyter of Riverside. "If not, we'll be behind the curve."
Schutte, a former church educator, new church development pastor, and middle governing body executive, who became honorably retired in January 2007, was coaxed out of that retirement to bring needed gifts to Riverside Presbytery. "It is gratifying," he said, "to be using the background and skills that I developed over 43 years of ordained ministry in an active and dynamic way."
Schutte said that partnering with MIJHH was a natural for the presbytery. "It is appropriate and important that we be in Joining Hearts & Hands not only to raise money for new church development, but for mission," he said.
Working together with the new church development task force, Schutte is helping to focus the presbytery's energy on a successful church plant in French Valley, California, a burgeoning suburb of Temecula/Murrieta.
"I think it's all very exciting because the need is so great," said Bill Saul, a former co-chair of the MIJHH national steering committee and a member of Grace First Presbyterian Church in Los Ranchos Presbytery.
Saul, who has been actively involved in developing the Riverside initiative, believes that the presbytery will raise more than its stated $500,000 goal.
"New church development is vital to Riverside Presbytery, and I'm thrilled to see it getting started," Saul said. "The enthusiasm is already beginning to build."
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