EPC General Assembly finances improve
By Edward Terry , The Layman , October 12, 2009
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN, Tenn. – Speaking on behalf of Evangelical Presbyterian Church Stated Clerk Jeff Jeremiah, teaching elder Bill Meyer reported to the New Wineskins EPC Transitional Presbytery Oct. 6 that increased giving has put the denomination’s General Assembly office back in positive financial territory.
Meyer, who also is co-chairman of the New Wineskins-EPC Joint Commission, told the assembly that the denomination no longer needs to reduce staff, and thanked the group for its continued support.
“A heartfelt thanks to you, the members of NWEPCP for your response, along with the response of other churches in the EPC, that was made at the last General Assembly with respect to per member askings,” Meyer said. “The Lord has opened up pocket books and the GA account is now back in the black, and there is no need to further reduce staffing and spending that was announced this June.”
The denomination’s General Assembly now is operating in the black, but it’s doing so based on a reduced budget. In June, the EPC General Assembly approved a $1.3 million 2010 administrative budget with approximately $250,000 in cuts. Three full-time positions and one part-time position were cut, and the full-time director’s positions in Student Ministries and Women in Ministry were reduced to half-time. The decreased budget went into effect July 1.
Pointing to a $240,000 projected shortfall in per member askings, EPC officials in June urged better participation, and later took action reducing it from $25 to $23.
Jeremiah said that the Student Ministries and Women in Ministry director positions will remain full-time, thanks to funding from other sources not in the General Assembly budget, but the other staff cuts remain. Yet the call to action, combined with new congregations making first-time contributions, produced a surprising result.
“When we put that call out in June, we anticipated a lag time of at least 60 days before churches would respond,” Jeremiah said, who had attended the New Wineskins event but had to leave prior to the presbytery meeting. “The fascinating thing is August was the best giving month to per member asking that we’ve ever had in 29 years.”
Women’s ordination
At the New Wineskins Presbytery meeting, Meyer also gave a report on the women’s ordination issue, which is being examined by an 18-member commission made up of representatives from each presbytery and five ex-officio members. In June, the General Assembly rejected a call to experiment with affinity presbyteries but accepted the Permanent Judicial Committee’s recommendation to form a group to study the issue.
“Within the EPC we have had kind of a peaceful tension to a certain respect for the last number of years, but a growing tension,” Meyer said of the issue of ordaining women. “The GA historically in the EPC has been hands-off because it was a presbytery issue with respect to teaching elders as it is a congregational issue with respect to ruling elders.”
The EPC leaves the decision up to individual congregations with presbyteries having the option of deciding whether they will receive ordained women. Only two EPC presbyteries, Florida and Central South, currently do not receive female teaching elders.
Meyer asked the group to pray for the commission’s upcoming deliberations. The group plans to make a recommendation on the issue to the 2010 General Assembly.
“We believe that there is a way that this can be resolved so that the Lord is glorified but we work together and respect one another in every aspect of our joint ministry,” Meyer said.