Presbyteries, synod ask GAC to hold consultation on their ‘viability and stability’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 26, 2006
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Two presbyteries and a synod have made a plea to the General Assembly Council for a national consultation to consider the “viability and stability” of presbyteries and synods. In response, the council’s executive committee approved a motion Tuesday morning to “explore” convening a task force to consider the request.
The plea was made in letters by the leaders of the presbyteries of Sierra Blanca and Sante Fe and the Synod of the Southwest.
The discussion of the request produced expressions of concern about the presbyteries and synods.
“If our middle governing bodies are not viable and we continue to have reductions [in financial support for the denomination], we’re in serious trouble,” said Don Campbell, director of the National Ministries Division and a staff resource for the council.
The degree of problems in synods “at least ranges from extreme to serious,” said Manley Olson, an elected member of the council. Allison Seed, the chair of the council, crafted the language for the motion and suggested that “we need to underscore that we think this is important” and “we want to get to work on it quickly.”
The moderators of the presbytery councils in Santa Fe and Sierra Blanca made their plea in a letter to Seed. They asked the General Assembly Council “to convene a consultation at an early opportunity to address the viability and stability of the synods and presbyteries in the denomination.”
They added, “As middle governing bodies, it has now become perfectly clear to us that presbyteries and synods across the church are also facing significant instability and destabilization arising from a number of concerns. All of our missional, financial and institutional forms are seriously challenged. Yet, our present denominational structures provide no place where these concerns may be fundamentally addressed.”
A second letter to Seed was signed by Janet M. DeVries, the Synod of the Southwest executive, and four members of the synod’s council. They focused on one of the problems: the proposed discontinuing of Mission Partnership Funds to nine synods as part of a denominational cost-cutting plan. Ending the allocation of funds would “effectively eliminate the ministry of the synod and its four presbyteries,” they said.
“We know that we are not alone should this action occur,” they said. “And we know that the ongoing conversations about missional, financial and institutional forms of ministry among ALL governing bodies are ones in which the GAC needs to be not only a participant but also a convener on behalf of the whole church.”
The synod leaders asked the GAC to make partnership with the middle governing bodies “a top priority” and “actively begin this process within the next six months.”
Some of the issues raised by the request for a national consultation may arise this week as the General Assembly Council holds joint meetings with a number of the staff leaders of presbyteries and synods – the first such joint meeting ever.
The leaders of the middle-governing bodies have a number of concerns about actions of the General Assembly, including:
1. A requirement that presbyteries remit the full per-capita apportion to support the work of the General Assembly – even if local congregations withhold their apportionment as a means of making known their opposition to General Assembly actions.
2. Instructions by the General Assembly’s stated clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick, informing synods that they had the responsibility to step in and assume jurisdiction over presbyteries that are unwilling to force congregations seeking to leave the denomination to forfeit their property or pay a price for retaining it.
3. The prospect of losing denominational mission funding as a result of sharp reductions in national church income (from $144 million in 2001 to the $98.9 million that was approved for the 2007 budget year).