Kirkpatrick thanks presbyteries paying full per capita, calls it ‘maintaining the covenant connection’
The Layman Online, May 26, 2005
Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is sending letters to presbyteries that paid their full per-capita apportionment for 2004, thanking them for their payment and “maintaining the covenant connection that links together the body of Christ.”
All per-capita contributions come from local churches, but these payments are voluntary. The Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly has ruled that each session is responsible for determining how it will spend the tithes and offerings of its people. Per-capita funds are collected by presbyteries, which keep their share and send the rest to the synods and the General Assembly.
Per-capita requests for the General Assembly are $5.57 per church member for both 2005 and 2006. Additional amounts are requested by presbyteries.
Kirkpatrick, in a Feb. 7 letter to the Presbytery of Milwaukee that was included in the presbytery’s May 24 meeting docket, says that per-capita funds make “possible the annual General Assembly session through which Presbyterians seek to discern the mind of Christ for the church.” But there is no “annual General Assembly session,” since the Columbus, Ohio, General Assembly in 2002 voted 344-167 to begin holding biennial assemblies starting in 2006, with no General Assembly held in 2005.
Kirkpatrick, who on several occasions has stated that it is not his duty to enforce compliance with the constitution, also wrote that the payment of per capita “enables us to uphold our Constitution [and] to promote the unity of Christ’s church.”