Single church in Louisville jump-starts fund campaign
The Layman Online, February 19, 2003
Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., where the Presbyterian Church (USA) has its headquarters, might be able to teach Presbyterians a thing or two about raising money.
The 20,000-member church, which has drawn hundreds of Presbyterians and other mainline Protestants into its membership, has begun a $30-million capital campaign. That’s $10 million less than the PCUSA’s “Mission Initiative,” which has a target of raising $40 million in a denomination of 2.5 million Presbyterians.
Southeast’s fundraising campaign got a jump start recently with a pledge dinner – billed as “the most expensive meal you will ever eat.” The dinner was attended by 298 staff members, 17 elders and 62 deacons.
The staff and lay leaders pledged a total of $3,170,849. That’s an average of $8,410.74 per person – more than 10 times the average annual contribution of a member of the PCUSA.
The Southeast Outlook, the newspaper of the Southeast Christian Church, quoted Bob Russell, senior pastor, as saying that he had hoped the 377 pledges would account for 10 percent of the $30 million building project. But he wasn’t sure.
“To be honest, I was expecting the total to come in less than 10 percent,” he told The Outlook. “I know the salaries of the people who work for the church, and so many of them are supporting families and giving heavily already.”
Meanwhile, the Mission Initiative in the Presbyterian Church, which was authorized eight months ago by the 214th General Assembly, continues to organize and hire staff for its campaign to raise money to overcome budget cuts in foreign missions and new church development, especially new racial/ethnic and immigrant congregations.
The PCUSA eliminated 34 mission assignments in 2002, and says those positions will be restored if the Mission Initiative succeeds. For years, Curtis Kearns, director of the denomination’s National Ministries Division, has said the division does not have enough money to develop new congregations to compensate for the denomination’s membership loss of nearly 50,000 Presbyterians per year since 1965.
The Presbyterian News Service has reported that the campaign has ramped up for its upcoming second meeting by putting together most of its staff and adding a Texas pastor to its steering committee.
The director of the campaign is Ron Lundeen , a former development officer at San Francisco Theological Seminary. The new steering committee member is the Rev. David Peterson, pastor of the 4,000-member Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston.
The Mission Initiative has a Web site that includes a link to “Receipts and Disbursements,” but no numbers had been posted by Feb. 19.
The campaign has already received pledges from elected members of the General Assembly Council and some staff, but it has not disclosed those figures. A message on the Web site says, “Although many individuals and churches have already sent gifts or made pledges, formal cultivation or solicitation of Major Gift Prospects has not yet taken place. Receipts and disbursements will be calculated and made available to you on a quarterly basis.”
Lundeen recently told the General Assembly Council that the campaign would target elderly Presbyterian women who have substantial assets and are likely to be major donors to the arts.
Southeast, a congregation in West Louisville, has had spectacular growth that parallels the decline of the Presbyterian Church in the Presbytery of Middle Kentucky.
Middle Kentucky, which is mainly comprised of Louisville congregations, has lost 25.5 percent of its members in the last 10 years, one of the highest presbytery attrition rates in the denomination.
Southeast is a spinoff from America’s historic Presbyterian Church. It is theologically conservative.