Katrina, evangelism, mission boost ‘Joining Hearts & Hands’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 22, 2005
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Bill Sauls, a California businessman, gave the General Assembly Council an upbeat report of the denomination’s $40-million campaign called “Joining Hearts and Hands.”
Speaking separately to the council’s executive committee and later to a plenary session, Sauls, the chairman of the fundraising effort, said the campaign has received gifts and pledges totaling more than $18 million and predicted that the total would exceed $23 million by the end of the month.
That would put the campaign to raise $20 million for foreign missions and $20 million for new church development – focusing on racial/ethnic and immigrant congregations – over the halfway mark.
Sauls did not break out how much would be actual money raised versus long-term pledges for a campaign that has had a negative cash flow since it was launched in 2001 by the 213th General Assembly.
The last quarterly report by campaign officials, for the three months ending June 30, showed that gifts and pledges totaled $16 million, but that the accumulated expenses since the beginning of the campaign were $1.2 million higher than the accumulated cash gifts of $1.9 million.
Most of the $14 million in pledges has been made by presbyteries for new church development, and it will be money they will spend themselves without paying any portion of the campaign costs. Until this year, the General Assembly paid for the campaign costs out of the per-capita budget, but the denomination’s financial support has been reduced dramatically.
Recently, Sauls had reported that the campaign received an individual pledge (anonymous) of $1 million and a $300,000 pledge from Korean Presbyterians.
But he was most excited about being able to convince some reluctant givers, including congregations that disagree with some of the actions of the General Assembly and the denomination’s policies.
“Probably 75 percent of what they’re upset with doesn’t even exist,” Sauls said.
He cited one congregation comprised of “very affluent people” who were “very upset to the point that they were withholding. I was able to talk to these folks. Finally, I was able through the grace of God to establish a really fine relationship with the pastor and the chair of their board of trustees.”
“The upshot of this thing is that these people said, ‘We are good Presbyterians.'”
Sauls, who describes himself as an evangelical, says he does not try to convince congregations that disagree with the denomination that they are right or wrong.
But he indicated the church’s leaders were dead-on “right” with their pledge to give $1 million through Joining Hearts & Hands to help victims of Katrina.
The hurricane also provided an assist on another possible $1 million gift from a congregation of about 600 members. The congregation’s leaders are raising money for a building project and are considering committing $1 million in hurricane aid to rebuild Presbyterian churches. “Not only do they want to send this money, but they also want to be part of it. They want to go [to the Gulf Coast region] and talk with these churches. They want their youth to go as a work group. This is the type of thing we are running into,” Sauls said.
So why are conservative congregations that have sharp disagreements with the denomination giving their money through Joining Hearts & Hands?
In addition to Katrina, Sauls gave two reasons: “The people out there are hungry to be part of this Presbyterian system” and because of the campaign’s emphasis on “evangelism and mission – there’s no argument about that.”