Divided to unite
Pittsburgh Presbytery seeks savings and clarity with reorganization plan
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman, April 26, 2012
The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s third largest presbytery plans to branch out into four divisions in an attempt to root out financial decline.
At its April meeting, the Pittsburgh Presbytery voted to continue work on a reorganization plan that will divide member churches into four branches based on geography yet with an option for porous alternatives.
Despite its size – with 37,000 members attending 145 churches – the presbytery has been besieged by financial and legal woes over the past 10 years, forcing the governing body to dip into the principal of its endowment fund to the tune of a quarter of $1 million each year.
“We ran out of money doing business the old way, and rather than just cut staff and programs to balance the budget, we thought it better to seek the Lord’s wisdom on what our mission ought to be,” said the Rev. Sheldon Sorge, pastor to the presbytery.
“We have been so bold as to believe that the Lord doesn’t give us a mission without providing sufficient resources to accomplish it,” Sorge said, adding that the plan will save $300,000 per year.
The nuts and bolts
Under the plan, each of the presbytery’s four branches will gather three times a year in fellowship meetings that will include communion, prayer as well as time for teaching and planning. Each branch will be assigned one staff member and the overall staff will shrink from 16 to 11.
“Presbytery staff will be ‘repurposed’ from being central program leaders to ‘equipping the saints for the work of ministry,’” Sorge said.
The presbytery as a whole will cut its regular meetings from six to three per year and the central office will remain open.
“We asked the mission question first, and found ourselves drawn into this direction of shifting a bunch of central work closer to the ground in regional branches,” he added.
Sorge said the presbytery will continue to vote on amendments and budgets, and to elect officers, central committees and commissions in plenary gathering, adding that nothing would change in terms of how Pittsburgh chooses General Assembly commissioners.
Each branch will launch with informal leadership teams tasked with shaping how meetings will function. Representatives from the presbytery’s Commission on Ministry (COM) and Commission on Preparation for Ministry (CPM) will coordinate branch duties like candidate and pastoral care, transitional assistance as well as serving as “first responders to congregations in need,” Sorge said
“But each branch will not have its own COM or CPM,” Sorge added. “We aim to get a lot more of our amazingly gifted congregations and leaders resourcing and motivating each another for the Lord’s work,” he said.
Monetary woes
Along with many of the PCUSA’s 173 presbyteries, Pittsburgh’s treasury has lost ground in two areas over the past several years.
Since 2008, three churches have left the presbytery due to theological differences with the PCUSA, while at least 50 churches have either refused or have been unable to pay per-capita dues. In two of the dismissal cases, the presbytery ultimately allowed the churches to leave in exchange for a monetary settlement.
In 2007, Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church left Pittsburgh Presbytery, joining the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) by a vote of 195-4.
Stating that the PCUSA had “turned from classical Trinitarian theology and from belief that Jesus is the divine son of God and sole savior of humanity,” the congregation agreed to a settlement with the presbytery which allowed the church to keep its name and property in exchange for a $250,000 payout over 10 years and a forfeiture of $46,655 in a trust account.
Later in 2007, the 1,734-member Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in Allison Park also voted to dismiss to the EPC by a vote of 951-93.
Then the largest church in the presbytery, Memorial Park filed a lawsuit in 2008 to retain title to its property but ultimately settled with Pittsburgh for $575,000. The church officially joined the EPC in 2010.
Fourth Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh voted 27-2 to pursue dismissal to the EPC in 2008 but did not seek to retain its property.
According to a 2011 presbytery report, Pittsburgh churches owed more than $783,024 in per-capita payments — the deficit for 2011 alone was expected to exceed $300,000.
Sorge said at least 10 congregations refuse to pay per-capita due to theological disagreements with the PCUSA. For example, Hebron Community Church in Penn Hills has not paid $129,946 since 2008. Several other churches show arrears up to $30,000.
In an attempt to save money, Pittsburgh voted in 2011 to stop sending per-capita payments to PCUSA higher governing bodies on behalf of churches that could not or would not pay.
The measure would have saved around $30,000 per year — however, the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Trinity ruled the change unconstitutional, essentially putting the presbytery back on the hook for the money.
Pittsburgh ended 2011 with a budget deficit of $211,455, up significantly from a 2010 deficit of $125,760.
‘A mixture of hope and apprehension’
The plan to branch out comes at a point of continued theological turbulence – not only for Pittsburgh Presbytery, but also for the entire PCUSA.
Following the passage of Amendment 10A and the new Form of Government (nFOG) in 2011, an increasing number of PCUSA congregations are fleeing a denomination they say no longer recognizes the authority of Scripture. Pittsburgh’s denominational neighbor, Beaver-Butler Presbytery, is in the process of dismissing two churches and at least six other congregations are considering making a break.
Amendment 10A deleted the explicit “fidelity/chastity” requirement from the constitutional ordination standard. The change allows the PCUSA to ordain as pastoral, deacon or elder candidates anyone who engages in any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.
The New Form of Government has raised concerns of a more “top-down” PCUSA bureaucracy and a universalistic theology.
Pittsburgh Presbytery has been traditionally viewed as one of the more conservative presbyteries in the PCUSA. In 2010, commissioners voted down Amendment 10A by a vote of 80-163 and nFOG 75-123.
On the other hand, the presbytery also recently elected controversial pastor Janet Edwards as one of its General Assembly commissioners.
Edwards made national headlines in 2006 when she stood trial before the presbytery’s Permanent Judicial Commission after performing a same-sex ceremony for a lesbian couple in 2005. The charges were dismissed because they were filed four days after a one-year statute of limitations expired.
After Amendment 10A went into effect in July, Edwards came out as a bisexual in the pro-gay news outlet The Advocate. She has served as co-moderator of More Light Presbyterians, “a network of people seeking the full participation of lesbian, gay and transgendered people of faith in the life, ministry and witness of the PCUSA.”
Sorge said the branches plan will allow local congregations to dig into these divisive issues that have so deeply affected and divided the PCUSA in the past.
“Branches will give us a place to have conversations about constitutional amendments that can go deeper than is possible in our large meetings,” he said, adding, “I expect each branch to engage in conversations about constitutional amendments at a couple of its meetings before we gather as a whole presbytery to vote.”
Despite so many financial and theological obstacles, Sorge says the plan has infused some excitement into the life of the presbytery.
“There is a mixture of hope and apprehension – hope because we see possibilities for strengthening our proclamation of the Gospel when we work more closely together as congregations and leaders, and apprehension about venturing into uncharted territory,” he said.
The branch divisions will be drawn based on geography; however, congregations may align with a branch outside of its region if it has a “strong reason to do so,” Sorge said. He doesn’t expect many will but Pittsburgh’s plan is one of many “porous” presbytery options being discussed across the denomination.
In February, the PCUSA’s Mid Council Commission released a report advocating such options for presbyteries.
Sorge said he doesn’t expect many Pittsburgh congregations will make such a move and he doesn’t think many churches will join one of the four branches based on specific theological positions.
“Each of the four branch zones has a broad spectrum of congregations from a theological standpoint, and I have heard nobody call for branches to be defined by theological fault lines,” he said.
“Our mission study team and presbytery leadership are fully committed to branches being robust neighborhood fellowships of Gospel proclamation and mutual care, with all the variety that model entails,” he added.
Trying to stem a tide of decline
The Pittsburgh plan is one of many responses as several PCUSA organizations look for ways to save budgets amid the denomination’s decline.
According to statistics released by the denomination in July, PCUSA membership declined by 61,000 members in 2010 with an overall decrease in adult baptisms, child baptisms, transfer membership and number of churches.
Over the past 45 years, the PCUSA lost 2.2 million members from 4.25 million members in 1965 to just over 2 million in 2010.
As presbyteries face the dilemma of being forced to pay per capita to higher governing bodies while gradually losing disaffected member churches, many are looking for ways to reorganize in an effort to save money.
Although many departing churches are agreeing to pay settlements in an effort to avoid property litigation, such funds often represent one-time infusions that can’t replace the steady stream of income most presbyteries had been receiving.
In New Mexico, the beleaguered Sierra Blanca Presbytery is exploring the possibility of a merger with Santa Fe Presbytery following the decisions of four churches to disaffiliate. The presbyteries already share a regional presbyter and stated clerk. Regional Executive Presbyter Sallie Watson admits that the recent departures are a factor in the merger proposal.
As for Pittsburgh, Sorge said presbytery members are viewing the denominational version of the “new normal” as a chance to literally branch out in mission opportunities
“The body is willing to take the risk of moving forward – the endorsement to move forward, despite our apprehensions, was resounding at our presbytery meeting,” he said, adding, “A number of folk have said they sense that God is moving among us to create something new and life-giving.”
The final draft of the reorganization plan will be put to a vote by the presbytery in the fall.