Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program reviews delayed
By Craig M. Kibler, Staff Writer,The Layman Online, April 28, 2008
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The General Assembly Council has approved a comment to the 218th General Assembly that delays the implementation of scheduled reviews of two agencies in order to facilitate an “all-agency review” of the “whole of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its permanent, advocacy and advisory committees.”
The delay in the two reviews, that of the Presbyterian Publishing Corp. and the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program, was approved during a morning plenary session April 25 at the Brown Hotel.
The 218th General Assembly will meet June 21-28 in San Jose, Calif.
The action is in reference to a February recommendation of the Special Committee on Review, which states: “We recommend that the General Assembly create a review committee to review the service of the whole of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its six agencies in implementing the General Assembly’s mission directives. This review committee should be nominated according to procedures articulated in the Organization for Mission at section IV.D.1. committees of the assembly.”
Linda Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Council, told the executive committee Wednesday that the chairs of committees and the heads of the agencies already have been working on the reviews.
The recommendation, she said, “that came out of the General Assembly Council was that there be a review, but that just sort of raises the topic without any specific guidance. All six agencies are engaged in a discussion about how this review might be focused.”
The six agencies of the PCUSA are the Presbyterian Foundation, the Presbyterian Publishing Corp., the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program, Office of the General Assembly, the General Assembly Council and the Board of Pensions.
“The six agencies of the PCUSA are working together to be the best stewards of the resources given to them and to fulfill the specific mandate given to them by the church,” a document on the issue states. “The agency executives and the agency board chairs are meeting regularly to facilitate coordination and cooperation. Collaboration tables among staff are working across the agencies. Specifically, those collaborations center on funds development, communication and church relations.”
Those efforts, according to the document, “are producing much fruit and increasing efficiencies. An alternative to suspending the regular review process of the next two agencies would be to assign a higher priority to the evidence of cooperation among the agencies than already exist in the review standards. Should the assembly desire to conduct such a review, we believe it would be wise to delay the review of PPC and PILP until 2010 and expedite the process if the assembly directed the agencies to conduct a joint self-review of their cooperation and that the basis of the review committee’s work should be the agency self-studies and review reports completed over the past six years.”
The GAC comment also recommends that the review committee focus on the following:
- The effectiveness of the six agencies in implementing the overall mission directives of the General Assembly, with recommendations for possible changes in their respective mission directives in light of current financial and other issues of concern to the denomination.
- Identification of (a) possible ways to achieve operating synergies among the six agencies; (b) current areas of collaboration among the six agencies; (c) likely areas for future collaboration and synergy; and (d) identification of specific areas of duplication among or between the six agencies with a rationale for acceptable duplication or a recommendation for change with a view to avoidance of unnecessary duplication.
Craig M. Kibler is the Director of Publications and Executive Editor of the Presbyterian Lay Committee.