National Ministries director says division was epicenter of unrest
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, September 28, 2006
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Calling his written report “somewhat of a historical document because it is one of the concluding chapters in this chronicle,” Curtis A. Kearns Jr. gave the General Assembly Council his final retrospective as director of the National Ministries Division.
The General Assembly Council is going through a reorganization and, as of Sept. 30, there no longer will be National, Congregational or Worldwide Ministries divisions. The three directors of those divisions will lose their positions.
“It seems only fitting,” Kearns said, “that this should be a kind of ministries retrospective acknowledging and remembering some of the contributions the National Ministries Division has been able to accomplish on behalf of the church.”
Kearns said that NMD “operated in an era dominated by skirmishes in the culture wars.”
He said that by the very nature of its name, NMD was “logically the epicenter of such unrest, and from early on it was obvious these issues would command significant time and energy.”
“The division was still in its infancy when the Re-Imagining controversy rocked the church,” he said. “Re-Imagining was a seismic event, and it shook the very foundations of the General Assembly Council because it became an issue of legitimate churchwide proportions.”
Kearns said that because of the controversy, many – especially women – “lost a degree of trust in the church’s willingness to listen.”
While others “took sides and hurled insults,” he said NMD managed to frame the issues helpfully. Kearns called it a “crucial period in the life of the division because Re-Imagining could have easily left a legacy of divisiveness, but National Ministries managed to be sympathetic yet realistic, prophetic yet compliant, and therein lies one of its true attributes, the ability to live amidst the tensions of divergent opinions without becoming irrelevant.”
He named other controversies – a disputed Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare Association resolution, the question of presenting a Women of Faith Award to a lesbian minister, the General Assembly’s review of the National Network of Presbyterian College Women’s curriculum. Each, Kearns said, “put the division and its work at jeopardy. In the end, the division’s commitment to ministry and justice was stronger than any of the controversies that encircled it.”
Noting that NMD has long been concerned with church growth, Kearns said the division created a Church Growth Task Force that developed a strategy that was “pioneering in its content and farsighted in its outlook.”
That report never received the acknowledgement or appreciation it deserved, he said, but it accurately identified the challenges implied for the church by a postmodern culture. “Unfortunately, the PCUSA has not adequately confronted these challenges on a denominational scale, but the information is basically available for when it truly becomes a priority.”
“At constant risk of its health and well-being,” Kearns said the division advocated church policy in an “explosive atmosphere of a denomination lacking overwhelming consensus on many of these issues.”
The division, he said, “helped keep justice issues before the church and provided resources to help people understand the issues.”
Kearns said that there was one footnote he wanted to add to his report. “Despite declining income, numerous unfunded mandates, and the creation of new programs, thanks to sound management in the 13 years of its existence the division never, ever ran a deficit. I believe National Ministries is the only division that can make that claim.”
He ended his report by saying, “When I look back, I am first of all amazed at how quickly time passed, but then I am equally amazed at how much has been accomplished even amidst the routine challenges of the day. It has been a privilege to be a part of this history, and I am thankful that God called me and allowed me to be a small part of it.”