Commentary: Church Leaders Want to Behave Like a Church!

LOUISVILLE—The General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) began its fall meeting on Tuesday, September 18, in Louisville, Kentucky, near and even in the Presbyterian national headquarters. Those Presbyterians with a high tolerance for serial reports and long meetings tend to become General Assembly Council (GAC) members.

Those Presbyterians with a complete immunity to such common irritants become members of the GAC Executive Committee. That select group got a jump on the rest of the GAC by meeting all morning in Louisville, previewing and in some respects preparing for the four-day meeting of the full GAC, which kicked off in the afternoon. Joining GAC members for the first 24 hours were dozens of presbytery and synod executives and stated clerks from across the country. This annual joint consultation between the GAC and leaders of middle governing bodies, born out of a need for better communication, was first held a year ago.

So what do top national and regional Presbyterian leaders do when they get together? They worship, pray, and sing, for one thing. Quite well. The opening worship service came across thoroughly God-focused and biblical. Pleasantly missing were some of the questionable elements that commonly have marred such services in the past, such as political posturing in liturgies or prayers of confession that sound more like accusations than confessions.

A Comprehensive Communications Strategy
The leaders also get briefed by the top brass, and in this instance, they got polled. Just last March, the GAC confirmed Karen Schmidt, a corporate communications specialist from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, as the Deputy Director for Communications and Funds Development. The lack of adequate denominational communications drove the GAC to seek a communications physician to propose a cure for ailments such as a lack of trust, funds drying up, abysmal understanding of the work of national agencies, and shock expressed by those who did get wind of what was going on. Schmidt took on the unenviable task of correcting these systemic troubles.

One of her first major responsibilities has been to devise a comprehensive communications strategy for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Thus, Schmidt outlined classic communication theory like an alliterative preacher, providing a lengthy list of “C” words that denoted what she described as “Laws of Communication”: clarity, consistent, credible, courteous, complete, correct, concise, coherent, coordinated, customer focused, creative, culture, cross-cultural, and change.

Then Schmidt worked the crowd to get a better handle on what it is these key leaders expect and truly want as communication. She polled the approximately 125 leaders on a number of forced-response questions, asking them to hold up a colored paddle to vote for their favored response among several viable options. The room cooperated enthusiastically, and the responses indicate what these regional executives and GAC leaders want most.

Our leaders mainly want to speak as a true church, for the whole church, to the church members. They seek to foster greater trust, gain increased support, and build a sense of connectedness. (See the exact numbers in the note following the article.)

These results suggest that in general, the leaders don’t particularly want to speak as some marginally religious social agency, or as any one Presbyterian entity or pet program, or primarily to pastors and other leaders, or as the voice for a single “prophetic” viewpoint. These leaders want most of all to present a united voice, as a body of faith, to the people of the church, to restore confidence and reassurance in place of the divisive troubles that are driving people from the churches and crippling Presbyterian ministry.

“I am very pleased with the results from today’s exercise,” Schmidt commented afterwards. “Participants gave important input into building the bedrock of a communication strategy by airing multiple viewpoints and beginning the process of consensus building.”

What the participants did, it appears, was voice preferences remarkably similar to the advice Presbyterian Action has given for years, when it has advocated that “the most powerful political message the church can deliver is simply the gospel of Jesus Christ, not any partisan agenda.”

Short Takes from the Rest of the Day

• Hunter Farrell, World Mission Director, predicted tremendous success for the impending Mission Challenge, which will itinerate overseas missionaries in 144 of the 173 presbyteries. Some of the missionaries will speak as many as 17 times in 1 week, and a polished DVD video has been produced to use in presentations.

  Every congregation is set to receive a packet promoting the underwriting of missionaries by the churches. Such personal support once was common but later became discouraged. Now, in a lean time for denominational funding, the genius of interpersonal connections and designated giving once more shines.

• Linda Valentine, Executive Director of the General Assembly Council, exclaimed, “We now have a great leadership team!” A year ago, positions were merely slots on a new organizational chart. Now the blank lines contain the names of some gifted leaders, whom Valentine introduced.

  Valentine has a heart for church growth, and she emphasized the Great Commission to “go and make disciples.” Unfortunately, “year after year the Presbyterian Church has declined in population,” she lamented. “Our aging white population doesn’t replace itself,” she explained as part of the problem.

  Valentine’s unflinching realism also gave recognition to “the problem of money, and how less and less of it seems to be going to the church.” But she realizes that that’s not the only problem. “We know that Presbyterians are generous,” she noted, giving the example of the International Justice Mission, which enjoys the support of individual congregations and Presbyterians. She said that its receipts, in stark contrast to the GAC’s, are up 85 percent in the last year. Presbyterians have consciously chosen not to give to their denomination.

• Grant money is on the way to many congregations, presbyteries, and synods from restricted giving—donations given to the denomination to be used for a specific purpose. Over $900,000 is being handed out, and of that, nearly $800,000 is for just three presbyteries. Governing bodies submitted grant applications, and a large number of grants are being distributed.
• Anyone wanting to keep up on GAC business coming to this meeting can find the reports and other papers, including recent financial reports, at the GAC web site (click here for plenary papers and here for committee papers).

Results of the communications poll:

• Who is doing the talking?  The whole denomination (90); All General Assembly agencies (21); One’s own specific agency (12).
• Who are we? The church (110); Religious organization that does charitable work (3); Faith-based charitable organization (1).
• Who is doing the listening? Middle governing body executives (0); Pastors (0); Pastors plus staff (0); Pastors plus staff plus elders and deacons (27); Members/people in the pew (98); The unchurched/nonmembers (13).
• What are we called? Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) (92); PC(USA) General Assembly Council (9); Presbyterian mission (17); Individual programs (4).
• What are our prioritized goals (the number who made an item their #1 or #2 priority)? Foster /improve a climate of trust (brand reputation) (78); Engage to empower/drive support (58); Increase a sense of connectedness (brand loyalty) (44); Grow membership and worship attendance (31); Increase awareness (25); De-velop related networks across congregations, presbyteries, synods, and GAC (18); Increase advocacy for PC(USA) GAC mission by clergy/church leaders (16).