In many ways, the February 24-26 meeting of the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) was quite ordinary. Members of the body that supervises General Assembly mission programs between assemblies did a lot of detailed work to keep the denominational wheels turning. They talked a lot about priorities without actually setting any firm priorities.
The council recommended unanimously that its executive director, Linda Valentine, serve another four-year term. It elected new officers, including incoming GAMC chair Michael Kruse of Kansas City, who promised to continue in the same direction. There were only a couple points debated openly in the council, and those were debated politely—not in terms of the deep theological and political issues raised, but in procedural terms of making sure that all voices in the church were heard. If there are explosive confrontations at the next General Assembly, it will not be the fault of the GAMC, which is trying to go about its business and keep its head low.
But even GAMC members had to be aware of clouds looming over their work. The clouds closest at hand were budgetary. More distant, but clearly in view, were controversial political and theological debates that could shake the whole denomination.
The council took in only $77.4 million in 2009, as opposed to the $86.6 million that was expected. It balanced its budget only by cutting expenses and drawing $8.7 million from prior year reserves. The budget projection for 2010 is being dropped from $101 million to $93.8 million. The budget totals for 2011 and 2012 are expected to sink to $78.5 million and $76.2 million, respectively.
Spending from reserves is slated to decrease, too, from $9.3 million this year to $3.9 million in 2011 and $3.4 million in 2012. These declines continue a long-term trend. In 2001 the GAMC’s budget was $140 million. In barely a decade it will have shrunk by almost half. Church members are no longer willing or able to support the kind of Louisville staff structures that once existed.
Council leaders saw the ominous implications of the budget numbers. “We are at a point in the church’s history where change is inevitable—and not easy,” remarked incoming chair Kruse. According to GAMC member Matt Schramm of Bay City, Michigan, “we cannot continue to balance the budget with prior year accumulations.” Schramm predicted that “we may have to say goodbye to some long-treasured programs that no longer serve the needs of the church.”
The council was already anticipating the need for another round of personnel reductions and program cutbacks later this spring. With that unpleasant prospect looming, GAMC leaders tried to start a conversation about priorities. “There’s a loud cry for us to focus our work,” declared executive director Valentine.
The council’s Executive Committee proposed, and the full council approved, a set of 11 “Guiding Principles for Planning Decisions.” These principles speak to the necessity for tough decisions based on priorities, but without tipping the council’s hand as to what those priorities might be.
The “Guiding Principles” pledge that the council will “[o]perate according to financially sustainable principles in a commitment to live within our means and in alignment with funding trends.” They advise: “Focus on ministries that can only be done at the national level, then on what can best be done at the national level. Stop those ministries that can best be done by other parts of the church.”
The principles warn that “given our current priorities and capacities, there are good ministries that we can no longer support within the General Assembly Mission Council.” They propose a “sunset rule” by which all programs will be evaluated every four years “to ensure we are relevant, faithful, effective and accountable.”
But even this general language made some council members nervous. Several suggested that ministries that the GAMC could no longer support might be “transferred” rather than “stopped.” (It was not clear to whom the unfunded programs might be “transferred.”) Council member Roger Gench from Washington, DC, worried that there might be an undisclosed, more specific agenda behind the broad principles. Clearly, the GAMC finds it hard to talk about the painful choices ahead.
Moreover, those choices could be even more painful than anticipated. The projections of declining giving from PCUSA members are premised on a smooth continuation of current downward trends. They do not take into account the possibility of a steeper dropoff in the event of a denominational crisis. The General Assembly July 3-10 in Minneapolis could easily trigger such a crisis by taking controversial actions that divide the church.
No comments yet
Leave a Reply