General Assembly Council begins planning budget, goals for 2005-2006 By Paula R. Kincaid The Layman Online Wednesday, October 1, 2003 MONTREAT, N.C. – Members of the General Assembly Council spent a majority of their time at their September meeting discussing the "Mission Work Plan," a two-year (2005-2006) outline for the mission work and council priorities. The plan, which will be presented to the 216th General Assembly in Richmond next June, will "clearly state the GAC's priority for its work during that two year period," said Kathy Lueckert, deputy executive director of the council. Lueckert gave the initial presentation to council members on Sept. 25 on the process the council would be participating in during its meeting and what results were expected. "The plan will say what the GAC hopes to accomplish during 2005-2006, how much the work will cost and how the resources will be spent," she said, adding that goal was not to send a line-item budget to the General Assembly. Instead, she said the council would like to say "this percentage of money [goes] to this program area for the two-year period. … to say it in broad categories. We will see if the assembly will trust us to do that." By the time the council's meeting ended on Sept. 27, the council had approved areas of major focus for the four goal areas – evangelism, justice, leadership and spiritual formation. The council used consensus process to establish its goals – with no motions, seconds or votes. Council members waved orange cards if they agreed with what a speaker was saying, and blue cards if they disagreed. Consensus was reached when council members were all waving the same color card. The areas of focus for each goal were decided upon in small groups, then presented to the full plenary for consensus. The focus areas are listed as they were presented and approved by the council: Evangelism Recapturing, equipping and developing passion for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Includes: camps and conferences as means and places for evangelism Resourcing small churches. Includes exploring potential shared ministries partnerships in ministry areas Providing resources for new church developments and congregational transformation. During the consensus-building time, items one and two were reversed so that "recapturing, equipping …" was listed first. Also, the small group admitted that it didn't discuss the worldwide aspects of evangelism, so the words "throughout the world" were added. Justice Inclusivity (both in and outside the church, to include age, gender, orientation, racial ethnic identity, disability) Advocacy (for social witness, economic justice and security including living wage, Women/ethnic, legislative issues, fair housing, oppression, health care, environmental, international) Peace (non-violence, domestic violence, oppression, nationalism, child abuse, terrorism, fair and equitable sentencing, fair and humane treatment of immigrants, illegal residents) The justice small group originally had gender orientation listed under inclusivity, but during its consensus building time, the council agreed to put a comma between the two words. Leadership Identify resources for sharpening skills with clergy and laity Enhance communication and awareness of shared ministries and best practices Support for congregations for pastoral leadership, including finances Encourage Christian vocation among young people. Spiritual formation Preamble: Undergirded by an understanding that there exists and needs to be acknowledged, celebrated and developed different styles of Christian spirituality within the Reformed tradition. Conferences and events already scheduled be available through video streaming, and electronically and later on DVD and video Resources across the board, keep variety, electronic and multi-media, Biblical studies Cultural differences can't simply translate material from English; we must take into account differences within language groups. Also racial ethnic materials needs to be culturally relevant. That church leaders model spiritual leadership especially in worship, different forms of prayer. Calling all Presbyterians to a year of prayer (a daily discipline). The consensus of the council was that the heading "spiritual formation" needs to be changed. While nothing was decided upon, some alternate suggestions included "Reformed discipleship," and "Reformed spirituality." Also, when the small group for spiritual formation presented its focus areas to the council, it was noted that "'Biblical studies' did not show up in the final four." By consensus, Biblical studies was added under "resources." 'Doesn't fit' The final small group discussed focus areas that didn't fit into the four goals. The small group came up with five focus areas, which the full council whittled down to two: Communication: trust, public relations, face to face/personal, apathy, print and electronic Mission funding (structure) The other three focus areas presented to the council by the "doesn't fit" small group will be referred to the work group to see how they fit, or relate to the four goal areas. They are: Denominational identity: pastors and EPs, seminaries, C.P.M.s and their work Cultural diversity: youth and young adults, post-denominational culture, interfaith, unchurched, being counter-cultural GAC structure: crisis management, representation and size, communication (the weekly mail), clear expectations of role of elected. What's ahead for the Mission Work Plan Between the September GAC meeting and the February 2004 meeting, the Mission Work Plan team plans to translate the goals and focus areas into specific objectives and then develop a draft 2005-2006 Mission Work Plan that states objectives and suggests a high-level resource allocation for the two-year period. The team includes GAC elected members Fran Calderwood, Vernon Carroll, Karen Dimon, Charles Easley, Nancy Kahaian-chair, Ken Newbold, Neal Presa, Jack Rogers, Allison Seed and Linda Toth and GAC staff members Joey Bailey, Don Campbell, John Detterick, Curtis Kearns and Marian McClure. At its February meeting, the council will discuss and approve the work of the team, after which the team will develop a budget proposal for the 216th assembly. The council's executive committee will approve the version of the work plan that will be presented to the assembly. Following the assembly's approval, the team will work with the staff to develop action steps to the plan. At its September 2004 meeting, the council will approve the final plan, along with the objectives and action steps. History During her opening comments, Lueckert briefly explained the past history of the council's attempts to prioritize its work. The first attempt was in the fall of 2000, when the council was also meeting at Montreat. "We embarked on a strategic planning process that used a lens of discipleship and evangelism to prioritize the programs," said Lueckert, adding that the process of asking elected council members to prioritize the work of the staff "did not feel good to do. … It was a good learning process about what didn't work. It didn't consider areas like justice and spiritual growth." Last fall, she said the council tried to do a strategic plan based on the six great ends of the church. "We found that was not the best way. We got hung up on language," she said. "How do you translate the exhibition of the kingdom of God into something we can get our arms around and do some work?" Lueckert said that during that process, the council found that it "did not have a common understanding about the role of the General Assembly Council." During its January 2003 meeting, the council participated in a self-assessment process, and "what we are doing now is based on that. As frustrating as those two early attempts were, I think God helped us work through some stuff so we could do this." "We haven't done a two-year work plan and budget before," said Lueckert. "This will be a tremendous learning experience." The key ingredients to the process, she said, will be "prayer, holistic thinking, consensus decision making, patience, flexibility, and humor." Presbytery input Presbyteries also had input into the process. Council members were given a handout listing the top issues the presbyteries thought needed to be included in the four goal areas. Their list was: Leadership: Lay leadership – development at all levels (committees, presbyteries, synods, etc.) Encouraging Christian vocation among young people Clarify/sharpen skills needed for leadership in clergy and laity Evangelism: Needs and nurtures small churches Re-development/transformation/re-vitalized Dollars for NCD-redevelopment Spiritual formation Use spiritual growth or discipleship has phrase for goal Varieties of worship styles (conflict over worship) Apathy – spiritual renewal and revival Resources – money, people, electronic Justice Inclusiveness (homosexuality) Prioritizing among many justice issues Economic justice and its relationship to evangelism

Respond to this article

Home · Archives · The Layman · PLC Publications Presbyterian Lay Committee · Feedback · Links