Moderator cites anger, frustration in PCUSA By Paula R. Kincaid The Layman Online Friday, September 24, 2004 LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase told members of the General Assembly Council that he was humbled to be a part of them, because, he admitted, before his decision to run for moderator he could not distinguish between the General Assembly Council or the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly or any of the other agencies of the PCUSA and their acronyms. He told the group during his report that previously his attention had not been on the happenings at the national level. He called the GAC's work "largely unseen and underappreciated." Ufford-Chase shared highlights of the first three months of his two-year tenure. Following the General Assembly, Ufford-Chase said he "escaped" to the northern woods of Vermont, where "it was good to get away from everything." He then began his work with a meeting of the executive committee of the General Assembly Council, where he learned of the Mission Work Plan, the council's two-year plan for mission work and funding for 2005-2006. Ufford-Chase said he talks about the plan during his travels. The plan "sings … it is easy to tell the story … it does me no damage but a lot of good to share that story." The most difficult part of the summer, he said, "has been the consternation across our church – a lot of anger and frustration." "It speaks actually to a deep sense of fear and loss among people in our church, when they speak with that level of intensity and anger," he said, "that somehow the church they have known all their life is slipping away." He said most of the anger he was seeing came from the assembly's action of divestment from companies doing business in Israel. He said he tried to face the anger by holding question and answer sessions. "I try to allow the people to speak, and share my own personal stories … so people come away with the knowledge there is complexity here and we as the church are struggling with hard issues." Ufford-Chase said that after Hurricane Charley he traveled to Florida and "spent three days with church people trying to figure out how to put their lives together. I was moved as how they were reaching out to each other." He said that after the hurricane, the "diviseness disappeared. … churches worked together to try to reach out to others in the area." He concluded by saying that those he had met are "excited and enthusiastic .. and the love that we are trying to be creative and thoughtful about mission." In other reports given on Wednesday, General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick welcomed members to the first meeting of the bicenntial era. "We have an opportunity to think more about our work, to think proactively about the future," he said. Detterick spoke of two task forces that have been developed out of the mission work plan. One task force, he said, will deal with developing a framework for a new mission funding structure. He called the current mission funding structure "out-of-date" but added that the problem can't be solved by the GAC itself, but has to have input from presbyteries and synods. The second task force will focus on governance. He called it an opportunity to go back and look at the GAC's concerns and "how we look at how we do our work and how we can better facilitate our work, and how to better link with the middle governing bodies."

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