Overture would relieve presbyteries from paying tab for local churches By John H. Adams The Layman Online Tuesday, February 24, 2004 If a proposed Book of Order change is approved, presbyteries that fail to collect all of the per-capita apportionments to local congregations to support the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) would no longer have to make up the difference if there are shortfalls. The Presbytery of Lake Erie in Pennsylvania called for the change by approving an overture to the 216th General Assembly. The session of Rocky Grove Avenue Presbyterian Church submitted the overture. The proposed amendment, which would require approval by the General Assembly and ratification by a majority of the presbyteries in a denominationwide referendum, calls for revising G-9.0406d in the Book of Order. The following shows the language of the current overture, with words that would be eliminated stricken through and those that would be added in bold type: "Each governing body above the session shall prepare a budget annually for its operating expenses, including administrative personnel, and may fund it with a per capita apportionment among the particular churches within its bounds. The presbyteries shall be responsible for raising their own per capita funds, and for the raising and timely transmission of per capita funds, received from the churches within its bounds, to the respective synods and to the General Assembly. The presbyteries may direct per capita apportionments to the churches within its bounds." Approval of the overture would negate an authoritative interpretation in which the 1999 General Assembly said, "A presbytery has the responsibility to remit per capita allocations to synod and General Assembly, even though a congregation does not pay the per capita allocated to it by the presbytery … as long as funds are available." In an attempt to comply with the requirement to pay the full amount of the per capita assigned to local congregations for denominational purposes, numerous presbyteries have adopted coercive strategies by denying congregations normal presbytery services if the sessions fail to remit the full amount. The Lake Erie overture says they would be required to remit only the amount of per-capita money received from local congregations for the General Assembly's purposes. The overture addresses the tension between the denomination's leaders – who are facing sharp declines in mission and per-capita funding – and local sessions, which, by church law, have the final say on all gifts to their general offerings. In its rationale for the Book of Order change, the Presbytery of Lake Erie cites the constitutional authority of sessions to determine how gifts and offerings are to be disbursed and how that conflicts with requirements placed on the presbytery. "The requirement of presbyteries to raise and transmit per capita funds to their respective synods and to the General Assembly without allowing for the session of a particular church to determine the distribution of its benevolences places a hardship upon presbyteries to remit per capita funds that are not received from churches within its bounds." The rationale also notes, "Some church sessions choose not to raise or remit per capita apportionments to higher governing bodies due to the same funds not being received from their membership, or as a statement of protest or dissatisfaction with the use of same funds by higher governing bodies."

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