 Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands National campaign takes $6 million hit after Florida presbytery reduces pledge The Layman Online Tuesday, November 20, 2007 The Presbyterian Church (USA)'s $40 million fund-raising campaign for new church development and world missions suffered a $6 million blow when a Florida presbytery reduced its pledge to the campaign by that amount. Peace River Presbytery, at its stated meeting Nov. 15 in Fort Myers, Fla., voted to downgrade its pledge to Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands. Instead of $6.3 million, the presbytery will give only $300,000 and conclude its campaign Dec. 31 – 1½ years earlier than expected. Peace River reported raising $270,000 in gifts and pledges toward the revised goal. As a result, the total amount of gifts and pledges to Joining Hearts and Hands was reduced from $27.6 million to $21.6 million, the Presbyterian News Service reported. In June 2005, Peace River Presbytery unanimously endorsed a multimillion-dollar fund-raising campaign in partnership with Joining Hearts and Hands. The goal was to raise $6.3 million for the national campaign and $1.5 million for local needs. June 2007 marked what was to be the halfway point for the Peace River campaign. It was clear then that fund-raising strategies and staffing were not producing the desired results. "We launched the campaign with an abundance of energy, optimism and a real passion for the individual projects in need of funding," the Rev. Graham P. Hart, general presbyter of Peace River Presbytery, told the Presbyterian News Service. "We did not anticipate the challenges that would compromise our ability to meet the campaign's goal, but we are committed to learning from them." Hart blamed three factors:
"As a denomination, we are moving forward in positive ways to resource our congregations and middle governing bodies as they work to raise more funds for mission," she told the Presbyterian News Service. "Our ongoing dialogue with Peace River, in the light of their own experience, will inform and shape new and effective fund-raising models for the whole church." Next year, the presbytery will restart the conversation about funding for its major mission projects, Hart told the Presbyterian News Service. "We attempted this ambitious campaign because of the urgent need for capital to expand facilities at Cedarkirk, build a permanent presence of the Beth-El Farmworker Ministry in Immokalee, build new churches throughout the presbytery and send mission workers around the world," he said. "Those needs are still very real. We are still a presbytery committed to mission." The General Assembly Council, Executive Director Linda Bryant Valentine said, will stand behind the presbytery. "We are ready to renew our partnership with Peace River Presbytery, to benefit from our mutual learnings, and to work together in new ways to successfully raise the mission funds that will transform the presbytery and thereby the whole church," she told the Presbyterian News Service. The co-chairs of the Joining Hearts and Hands steering committee, the Revs. Joanna M. Adams and Dave Peterson, agreed. "Truly, God's spirit is on the move in Peace River, in what has been learned and achieved thus far, and in what will be in the future," they said in a statement. "We remain satisfied that we will all continue to learn and evolve as we become ever more familiar with how the 21st century Presbyterian Church functions in the world. The 214th General Assembly voted in 2002 to launch the Joining Hearts and Hands campaign to renew the PCUSA for mission. The five-year campaign aims to raise $40 million, divided into $20 million for new missionaries overseas and $20 million for new church growth domestically – particularly racial, ethnic and immigrant congregations. A report on Joining Hearts and Hands is expected at the 218th General Assembly in June 2008 in San Jose, Calif. |
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