Council gives provisional OK to $40-million campaign By John H. Adams The Layman Volume 35, Number 2 Posted April 8, 2002 LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (USA) gave provisional – and somewhat wary – approval to spending $1 million in an attempt to raise $40 million for missions and new church development, with an emphasis on new racial/ethic congregations. Before it approved the fund-raising plan called the Mission Initiatives Campaign, the council looked back over its shoulder at the last major fund-raising effort in the denomination – the Presbyterian Bicentennial Fund, which was a failure – and asked for more assurance that the Mission Initiatives Campaign would not likewise fail. During one of their final items of business Feb. 2, council members did not voice any objections to the goals of the campaign. Rather, they seemed apprehensive that the denomination, facing revenue shortages totaling $7.6 million for 2002 and 2003 budget years, could ill-afford to spend $1 million on a failing cause. Thus, the full council rejected its executive committee’s proposal to give carte blanche approval to the campaign. Issues to be addressed Instead, the council approved a resolution requiring that “several issues will be addressed prior to final approval by the General Assembly Council” – including specific examples of how the money would be spent, campaign leadership, a staffing plan and pledges from at least 90 percent of the members of the council. John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, said most of those provisions could be met before the next full meeting of the council, the week before the 2002 General Assembly meets in Columbus, Ohio, in June. The General Assembly also must approve the campaign. Major donors targeted The campaign plans sketched out by Detterick did not envision a grassroots campaign among congregations or elected leaders in the denomination. It is aimed at securing contributions of $100,000 and higher from major donors. Marts & Lundy, a fund-raising consulting company, has said the Mission Initiatives Campaign is feasible despite unrest in the denomination and the current economic conditions. Based on a number of interviews, a study by Marts & Lundy concluded that the “larger church has been assailed by issues of human sexuality, Christology, abortion, decentralization of governance, local congregations perceiving their destinies in their own hands alone, a sensitivity to ‘colonialism’ within overseas missions, a reimagining of God, a lack of clarity about ‘what the central church is for,’ and the absence of a unifying rallying point. In the midst of these challenges, the central church has suffered a loss of morale along with what might be called a serious ‘lack of faith’ in the denomination.”

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