Funding priorities

Gauging Priorities: Some Questions for Discussion by Gene TeSelle A new draft for further discussion -- so comments are welcomed! Please send us a note. September 11, 2000	Click here for Mr. Detterick's brief statement on funding plans.
	Witherspooner Jean Rodenbough adds agreement to TeSelle's comments.
GAC concurs in shifting priorities -- update on 9/22/00
In mid-May I was called by Jennifer Files of the Outlook for comments on a potential rearrangement of budget priorities by the General Assembly Council (GAC). I knew nothing beyond what she told me, and I tried to enunciate some general principles. Then I communicated with John Detterick, Executive Director of GAC. According to him, he had a brief interview with Jennifer Files (driving to and walking through DFW airport), in which he said he hoped to start a process of prioritizing activities so that scarce resources could be better allocated, and he would like to start that learning process next year. What is more important for the present is that he pointed out that during the past year there were two priorities. One was an instruction from the GA to shift additional funding into evangelism. The other, following up on that, was a consultation with "middle governing bodies," seeking their guidance on budget matters; this had the same result, that evangelism was the top priority. (It now appears that he has already begun implementing that preference.) That's where things stand for the present. A number of issues need to be reflected on. 1. The survey. Synod and presbytery executives were surveyed, to be sure. Mr. Detterick did not want to send a copy of the results at this stage. Critics point out that evangelism and church growth were one item, while peacemaking and social justice were separate items, almost ensuring a "split vote" in this area. 2. Who was surveyed? These presbytery and synod executives are understandably concerned with statistical success in terms of membership figures, budgets, and new church developments; no wonder church growth is a higher priority for them than, say, justice for women or racial ethnics or GLBT persons. People such as these apparently had no voice in this effort to reshape our church's mission. 3. What changes would be involved? There has been much talk of "devolution" of many mission and ministry activities to the synods and presbyteries. National agencies--the ones now called National Ministries, Congregational Ministries, and Global Ministries--have been effective since the nineteenth century in raising money (often from women's organizations, we should note) and deploying resources where they were needed. At the same time there can be distrust at the local level, especially when congregations do not agree with the way money has been spent or when they have had negative experiences with "outsiders" from the national office who came into their territory. During the Sixties, many local churches, especially in the South, began demanding veto power. Perhaps a more effective partnership between the national, regional, and local levels is the one developed in the peacemaking and hunger programs, where money and decision making are shared in imaginative ways. 4. Conflict of traditions. Adding to the complexities is the tradition of the old PCUS to organize many of these activities at the synod rather than the GA level, and the rise of evangelical "parachurch" organizations which are formed entirely outside the governing bodies, although three of them have covenants with them as "validated mission organizations." The current push for "devolution" may be the latest version of this southern tradition, which is quite different from that of the northern church (which was in reality a national church, of course, actively ministering with African Americans in the South). 5. The new managerial style. The more "managerial" types among presbytery and synod executives have recently adopted the language of "outcome-based assessment." You hear it in local United Way organizations, and in the movement for "accountability" in public schools, and among foundations that have been giving grants. The principle is that agencies should no longer be funded just because they were funded in the past; the burden of proof is on them. They must assess needs, set goals, and then achieve those goals. The Synod of Living Waters recently abolished all committees and networks, requiring them to petition for continued status and "sunsetting" them after three years. One consequence will be maximum pressure on all agencies, not only forcing them to compete with each other but also making them vulnerable to pressure groups from every direction. Having seen the attacks at the national level upon individuals and entire programs, we can only imagine the consequences if this kind of approach is adopted there. 6. What will happen to national agencies? Observers in several of the mainline denominations have noted that conservative organizations focus most of their attention on "wedge issues" of gender and sexuality, while social pronouncements on most other issues receive little opposition. Why? It could be, of course, that conservatives' attention has been distracted by the issues of gender and sexuality. It could be that they are simply concentrating on the "wedge issues" they can win. But another theory has much in its favor--namely that the next step will be to try to do away with the agencies that advocate and administer the various statements on social issues--the Washington Office, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, the Advocacy Committees for Women and Racial Ethnic Concerns. When there is no one doing this in a forceful way, then conservative forces won't have to worry, no matter how many pronouncements the church makes. 7. Why the focus on the congregation? In my own Presbytery of Middle Tennessee there was a major restructuring in the early 1990s, part of which involved asking "what the congregations are saying to the presbytery" (I kid you not). Quite naturally the congregations said that they wanted more attention to be paid to them. And one result was that all forms of ministry to non-members were ranked "below the line," as of secondary importance. I understand that we got quite a "rep" around the church for that. We must ask to what extent the synod, the presbytery, and especially the congregation is in fact a "mission unit." It may be that in "evangelism and church growth"; but when it comes to compassion and justice ministries, hunger action and peacemaking, to say nothing of global mission, the congregation is not where the action is. In areas like these--which, we should emphasize, are certainly not alien to evangelism and church growth--larger-scale bodies are needed to coordinate the work of congregations. And when we look at community ministries, we find that, even when they are supported by congregations, they are usually carried out by non-profit organizations with a broader base in the local community, and the role of the congregation is often to support funding applications to national agencies of the church. 8. Who is being served? Sometimes this new approach is justified in terms of a "servant model" of the church--on the assumption, presumably, that all other governing bodies are to serve the congregation. And yet it does little to encourage the congregation to be a servant to anyone outside its own circle. We need to be careful, then, when we hear about "devolution" and "evangelism and church growth." They may help to bring presbyteries and congregations to a new sense of their responsibilities for mission and ministry. But they may simply reward narrow and self-centered conceptions of their task, with very little resemblance to the Great Ends of the Church.
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