A Corp Board wraps up its in-person meeting at the Presbyterian Center

A business plan update and other items are approved on the second day of board meetings in Louisville, Kentucky

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

The conference center at the  Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky, was the site of an A Corp Board meeting on Friday. (Contributed photo)

LOUISVILLE — Meeting at the Presbyterian Center Friday morning, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation Board took care of a handful of action items before moving into closed session to discuss personnel, property and security matters.

A Corp. President Kathy Lueckert provided the board an update on progress made between January and June on the Administrative Services Group’s Business Plan, which has 51 projects. A handful of them are complete. Work on some has not yet begun, while many are works in progress. “We made good progress in the first six months [of 2024], even with planning General Assembly in the midst of that,” Lueckert said.

Lueckert offered board members — some of them attending their first board meeting — an update on the 226^th General Assembly, which concluded last month in Salt Lake City, Utah. The items of business most important to the A Corp Board were the approval of the unifying budget for 2025-26 and the adoption of the report of the Special Offerings Task Force.

It was “no small feat” putting the unifying budget together, Lueckert told the board. “It took a lot of considered thought by [Controller] Denise [Hampton] and her team and by the Coordinating Table. It was a big step forward to have an integrated budget” across ASG, the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency, according to Lueckert.

“The unifying budget was the manifestation of how unification is proceeding,” Lueckert said, referring to the still-in-progress unification of OGA and PMA. “Major recommendations will come at the next Assembly.”

The amount of debate during the recent Assembly over changing the Standing Rules of the General Assembly could well be a harbinger of what’s to come during the 227^th General Assembly (2026) over, for example, changes in the Organization for Mission, the General Assembly’s manual of administrative operations. Rewriting the Organization for Mission is part of the work of the Unification Commission.

Changes in the four Special Offerings have been proposed for a decade, Lueckert said, “and have pretty much all gone down in flames.” With the most recent Assembly action, beginning in 2026, three Special Offerings — the Christmas Joy Offering, One Great Hour of Sharing, and the World Communion Offering — will be received. Lueckert explained that under the new plan, the emphasis will change from programs to causes.

Kerry Rice, deputy stated clerk in the Office of the General Assembly, told the board this fall the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly will look at a recommendation for the format of the 228^th General Assembly (2028). That recommendation will be made after COGA evaluates data from the last four assemblies. COGA will then make a recommendation to the Unification Commission on the format of the 228^th General Assembly “and beyond,” Rice said.

Other business

A Corp Board members voted in the affirmative on these items of business:

• They approved the transfer of PC(USA)-owned property in Egypt to the Synod of the Nile of the Evangelical (Presbyterian) Church in Egypt.
• They elected officers to serve one-year terms.
• They approved an updated list of people authorized to sign contracts of up to $25,000.
• They approved a meeting schedule for 2025: Feb. 13-14 (via Zoom), April 24-25 (in person), Aug. 28-29 (via Zoom) and Nov. 20-21 (via Zoom).

The Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA), presented a belated certificate of retirement to the Rev. Amy Williams Fowler, who retired in 2020 and never received a certificate for her service to the church due to the pandemic.

Board Member Carol Winkler received a Presbyterian Women Life Membership during the 2024 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women earlier this month in St. Louis.