Like their siblings on the A Corp Board, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board did while meeting jointly Tuesday in Salt Lake City, the Unification Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve the proposed unifying budget for 2025 and 2026.
It took commissioners all day Friday, but by the end of the second day of Unification Commission meetings, the 12-member group had spread the considerable work it must complete over four teams: Governance, Financials, Common Mission and Consultations. Two or three commissioners volunteered themselves for each of the four teams.
During its monthly meeting, the Unification Commission went to school Saturday, receiving lessons on the histories of the Office of the General Assembly, the Presbyterian Mission Agency and, more recently, the Administrative Services Group. Members also took in a statistical overview of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other communities of faith.
The 12-member Commission to Unify the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency held its first meeting via Zoom on Saturday. Members — six of them pastors and the others ruling elders — discussed the scope of the task before them and some of the deadlines that will mark what could be a four-year journey together.
A team tasked by the Coordinating Table to analyze more than 2,000 restricted funds given to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) over the years for various purposes offered its initial report Thursday, identifying 15 funds that could be reassigned from benefiting the Presbyterian Mission Agency to helping to fund the Office of the General Assembly.
Over the next eight months or so, the Presbyterian Mission Agency — with input from its many partners — will embark on a three-phase Vision Implementation Plan to, as the PMA’s president and executive director put it during a staff town hall meeting Thursday, discern “what the Holy Spirit is already doing and join God in doing it.”
With unanimous approval Wednesday by the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, the Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program can now issue lines of credit to, for example, presbyteries for such purposes as maintaining and preparing property for sale.
