The Moving Forward Implementation Commission worked most of the day Thursday on crafting the recommendations it will make to the 224th General Assembly, set for June 20-27 in Baltimore.
A committee considering the future of per capita and financial sustainability in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has issued its preliminary report — meeting its Dec. 31, 2019 deadline.
Questions and answers about finance dominated the conversation at this fall’s A Corp Board meeting, held Thursday and Friday at the Presbyterian Historical Society.
Meeting in Baltimore, the Moving Forward Implementation Commission voted this week to convene the leadership of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, Office of the General Assembly and the A Corporation for what it called “an honest and open examination” of the 2021-22 budget “in order to establish a unified approach and plan for budgeting for the upcoming cycle.”
Members of the Moving Forward Implementation Commission learned Monday why they’d been selected by the women who picked them for service — the co-moderators of the 223rd General Assembly, Ruling Elder Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri and the Rev. Cindy Kohlmann.
Wrapping up its initial in-person meeting over the lunch hour Tuesday, the Moving Forward Implementation Commission set its sights ahead in the traditional way — scheduling its next meeting, agreeing to bi-weekly video conferences and dividing its work into four subgroups.
Told by the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly that they’re in “for some heavy lifting” helping the 21st century church adapt “to a world that’s changing quickly every day,” members of the Moving Forward Implementation Commission got a clearer picture of what’s expected of them during their first in-person meeting Monday at the Presbyterian Center.
Looking ahead during a Thursday conference call to their in-person meeting in Louisville Monday and Tuesday, members of the Moving Forward Implementation Commission on Thursday took a look back to see how they got where they’re at.
Monday was the Moving Forward Implementation Commission’s moment to begin moving forward.
The 12-member, two-year commission, created by the 2018 General Assembly to carry out recommendations of the Way Forward Commission and those of other groups regarding such goals as transparency and cost-sharing, met for nearly an hour by video conference Monday evening to, among other tasks, talk about what the commission hopes to accomplish.
Day 2 of the A Corporation’s meetings Friday included the kinds of tasks you’d expect of the corporate body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — approving committee charters and recommendations, electing corporate officers to one-year terms and scheduling dates and places for the board’s 2019 meetings.
It also included a plea from one of those officers, Mike Miller, the PC(USA)’s chief financial officer: err on the side of over-communicating, and work to allay anxiety over what the “new day” that the A Corporation will mean for the operation of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, and, to a lesser degree, the Office of the General Assembly.