PCANews - Attachment to AC Report
2004 Report of the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC)
to the Administrative Committee as
Directed by the 31st General Assembly of the PCA
Background Summary
By the grace of God the Presbyterian Church in America has thrived for a generation. Her commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture, the Reformed faith and the Great Commission have borne great fruit, and this church has advanced in faithfulness, numbers and vision beyond any realistic expectation of our founding fathers. We give thanks to our God for these blessings and pray that he may not only keep us faithful to our past but also hopeful in our future through Christ.
Concern for and commitment to the future of Christ’s Church caused the PCA General Assembly of 2000 to take stock of the present state of this blessed church. The PCA has grown considerably since its inception. There are now more than 300,000 members and 3000 ministers. PCA members come from increasingly varied sociological, ethnic, and geographical backgrounds. There are now more than 1500 churches scattered throughout North America – a quintupling of the original number, and more than 60 presbyteries – more than tripling the original number. As we have changed, so also have our continent and culture. We minister in a world rapidly changing and markedly different from that in which the PCA was established a brief generation ago.
Acknowledgement of these internal and external changes, together with recognitions that our growth has slowed and that our greater size and complexity have created new challenges, led the 2000 General Assembly to appoint a Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) to work with church leaders and presbyteries to identify our most pressing challenges. The 2003 General Assembly then gave the SPC the assignment of prioritizing these challenges and proposing processes to address them.
REPORT SUMMARY
(Full report and rationale follow these summaries, pp. 312 ff)
The following summaries identify three priority challenges along with initiatives for addressing them that will need to be approved by the 2004 General Assembly in order for the strategic planning process to progress. These are not the only concerns that the SPC identified, but rather are the challenges that were prayerfully felt to be the most strategic to address in order to secure the future peace, purity, and progress of Christ’s church.
Priority Challenge Summaries:
1. Engaging Ruling Elders
Securing the historic blessing and critical contribution of informed and committed ruling elder leadership at all levels of the PCA’s governance for the
sake of her biblical guidance, continuing vitality, and the sustained faithfulness of future generations.
2. Preparing the Next Generation
Addressing the need for coordination of the work of the Committees and Agencies in supporting presbyteries and churches in their ministry to the needs of youth and in the development of the denomination’s next generation of leaders.
3. Organizing Resources to Better Serve Our Corporate Mission
Providing fact-based analysis and proposals regarding ways to fund, organize, and evaluate the Agencies and Committees of the denomination so that presbyteries and churches are best served for the fulfillment of our corporate Gospel calling.
First Initiative Summary—Engaging Ruling Elders
Presbyterian theology and polity call for leadership and ownership of the work of the church to be shared on a sustained basis by ruling and teaching elders in all governing levels of the denomination. The responsibility for achieving greater ruling elder participation and assuring effective ruling elder training can effectively be aided by the Administrative Committee. To accomplish this, the Administrative Committee should coordinate a temporary task force with CE&P and Covenant Seminary, as well as churches and presbyteries with well-developed training material, toward the following goals:
a. To strive to assure greater proportional representation between TEs and REs in presbyteries and General Assembly. To do this will require re-examination and recommendation for possible change of the design of presbyteries and General Assembly in ways that encourage RE interest and involvement in furthering the purity, unity, peace, and progress of the corporate church.
b. To encourage and support Covenant Seminary and CE&P in developing minimum training standards prior to ordination for REs as suggested guidelines for churches.
c. To assist Covenant Seminary, CE&P, and churches to develop training platforms that can be disseminated through the stated clerks and local churches. In addition to biblical and BCO requirements, training needs to include the way a denomination serves churches, the polity and structure of the PCA, and the importance of RE participation in church assemblies.
d. To help promote and disseminate CE&P’s training for spouses of REs and TEs.
Second Initiative Summary—Preparing the Next Generation
Christian Education and Publications should take the lead in putting together a temporary task force with representatives of Christian Education & Publications, Covenant Seminary, Reformed University Ministries, and Covenant College (and others these entities agree to involve) to address the concerns represented in this initiative. The task force should render a report to the Strategic Planning Committee by February 2005. The responsibilities of this task force would include coordinating efforts for:
a. Gathering and analyzing data to better pinpoint where we are doing well in reaching the next generation;
b. Challenging our youth on the various callings in the kingdom and with regard to the cultivation of the gifts needed for these callings;
c. Encouraging the church to talk in relevant ways to the oncoming culture;
d. Reaching multi-ethnic youth;
e. Assisting the various Committees and Agencies to work in a manner that is complementary and supportive.
Third Initiative Summary—Organizing Resources To Better Serve Our Corporate Mission
The General Assembly should restructure the present Strategic Planning Steering Committee into a Strategic Planning Committee, as a panel of highly qualified, godly individuals who should evaluate the work of the Committees/Agencies and render a report to the General Assembly. The Strategic Planning Committee should be charged with the following:
a. Evaluating how Committees and Agencies relate to and collaborate with one another;
b. Evaluating the efficiency, effectiveness, and appropriateness of Committees and Agencies regarding the respective roles assigned to them by General Assembly;
c. Evaluating the best means for effective governance and standards of accountability for the Committees/Agencies to the General Assembly;
d. Evaluating the extent to which each Committee/Agency is subject to a system of periodic external review (peers, consultants, constituents);
e. Evaluating the budgets and method of funding of each denominational Committee/Agency and making recommendations as to the best way to fund the work of the Committees and Agencies;
f. Evaluating the level of resources from General Assembly Committees and Agencies available to and needed by presbyteries and churches;
g. Examining the operations, procedures and goals of the General Assembly and making suggestions regarding how these may be improved for the sake of the purity, peace, and progress of the church;
h. Examining the operations, procedures, and goals of the presbyteries and making suggestions regarding how these may be improved for the sake of the purity, peace, and progress of the church;
i. Retaining professional consulting to help structure the process and to help gather and analyze data for presentation to the Strategic Planning Committee. Only experienced and competent Christian consultants with demonstrable knowledge and understanding of the PCA should be considered for the professional consulting role.
FULL REPORT AND RATIONALE
PCA Strategic Planning Steering Committee—Current Active members
RE TE
Joel Belz Frank Barker
Frank Brock Will Barker
Sam Duncan Wilson Benton
James “Bebo” Elkin Ric Cannada
Tom Harris Dave Clelland
Richard Hostetter Ligon Duncan
Harry Pinner Wayne Herring
John White Tim Keller
Jack Williamson Rob Rayburn
Mike Wilson Joseph Wheat
Jim Wert (serving as consultant)
The Strategic Planning Steering Committee makes the following report in response to the action of General Assembly 2003 regarding the Administrative Committee. We again want to express our appreciation for the opportunity to consider the entire work of the denomination. This has been a challenging but invigorating process.
Following is a brief chronology of the Strategic Planning Process to date:
June 2000 GA asks the Coordinators/Agency heads and a Strategic Planning Steering Committee to develop a Strategic Plan within two years.
June 2002 GA extends the process one more year
June 2003 GA receives the report of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, Being Revived + Bringing Reformation, and extends the life of the committee one more year.
January 2004 On behalf of a sub-committee of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, Frank Brock presents an interim report to Coordinators/Agency heads and their chairs.
February 2004 The Coordinators/Agency heads and Strategic Planning Steering Committee meet to finalize this report to the Administrative Committee.
Explanatory Index to this Report
I. Preamble
This gives an overview of the insights and perspectives gained during this last year of the planning process
II. The GA 2003 Motions to Which the Strategic Planning Steering Committee is Responding
The motions of GA 2003 regarding Strategic Planning are restated.
III. Responses to the Motions
There is a general response to Motions 1 and 2. There are three initiatives in response to the part of Motion 3 that asked the Strategic Planning Steering Committee to “develop broader recommendations for plan execution at the denominational level and/or regarding specific denominational issues and opportunities and report these recommendations to the General Assembly for their further action.” These three initiatives are briefly summarized as having to do with:
1. Engaging Ruling Elders
Securing the historic blessing and critical contribution of informed and committed ruling elder leadership at all levels of the PCA’s governance for the sake of her biblical guidance, continuing vitality and the sustained faithfulness of future generations
2. Preparing the Next Generation
Addressing the need for coordination of the work of the Committees and Agencies in supporting presbyteries and churches in their ministry to the needs of youth and in the development of the denomination’s next generation of leaders.
3. Organizing Resources for Our Corporate Mission
Providing fact-based analysis and proposals regarding ways to fund, organize, and evaluate the Agencies and Committees of the denomination so that presbyteries and churches are best served for the fulfillment of our corporate Gospel calling.
I. Preamble
At the recommendation of the Coordinators/Agency heads and the Administrative Committee, the 2000 General Assembly created a Strategic Planning Steering Committee. The Assembly formed this 24-person committee to bring to the 2002 General Assembly a Strategic Plan for the Presbyterian Church in America.
For the first time since the founding of the PCA thirty years ago, the General Assembly asked a small group of individuals representative of the church leadership to think about the overall ministry of the denomination as a whole and report back.
The denomination is a system of graduated councils/courts that connects churches in extending God’s kingdom in eternally significant ways. Individuals, local churches, and presbyteries carry out most of the ministry of the PCA. The Committees and Agencies exist only to serve and provide some services that local churches/presbyteries cannot provide alone. The denomination is not the Committees/Agencies. However, the cooperation and coordination of the work of the Committees and Agencies is critical to the welfare of the denomination because in them there is a concentration of leadership, talent, and resources which are vital to sustaining cooperative ministries of the entire Church.
Though the Strategic Planning Committee is composed of persons active in the PCA, the committee retained the services of a PCA elder and consultant who had gone through a similar process with other organizations, denominations, and para-church groups. This consultant encouraged the committee to use a two-phase process, with phase one being to develop consensus on the PCA’s Mission, Identity, Values, and Strategic Priorities. (These are outlined at the end of this document.)
This is no small task for a denomination that has grown and changed considerably since its inception. There are more than 1500 churches scattered all over North America. PCA members and elders come from increasingly varied sociological, ethnic, geographical, racial, denominational, national, and economic backgrounds. Newly emerging leaders in the denomination are less interested in some historical issues that led to the founding of the denomination and are intensely interested in having a reformational denomination in a culture radically different from the one that existed at the founding
However, by God’s grace, the 2003 General Assembly favorably received the work of the Committee and extended its life for another year. The Committee put before the Assembly a booklet, Being Revived + Bringing Reformation, which reduced to writing the PCA’s Mission, Values, Identity, and Strategic Priorities that would guide the second phase of the planning process.
In the second phase of the process, a smaller sub-committee of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee was given the responsibility of studying the PCA’s structure, resources, and leadership, and recommending the next planning steps to the Committee/Agency heads and the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. This sub-committee was composed of Ruling Elders Frank Brock, Jack Williamson, John White, Harry Pinner, and Jim Wert (consultant); and Teaching Elders Roy Taylor, Will Barker, and Ligon Duncan. This sub-committee has met for about 1½ hours every other week since the 2003 General Assembly.
The sub-committee faced a number of challenges that made its task daunting. Perhaps the most formidable is a lack of information. There are now ten Committees and Agencies of the denomination that employ more than 1000 people, steward hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, and manage combined annual operating budgets that exceed a hundred million dollars. There are more than 60 presbyteries, 1500 churches, 3000 ministers, and 300,000 members. No serious analysis has been done to ascertain where or why certain churches are growing and others are not. There is little available analysis of presbyteries, which represent the heart of Presbyterianism, to learn where churches are being planted, people are being converted, the culture is being reformed. Although the sub-committee had many years of collective experience as members of the PCA, the members had no alternative but to use mostly anecdotal or barely analyzed spotty information.
The sub-committee read the reports of those presbyteries that went through a Strategic Planning Process. The sub-committee would have benefited from more reports from more presbyteries. Members of the sub-committee met with heads of seven of the Committees/Agencies and gained valuable insights and information though this process.
Even with the limited time and lack of information, certain themes emerged that shaped the report. They are as follows:
a. As individuals, we love Christ’s Church. We are all active members of our local church. It is where we feel we most belong.
b. We decry the cultural drift away from sound doctrine and believe in the importance of the reformed church for revival and transformation through its historic commitments to doctrine, piety, culture and mission.
c. We believe in and want to affirm the importance of our denomination because we believe that our denomination maintains purity of doctrine, provides accountability and fellowship, enables stronger educational possibilities, expands the opportunity for mission, and enlarges the reformational role of the local congregation.
d. We believe that the best denomination is one that is decentralized, dynamic, and responsive to the needs of local churches and a changing culture. While the doctrine and polity of the PCA should not change, the organizational design of the denomination must be able to change if the denomination is to reform the culture of the twenty-first century. In the world of complex, socially dynamic organizations that characterize the modern world, a denomination must have flexible organizational structure and strong, capable leadership. In fact, some informed observers predict that denominations that refuse to change will be come irrelevant or extinct in the twenty-first century. We believe that there is a significant danger to our denomination of becoming essentially a loose association of quasi-independent churches where teaching elders simply hold their credentials.
e. We want to affirm the importance of the presbytery as being the most effective and least bureaucratic level of the Presbyterian system of government. We would love to see the practices of the most dynamic presbyteries shared throughout the denomination. We believe that much could be learned from studying those presbyteries having growth and an expanding ministry.
f. We are in agreement with the basic principles outlined in Chapter 14 of the BCO regarding the PCA’s Committees/Agencies. From the outset, the PCA adopted a mission and a structure that maintained that the PCA was responsible to carry out the Great Commission of our Lord but in a manner consistent with Reformed theology and ecclesiology. In the beginning, there were to be three program committees plus a service committee (the Administrative Committee), which was the Assembly’s way of declaring its interpretation of the Great Commission, which indicates three foci, namely education, world missions, and home missions. Three program committees were established on the principle that while the church’s mission is one mission, there are three distinct program areas. In 2001 the General Assembly completed the process of establishing Reformed University Ministries as a fourth separate program committee.
g. Along with the program committees, the BCO established an Administrative Committee to serve the denomination with common administrative functions. We see the need for the Committees and Agencies to work together. There must also be good administration to insure that Committees/Agencies work cooperatively to bring programs in these four areas that will serve presbyteries and local congregations.
h. The focus of this report is on the Committees/Agencies because the Strategic Planning Steering Committee is a committee of General Assembly and it is only to the General Assembly as a church court that the Committees/Agencies are accountable. The sub-committee believes strongly that Committees/Agencies need to be held accountable to work together to support churches’ and the denomination’s mission and strategic priorities. But such accountability does not necessarily imply carefully scrutinizing every single action taken; it can also imply structuring the Committee/Agency, charging the Committee/Agency with strategic directives, empowering local committees/boards that select and hold accountable able leaders, and providing sufficient resources. We do not believe that this will happen without sustained, fact based analysis of the work and cooperative effort of all the Committees/Agencies.
i. All actions of this or subsequent committees need to be subject to periodic assessment by the General Assembly so that the Committees/Agencies can have the freedom to operate creatively and reformationally.
II. The GA 2003 Motions to Which the Strategic Planning Steering Committee is Responding (see M31GA.31-43.III.1-3, pp. 137-138).
“III. Recommendations
“1. That the "Future Direction of the PCA: A Framework for Planning" be approved as edited as a working draft as reflecting the mission, vision, values, and priorities of the PCA, and be commended as its framework for strategic planning. Further, we recommend that this document be summarized and packaged for distribution to the whole denomination to promote common terminology and coordinated initiatives across the denomination. The complete planning document, along with a summary of the discussion sessions within presbyteries should be made available generally through the PCA website and in the byFaith magazine. As part of this summary, the Steering Committee should identify common issues and opportunities that surfaced through these presbytery discussions, and offer examples of successful local efforts to implement the planning framework.
Adopted as amended
[Note: See Appendix C, Attachment A, p. 300, M31GA, for text of "The Future Direction of the PCA, A Framework for Planning."]
“2. That PCA Committees and Agencies discuss the "The Future Direction of the PCA: A Framework for Planning", and indicate how their own strategic priorities are consonant with denominational direction. Presbyteries and congregations are encouraged to craft their own strategic plans by discussing the PCA identity, mission, values, vision and strategic priorities as described in the "PCA Framework for Planning" and formulate their own strategic priorities consonant with the strategic priorities set forth in this plan. We encourage them to further develop concrete objectives and initiatives that can be implemented at presbytery and local church levels, as well as a prioritized list of external resources that would aid and enhance their efforts in making progress toward their goals. We further recommend that these planning efforts be designed as broad-based efforts inclusive of ruling and teaching elders, deacons, other male and female church members, youth, and other constituents involved in the life of the church. The Strategic Planning Steering Committee will collect responses and plans from presbyteries, Committees and Agencies and summarize them by the 2004 GA.
Adopted
“3. That the Strategic Planning Steering Committee continue its work until the 2005 GA. This work will include collecting, collating and summarizing local strategic planning efforts, e.g. from presbyteries, local churches, Committees and Agencies. Further, we recommend that the Strategic Planning Steering Committee be charged to facilitate these local-planning efforts, and given adequate resources to fulfill this responsibility. To raise these resources, the Committee is authorized to contact individuals, local churches and presbyteries to solicit contributions. To further support such efforts, we recommend that the CE&P Committee assemble and publish a collection of denominational resources available to presbyteries and local churches to assist them in their planning efforts. The Strategic Planning Steering Committee is encouraged to develop broader recommendations for plan execution at the denominational level and/or regarding specific denominational issues and opportunities and report these recommendations to the General Assembly for their further action. Finally, we encourage the denomination to continue to hold up the work of this committee in prayer.”
Adopted
III. Responses to the Motions
Response to GA Recommendation 1
Being Revived + Bring Reformation is available in the PCA bookstore and website. Some churches, presbyteries and committees are using the booklet which is helping to promote common terminology and to coordinate initiatives. Since GA 2003, Chesapeake Presbytery went through a strategic planning process and forwarded their report to the Steering Committee and Committee/Agency heads.
Response to GA Recommendation 2
The committee is aware that some of the Committees and Agencies are already working to develop strategic plans consonant with the PCA’s Identity, Mission, Values, Vision and Strategic priorities. Reports from MNA, PCAF and RUM have been received and forwarded to the AC.
Responses to GA Recommendation 3
The 2003 GA asked the Strategic Planning Steering Committee to “develop broader recommendations for plan execution at the denominational level and/or regarding specific denominational issues and opportunities and report these recommendations to the General Assembly for their further action.” Before rendering the committee’s recommendations, we would like to restate the four PCA Strategic Priorities that guide this report:
(1) Empower church health and growth for new and existing churches local and worldwide
(2) Develop leadership for the future
(3) Increase denominational understanding and effectiveness
(4) Engage the culture—timeless truths for our times
In light of this theology and history and these Strategic Priorities, we submit the following initiatives and recommendations:
INITIATIVES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
First Initiative—Engaging Ruling Elders
¨ Initiative
Presbyterian theology and polity calls for leadership and ownership of the work of the church to be shared on a sustained basis by ruling and teaching elders at all assemblies of the denomination. The responsibility for achieving greater ruling elder participation and assuring effective ruler elder training can effectively be aided by the Administrative Committee. To accomplish this, the Administrative Committee should coordinate a task force with other Committees and Agencies, especially CE & P and Covenant Seminary, as well as churches and presbyteries with well-developed training material, toward the following goals:
a. Strive to assure greater proportional representation between TEs and REs in presbytery and General Assembly. To do this will require re-examination of the design of presbyteries and General Assembly in ways that encourage RE interest and involvement in furthering the purity, unity, peace and progress of the corporate church.
b. To encourage and support Covenant Seminary and CE&P to develop minimum training standards prior to ordination for RE’s as suggested guidelines for churches.
c. To assist Covenant Seminary, CE&P and churches to develop training platforms that can be disseminated through the stated clerks and local churches. In addition to biblical and BCO requirements, training needs to include the way a denomination serves churches, the polity and structure of the PCA, and the importance of RE participation in church assemblies.
d. To help promote and disseminate CE&P’s training for spouses of REs and TEs.
· Rationale for the first initiative
Participation. From the inception of the PCA, the vital involvement and significant leadership of ruling elders has been a distinctive and a blessing. Having assemblies where ruling and teaching elders work side by side to further the mission of the PCA can be significantly aided by the Administrative Committee’s coordination of a temporary task force devoted to this purpose. The AC proposes the docket of the General Assembly, and the General Assembly Local Arrangements Committee is a sub-committee of the AC. This does not mean that the Administrative Committee should develop training materials or do training. However, we recognize that the Administrative Committee is in position to help coordinate and evaluate ruling elder informational needs, because its regular involvement, coordination and contact of pastors and stated clerks, provides needed insights into the type of training materials needed and the avenues of distribution that can be most effective.
Biblical church government calls for ruling and teaching elders but there is a lack of ruling elder participation sometimes at the local church level, often at the presbytery level and, especially, at the General Assembly level. Active informed ruling elder involvement is necessary for the health of the entire church in matters of doctrine, polity, spiritual vitality and cultural engagement. The goal of this initiative is increased participation by ruling elders in all aspects of church life according to gifts, recognizing differences in gifts and roles.
General Assemblies and presbyteries foster purity, unity, peace and progress of the corporate church. Church assemblies need to have the explicit objective of being ruling elder friendly to insure that the gifts and abilities that ruling elders can provide are utilized. The structure of committees, the preparation of the docket, etc. need to encourage joint ruling/teaching elder participation. Greater participation of ruling elders can contribute to the practical engagement of the church and the culture and safeguarding of sound doctrine. Failure to achieve this engagement potentially abdicates these responsibilities to a “professional class” of ministers.
