Posted on 08/16/2006 6:00:47 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
For the first time in almost 30 years, missionary Scott Smith is being told he may have to find his own funding in order to keep working in the mission field.
He and wife Melanie Smith have served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as mission co-workers in South Asia since the mid 1970s * in Bangladesh, Nepal and now in India.
Clearly the two are concerned, and say the focus on money will "hinder" their work.
Sharing the same concerns are the Rev. Tim and Marta Carriker, a husband-and-wife team serving in Brazil. They, too, have about three decades of mission service under their belts.
"It's hanging over our necks," Tim Carriker said of the possibility of active fundraising. "You are not allowed to think long-range," Marta Carriker added.
"There's a lot of uncertainty in the air," she said. Yet "we're stepping out in faith that people will contribute."
Right now faith * the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1) * is the bulk of what PC(USA) missionaries have to go on.
They, like other denomination staff, are still reeling from more than $9 million in budget cuts approved in May that yielded severe job losses, including 40 mission co-worker positions eliminated through attrition.
The budget reduction and subsequent staff cuts were the result of a number of ongoing factors, including a shift in donor giving away from the national structure and more towards congregations and presbyteries. And of the money that does come in, a good portion is designated to very defined areas, PC(USA) Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD) staff has said.
The General Assembly Council (GAC) is developing a new structure for how the church will operate, with the most dramatic change being the elimination of the three current divisions * national, worldwide and congregational.
Expected in the GAC's plan is for all program ministries to fall under a deputy executive director for witness, and everything else to fall under a deputy executive director for support services. The council will outline its plan at its meeting Sept. 26-30.
The Smiths and Carrikers took time out from the annual mission sharing conference held here Aug. 1-8 to talk with the Presbyterian News Service about the work they do and the impact of the current restructuring and funding issues.
Both couples said that as the GAC develops a new form, it needs to be cognizant of how its decisions affect the denomination's relationships with its world partners.
The Presbyterian Church is not considered a "stable partner" anymore, said Scott Smith, who works most closely with the Church of North India. The loss of staff and other resources isn't being perceived well, he said.
Melanie Smith works as a volunteer focusing on development in a Christian boarding school that has long-standing ties to the Presbyterian Church. Scott Smith works in community development with several hospitals in Northern India.
They, along with others missionaries in their part of the world, lost area coordinator Rafaat Zaki in the May 1 layoffs. Zaki was coordinator for Central, South and Southeast Asia in WMD. The denomination's two Asia offices, along with its two Africa offices, have been combined.
"If you've got a commitment, it'd be good to fulfill it," Scott Smith said. The PC(USA) must continue to "come alongside national churches, responding to what the national churches ask."
The couples also stressed how important it is for the denomination * as opposed to individual congregations or presbyteries * to lead the way in international mission work.
In terms of human resources, crisis management and simply being able to relate to large partners, international mission work should be done at the PC(USA)'s national level, they said.
Involvement at presbytery and congregational levels "has brought mission home for many people," said Tim Carriker. But the national structure has "experience and knowledge."
Carriker used as an example how he and his wife shifted their focus from church development to education in 1984. Their focus became training Brazilians to be cross-cultural missionaries around the world.
The program "snowballed" over 20-plus years from 300 individuals to now about 3,300, Carriker said.
"It's the kind of thing that reflects the long haul," he said. "You begin to realize how important long-term commitments are."
"That's difficult to do on a congregational level," said Carriker, a professor of mission-related courses (missiology). Marta Carriker teaches language-related courses.
Congregations must, however, remain key to the mission effort, and especially through financial support, the couples said.
Every PC(USA) congregation needs to know who the denomination's missionaries are, and "I think every church should have some support of a missionary," said Melanie Smith.
Currently, the PC(USA) has 250 fully compensated mission co-workers. That's down from 275 in 2005. In 2000 that number was 305.
Six PC(USA) missionary candidates have been selected for overseas assignments, but must raise the funds before they can be deployed. They are actively working with WMD and Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH) fund-raising campaign staff to do this.
The church needs to be reminded of the importance of international mission work, "to recapture that spirit and not let it die," said Marta Carriker.
And ultimately, "we cannot generate money unless the churches give," she said.
CC&E
Maybe because the national structure is a liberal, apostate member of the NCC?
Riverside's decision to leave the PCUSA was its response to the actions of the 2006 General Assembly, including the decision to allow sessions and presbyteries to deem nonessential the constitutional prohibition against ordaining practicing homosexuals and adulterers.
Missionaries from PCUSA! Bwa-hahahaa! Alex, I thought you were going to warn us when you were posting satire! ;^D
Although I am hardly certain that the PCUSA cutting nack mission works is a bad thing, how much do you wanna bet that they are still going to spend every penny they ever did for their pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-whatever ministries?
My PCUSA church devotes a lot of money to missions. They just don't send any of it to the PCUSA.
The PCA has more than twice as many missionaries in the field as does the PCUSA.
Some of the larger PCUSA churches are setting up their own mission agency.
If they want to remain yoked to apostates, they should look at joining the mission effort being set up by Peachtree, Highland Park, and some of the other moderate churches.
Thanks, we essentially have taken the route described in post 8, in that we have members of our church now serving as fulltime missionaries in several places in southeast and south Asia, and other people from our church regularly go on short-term mission trips to help out. We are also involved in a lot of parachurch mission organizations, especially in Africa, such as Heart for Africa--we've had several hundred people from our church go on mission trips to Africa.
Have you all considered going to the EPC?
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