Evaluations, next steps and planned regional gatherings following last month’s first-ever Matthew 25 Summit were among the topics for members of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board during the second and final day of their two-day online gathering Wednesday.
On the first day of two days of meetings that began Tuesday, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board approved and sent to the 226th General Assembly recommendations for changes to the PC(USA)’s Special Offerings.
With two members in dissent, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board voted Friday to appoint a three-member task force to study equitable unified clergy compensation by exploring “innovative models to increase the number of churches that can engage pastoral leadership.”
Having read Matthew Desmond’s book “Poverty, by America” together, members of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board meeting online Thursday discussed what they might do to help eradicate systemic poverty, as called for by the PC(USA)’s Matthew 25 invitation.
Wednesday, the first of three days of online meetings for the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, began with worship and ended with a devotion. In between, board members heard reports, held fearless dialogues with the Rev. Dr. Gregory Ellison and team, and celebrated the work and ministry of James Rissler, the president and CEO of the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program (PILP), who is retiring at the end of the year.
Meeting online Saturday, the Unification Commission heard from three human resources experts in the Administrative Services Group — Ruth Gardner, Anisha Hackney and Rick Purdy — on how a consultant might be brought on to strengthen the work of the commission as it merges the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
On Saturday the Unification Commission, which is working to unify the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency, unanimously approved a 2025-26 Unified Budget Process that features the development of key unified priorities to help lead development, beginning in 2025, of a unified budget among the PMA, OGA and the Administrative Services Group.
“Defining what constitutes mission and how mission is funded and who has fiscal authority are fundamental questions that are beginning to arise for us,” said the Rev. Scott Lumsden, a member of the Finance Work Group within the Unification Commission, which seeks to combine the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
The Rev. Jeromey Howard, who serves First Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, New York, started the third and final day of Presbyterian Mission Agency Board meetings Friday with a brief devotion taken from Micah 6:8.
Thursday was mostly a teach-in day for the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board as members took in Matthew 25 presentations on militarism from mission co-workers in Colombia and Guatemala and climate change from Jessica Maudlin, Associate for Sustainable Living and Earth Care concerns in the Presbyterian Hunger Program.