08124
February 15, 2008

GAC approves mission work plan

Proposed strategy will guide Council’s work from
2009-2012

by Bill Lancaster
Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE – A streamlined Mission Work Plan was approved by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Council (GAC) Feb. 15 during its winter meeting here. The Mission Work Plan guides the work of the Council as it implements the mission directives of the PC(USA) General Assembly.

In a change from recent practice, the Mission Work Plan Task Force recommended that the plan guide the work of the Council over a four-year period rather than the normal two-year budget cycle. “As we listened to feedback, we sought a way for evaluation of results to play a greater role in the work we do,” said the Rev. Mary Marks King, chair of the task force. “We heard that a two-year plan has not provided sufficient time for reviewing the results of one plan before starting the next one. A four-year plan will allow us to add evaluation cycles into our work patterns…and ultimately will make our ministries more effective.”

The plan focuses the work of the GAC in five key areas: evangelism, discipleship, vocation, justice and stewardship.

Four of the areas are not new, but the names have been shortened from their two-word format in the 2007-2008 Plan. The fifth area, stewardship, however, represents a new dimension for the Mission Work Plan, as called for by the Council’s Mission Funding Task Force last fall.

The Mission Funding Task Force sought recognition among the Council’s goals that “stewardship is central to our calling as Christians and to our organizational life as the General Assembly Council.” Stewardship, as understood by the Mission Work Plan Task Force, is a commitment to “live in grateful response to God’s abundant grace and gifts.”

Three to five strategic goals have been developed within each of the five goal areas as guidance for the work of staff within each area. The Council’s staff will bring operational goals for each of these strategic goals, including objectives, outcomes, and a budget, to the April 2008 GAC meeting.

“Our intention with the new plan,” said King, “was to embody the connectionalism that we see at all levels of the church, by developing a clear and concise plan which can be easily communicated, easily reviewed and easily measured. Our task force sought and incorporated input from staff and from across the church in reviewing the previous Mission Work Plan, in paying attention to the current mission context facing the church, and in listening to where God was leading us to focus our work.”

Linda Valentine, the GAC executive director, says, “I’m very grateful for the work of the Mission Work Plan Task Force. At each step in the process they have demonstrated the Council’s values – collaboration, accountability, responsiveness and excellence – and have set a standard for our work into the future.”

The Mission Work Plan will form the basis for the operational plan and budget presented by staff in April, and then will be recommended for adoption by the 218th General Assembly (2008) this summer.