08204
March 14, 2008

Fresh approaches to stewardship needed, Easley says

GAC vice-chair: MySpace and Facebook may be among answers

by Evan Silverstein
Presbyterian News Service

Opening conference speaker Charles F. Easley Sr. (right) and Kim E. Warner, vice-president of the Texas Presbyterian Foundation, talk during the Presbyterian Stewardship Conference. Photo by Evan Silverstein

FORT WORTH, TX — With a hands-on, results-driven new generation of philanthropists on their way to becoming wealthy, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) must develop new techniques and strategies for doing stewardship, General Assembly Council (GAC) Vice-chair Charles F. Easley said this week.

“We have got to devise new ways to tap into the passions of people,” Easley, former interim dean and director of development at Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in Atlanta, told the 2008 Presbyterian Stewardship Conference here, March 10-12.

He told the nearly 200 conference participants that from $50 trillion to $60 trillion in wealth will change hands from one generation to the next between now and 2010. That transfer will give rise to a new generation of  wealthy donors — ages 40 to 50 — who will demand to see “measurable results” for their money before agreeing to contribute to the mission of their churches or other charities.

Easley, vice-moderator of the 2003 General Assembly, said this new crop of wealthy philanthropists will have a “venture capitalist mentality,” willing to do good but first wanting to see what good their money does.

“And if they don’t feel as though they’re going to get [results], then they’re not going to give,” said Easley, who is currently completing his second year as GAC vice-chair.

“That’s what’s going to happen with this new generation when all this money is transitioning over. When they come in, one of the things they want to do, they want to be hands-on,” Easley said. “If you don’t have that in your church, they’ll go out and start their own foundations and do it themselves.”

The elder at Radcliffe Presbyterian Church in Atlanta said long gone are the days when people gave large chunks of money to their churches with no strings attached. And he said forget about bringing in enough money by depending on those coming to church. “It’s just not going to happen because they don’t come,” Easley said.

The stewardship challenge facing the PC(USA) is not a problem of wealth, as Presbyterians are a people with abundant resources, Easley said. It’s a matter of bringing the resources into the church by learning about the passions of members.

“We have to be bold in moving forward and tapping into those passions and bringing people into the life of our church,” he said. “Having them understand that our job is to heal those who are hurting and to meet the human needs that we walk and pass by every day.”

Easley said the GAC has been working to develop a new mission funding system for the PC(USA) after being instructed to do so by the denomination’s 216th General Assembly in 2004.

He said one of the components that he’s optimistic about in the proposed new funding system, which will go to this summer’s Assembly for consideration, is called a “season of interpretation.”

This season or period of time each year would allow the PC(USA) to interpret and promote its work in the context of the mission programs of congregations, presbyteries and synods as well as the national entities of the denomination.

Easley said it would bring members together, allowing them to pick and choose programs they have a passion for “and if they have a passion for it they’re willing to share the generous blessings that they’ve received,” he said.

Another key to better stewardship, according to Easley, is pushing longtime members to pass on their stories to younger generations about what they’ve done in terms of stewardship and the reasons why.

But even that’s not enough, he continued.

Easley asked those attending “how do churches find that new generation community? Where do they get their information from? How do they communicate with others if they don’t come to church?”

He said one method that’s emerged in recent years is social networking Web sites like MySpace and Facebook. Charities and other non-profits are flocking to such sites, seeking to reach out to new people and raise money.

“One Salvation Army official says that all this online activity is not just about the fundraising. “It’s really about the relationship aspect,” Easley said. “When you’re cultivating and you’re doing your mission work where you’re getting people to give, it’s relational” and hopefully they will remember the church and its mission as they start choosing how to share their wealth.

Speaking about abundance, Easley said in a world of plenty there are enough essential resources to go around. He said Presbyterians are especially rich: financially, materially and spiritually.

But he said in a society obsessed with consumerism, people of faith need to be careful to avoid the temptation to control and monopolize resources under a myth of scarcity — like in the Book of Genesis where Pharaoh dreams there will be a famine in the land and moves to monopolize the food supply, introducing the principle of scarcity into the world economy for the first time.

Easley referred to “The Liturgy of Abundance, The Myth of Scarcity,” an article written by Walter Brueggemann, an author and retired professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA.  

“The majority of the world’s resources pour into the United States,” Easley said, quoting Brueggemann’s article. “And as we Americans grow more and more wealthy, money is becoming a kind of narcotic for us. We hardly notice our own prosperity or the poverty of so many others. The great contradiction is that we have more and more money and less and less generosity — less and less public money for the needy, less charity for the neighbor.”

Easley said if everyone shares and avoids trying to control and monopolize the world’s resources, then no one’s life and livelihood would be threatened and everyone’s basic needs would be cared for.

Easley was joined at the conference, with its “Kaleidoscope” theme, by pastors, elders, presbytery and synod leaders and other stewardship proponents interested in learning more about doing stewardship and teaching it to others.

Participants exchanged ideas, shared experiences, attended workshops and plenary sessions, networked with colleagues and came together for worship at the three-day event.