US Presbyterians Face 'Missionary Sending Crisis'

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is facing budget reductions for international missions, but the denomination says it will "in no way" back down from its missions efforts around the world.

|TOP|For decades, the PCUSA has been in mission service around the world but decreased funding has called for the elimination of the denomination's Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD), which partners with churches and organisations in more than 90 countries and has mission personnel in nearly 70 countries. And according to the denomination's mission director, "the need for mission personnel has in no way decreased."

"We are in no way getting out of the international mission business," said the Rev. Will Browne, WMD associate director of ecumenical partnership, according to the Presbyterian News Service.

Browne and other mission staff members from various outposts around the world convened Aug. 1-7 for WMD's annual missionary sharing conference at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Conference participants discussed budget reductions that were made at the denomination's 217th General Assembly in June and laid out the issues as the PCUSA faces a mission "crisis."

The General Assembly had approved a $97.6 million mission budget for 2007 and $96.3 million for 2008. In the previous two years, an unprecedented two-year mission budget provided for expenditures of more than $114 million for 2005 and more than $115 million for 2006.

|AD|"This really has been a traumatic kind of time for us," said Browne. "We really had some hard decisions to make."

Some of those decisions included downsizing staff as the General Assembly Council sought to cut $9.15 million from the budget. In May, the PC(USA) had the second-largest employee layoff in its history. No current missionaries were laid off, however.

"The Presbyterian Church (USA) faces a missionary sending crisis," said the Outreach Foundation and Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship (PFF) – two validated mission support groups that work in covenant relationship with the PC(USA) General Assembly – in a released statement. "The number of PC(USA) missionaries continues to shrink at a time when global partners are telling us that more are needed. Efforts to reverse the decline have not succeeded."

Outreach Foundation and PFF are forming a "strategic alliance" to send out missionaries, filling the part of missionary sending that the PCUSA is unable to do, said Browne.

A newly formed group – Presbyterian Global Fellowship – was also created in recent months for the purpose of missions.

Budget reductions have eliminated several divisions along with the WMD, including Congregational Ministries and National Ministries. Additionally, the ecumenical and mission partnership team and the global education and international leadership development office have been rid of and international geographic coordination was also realigned.

The mission staffers will be restructuring international missions as they think of a "sustainable base" of funding for mission sending.





Lillian Kwon
Christian Today Correspondent