Foundation and GAC

OK, after two negative blogs I'm going to say something positive.

It seems that the General Assembly Council (the GAC) and the Presbyterian Foundation have been having some problems. That's an understatement.

The Presbyterian Foundation, begun back in the late 1700's has received gifts and bequests to the denomination for centuries. Some of those gifts and bequests are simple. The income goes to support the mission of the General Assembly. Some are quite specific. I know there is one that gives money to support something in Iran and I think it is evangelism. Well right now trying to do evangelism is Iran is a very dangerous thing to do if not impossible. So the Foundation holds onto the income. As the Foundation says it has a fiduciary responsibility to the donors to make sure the income goes where it is supposed to go.

The problem is there are some that are not entirely clear. Or there are some about which the Foundation takes a very conservative legal position and the GAC thinks the Foundation is being too narrow.

This is not a new problem. But this year it kind of boiled over. There were accusations, recommendations on how to handle the problem, interpretations by the Assembly Committee on the Constitution (the ACC) and all kinds of stuff.

Fortunately the Mission and Budget Committee produced a recommendation that was acceptable to all sides.

The Committee and later the GA voted to form a committee that include some folks from the Foundation, some from the GAC and some others to make decisions when the GAC and the Foundation disagree. Good idea! I hope it works.

Pastor Bob