At its April 8th meeting, the PCA Administrative Committee (AC) unanimously passed the 2010 Strategic Plan. The Plan, produced by the Cooperative Ministries Committee, now goes to the General Assembly.

As elders across the denomination have studied the documents a number of issues have been raised. ByFaith has gathered several of them and asked the Rev. John Robertson, the AC business administrator, to comment. Here, in a second installment, Robertson responds to questions about gifts versus assessments, and the funding of tasks that aren’t mandated in Scripture. (To read the first installment, please click here).  

In response to an earlier question you cited 2 Corinthians and Philippians as justification for funding the AC through a mandatory financial assessment. Aren’t these passages, though, examples of free-will offerings, not mandatory financial assessments?

We agree that both the 2 Corinthians passage and the Philippians passage speak of free-will offerings. The Lord “loves a cheerful giver.” We referred to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 primarily as an example of the biblical principle that administration is one of the gifts given to the church by God for ministry. We pointed out that Paul includes his “administration” of the free-will gifts of the Macedonians as a necessary part of the “acts of grace” involved in carrying out this famine-relief project.

Some have suggested that the godly response to our lack of funding would be to communicate the need to churches, encourage giving based on biblical principles, and pray that the Lord would give to His people hearts of generosity. The Administrative Committee agrees, and has prayed and worked over the years to communicate well, within the limits of fiscal responsibility, its needs. Many churches have responded with liberality, and for that we are thankful. But fewer than half of our churches are now carrying the financial load for essential administrative services to the PCA as a whole. (Please see Question 8 on the AC’s website for more on this.)

We would suggest that biblical principles of giving—even giving from the heart—include more than freedom and cheerfulness. God has not written down for us all the specific details of how we should manage the gifts that His people give toward the work of the kingdom. As we think about how to fund the ministries of our church, we need to look at all Scriptural principles that can guide us and apply them as carefully as possible, in dependence upon His Holy Spirit. We’ve listed some of those principles on the AC’s website. 

How can it be right to require financial support for many specific tasks undertaken by the AC that are not mandated by Scripture?

As in almost every area of our lives and ministries, God has not given us “chapter and verse” on how to carry out the specific commands that He has given. He expects us to look at the whole of His Word and glean the principles that will guide the conduct of our personal lives as well as our lives “in the world” and in His church, right down to how we fund our ministries. 

Mandated?

The many tasks of the AC, though we believe them to be essential in the Lord’s work, are not specifically mandated by Scripture. The Bible does not tell us to have a General Assembly, a stated clerk (of the PCA or of a presbytery), a Standing Judicial Commission, various committees, a communication medium like byFaith, a historical center, or a PCA. But it does specifically tell us to “go into the whole world and preach the gospel, teaching ….” And the AC has been created to connect and serve all the ministries of the PCA so that together we can work for the progress of Christ’s kingdom.

The PCA Administrative Committee is designed to put in place the essential services assigned by The Book of Church Order and the ministries assigned by the General Assembly—services and ministries which provide a base for the operation of all our PCA ministries. In the PCA we as a body have mandated that ministries be performed and provided by the AC. Both the earlier Strategic Planning Committee and the Cooperative Ministry Committee in its current planning noted that the Administrative Committee connects and benefits the entire PCA and should be supported by all.

Funded how?

The Apostle Paul explains (for example in I Corinthians 9:3-12) that it is right for the expenses of a ministry to be paid. The PCA has assigned ministries to the AC. For 37 years, however, only 45-48 percent of the churches have given anything to the PCA Administrative Committee in any one-year time period. This means that that over half of our churches are accepting all the advantages of being in the PCA while neglecting to pay for the connecting cost and the blessings and privileges afforded to them. It also means that for 37 years these churches have benefited from a key ministry operating on their behalf while asking it to operate on an unwise financial margin.

The question has been asked for many years: "Is there a more reasonable way?" The proposed funding plan for the AC is the final development.

We believe that Scripture allows for elders to decide together how funds already put in their charge may be used to cover the administrative costs of the church at any level. This is what the AC funding plan model proposes. The proposal is, in effect, asking for a contract between elders to manage the connecting expenses of the church at the General Assembly level. We believe the proposal falls well within all biblical principles and that it is also much wiser, more economical, and fairer than the current practice.

Why does the funding plan call for “fees” rather than simply requesting “gifts”?

The annual registration fees for churches and pastors were named “registration fees” because we thought that to be the best name.  The proposal was put forward to provide a fair and equitable system for all the churches and pastors to cover the connecting cost of operating the PCA. It was designed so that churches could pay according to what they actually have, a system that was thought to be more just than asking for per capita payment by churches. The funding proposal is a plan for utilizing a very small portion of the gifts of God’s people for the administrative work necessary to connect and serve the PCA as a whole.

We believe that churches and pastors are getting real benefits from the work done by the Administrative Committee, benefits that help and advance their ministries.  Moreover, since churches and teaching elders have ordered these connecting ministries to be implemented, it does seem just for all to pay for them, and it seems unjust for some to take the benefits and put the cost on the others. Fair and reasonable registration fees for pastors and churches seem to be the best way to use a small portion of benevolences to cover administrative costs.

But should we not be framing the questions differently? Is it not better to be asking what can make the PCA stronger? How can we best take the church the Lord has given us and keep her strongly connectional and ministering most effectively for the Lord's kingdom? This proposed funding system offers the potential to make the PCA stronger financially and to make us more morally responsible in dealing with each other. In this way it can strengthen the PCA for the work of God’s kingdom.

We have worked to ensure that these fees are not burdensome or unreasonable for the PCA and that, with the safeguards proposed in the plan, they offer no undue risk or precedence in the PCA system of government.

If you’d like to read the 2010 Strategic Plan, or watch Dr. Bryan Chapell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary, present it, please visit here.
You’ll find the AC’s thorough replies to “Frequently Asked Questions” here.
And you can read byFaith’s first installment of questions and answers by clicking here.