Harry Boessenkool

Has the web cam on Synod disappeared?  I thought it was such a good idea. If that was not not part of the improvement I am disappointed.

I might agree that putting solutions (5 streams) ahead of analysis may not be a wise move. In defense of SPACT I appreciated the detailed analysis that the denominational office prepared.  Before we jump into action we need to know the situation we are facing.To say,  "pick up the tools and do the job"  is too simplistic. Read Nehemiah.

Thank you Wendy for a good review of funding models for missions. I started with highlighting the difficulty of asking missionaries to fund raise and applying that model to other CRCNA agencies. I want to be careful to exclude World Renew as they are not tied to ministry shares. To some extent this agency is reactive and gets support based on specific disasters or other  situations that people can readily identify with. Also their government support for programs is significant because of the doubling or tripling of gifts received. My suggestion is to take World Renew out of this discussion. 

But they do have one very interesting principle and that is their  "Joseph Program". Simplistically every dollar they get from estates is spent over a seven year period. If you look at the estate receipts for all the CRCNA agencies you will note the BTGMI has the highest level if income from this source.  They put 100% of these gifts into current year operatings. My position is that they, and all the other agencies, should copy the WR policy.  If readers of this blog want to find out what the trends in estate giving is over the next 15 - 20 years, just ask the Barnabas Foundation in the USA or Christian Stewardship Services in CND. 

While churches have to be careful to amass pools of capital, the Joseph principle, given some of the aging trends in society and especially in churches, should cause us to consider such an approach. 

John B my examples assumed the jobs I used would have been filled with ordained persons. I know non -ordained people do not qualify for the ministers pension plan.  From a pension risk management point of view, the source of the FAS calculation is important. I believe some 85% of Pastors in Canada have their own house so their cash salary includes the housing allowance. Is the housing allowance included in the FAS? Where churches supply a house the cash salary would normally be a lot lower.

Thanks John and Sheri. There is a major opportunity in the ministers pension plan that needs to be attention but it will not come cheap. How would you like to join a pension scheme (let's use the CSI scheme) where your salary has deducted from it the annual value of mortgage and taxes payments?  In Canada some 80% of Pastors own their own home. The Clergy Allowance (which is strictly a tax ruling in Canada) is exactly 33.3% of  gross salary if you own a home. How does your salary survey work in that regard?  Do churches report gross salaries? Does the survey include questions on ownership? Our Pastor has all kinds of allowances (which are really part of his pay package) so if he does not claim the full amount of the allowance(s) we make a one time payment at the end of the year and that gets added to his salary. If you were to survey me and and ask about his salary I would give you the amount of his base salary because that is all I would know.   Let's say the Canadian Director of Ministries makes $125,000 and if he is an ordained Pastor, 1/3 ($41,625) of that is his Clergy Allowance if he owns his own home. But if he did not own his own home his Clergy Allowancw would be the rental value of a home in his market area which might be only $25,000 . That means his reported salary in one case would be 125,000 less 41,625 and in the other 125,000 less 25,000. How would a survey ever capture that? 

My simple solution is for the CRCNA, in Canada at least, to copy the CSI (Canada) pension plan and get out of the Housing Allowance calculation. As a general rule of thumb for me, Pastors' jobs have the equivalent  value of a High School principal of a school with about 300 students.

I suspect the higher priced senior positions in the CRCNA have a positive impact  (negative on cost) on average salaries. If the criteria for those jobs are "ordination" maybe we should "second" Pastors to those jobs for, say, 5 years and keep them at the same salary they were making in their congregations. The impacts would then be reversed! It does not make much sense to have a Parish Pastor double or triple his/her salary to move from Parish Pastor to HO at a position level 17+. How much money does the Pope make? His housing allowance has to be awesome, although I understand Francis has opted for a "humble" apartment.

Keith K. raises an interesting topic. Larry is quick to respond for the status quo. But maybe we should look more deeply into what is the role of all those executives in the CRCNA. The Executive Director is not the only one who is required to have an M.Div.  The Directors of the 4 major ministries all have M.Divs. In that sense we have a Catholic model. If you want leadership from Synod, having an experienced non ordained executive (one who can execute .... get things done!) it might not be such a bad idea. I question the capacity of Synod to provide that leadership as that assembly tends to be deliberative and too large to provide actual day to day leadership that is required for a "multi-million dollar Christian corporation".

I would like to start a new stream in this discussion given that this week there are some high powered government and UN meetings in this topic. But rather than come at it from a high level, I would like to look inward a bit more.

Here is a little incident spurred by the Banner of what happened yesterday:

I was encouraged to cycle, walk or take transit to church. Great idea. The bus and three transfers got me there.

In a very good sermon by a Pastor who had flown in from a far away place, a comment was made the the ex Executive Director of the CRCNA and the President of Calvin Seminary we going to visit Egypt.  And I am "encouraged to cycle, walk or take transit"....... What am I missing?

The CRCNA has broad distribution of ministries across the globe. World Missions, Back to God Ministries International and World Renew each have Program Managers who manage overseas projects, these Managers each have Directors who manage these Program Mangers and these Directors have an Executive Director (s) (maybe two or three right now, in this transition to Dr. Timmermans).

Synod has declared that they might agree with scientists that Climate Change (used to be called Global Warming and Ice Age when I was a kid because it was sure cold in Canada between 1954-1959) is caused by humans. In that case I would like an accounting of the "energy footprint" that the CRCNA had in 2012, 2013 and so far this year. To keep it simple, I would like to know the amount of money that was spent in those years to fly CRCNA Head office staff around the world, including N.A. The information does not need to include costs of transporting actual Missionaries, WR volunteers, CRCNA Board Members and Partners of BTGMI overseas. Just CRCNA employees normally resident in GR, Burlington, Chicago or wherever else in North America. As this issue was "top of mind" at Synod I am sure the information is readily available.

Now that Missionaries have to fund themselves to 90% by year x it might be interesting to know what the travel costs by CRCNA HO is to manage these Missionaries. For full disclosure purposes it should include Class (1st, Business, Economy, other) as well. If church process requires a request for this information via a church Council or Classis I am sure someone will tell me that.

The April 27, 2013 issue of the Economist has an interesting article that might be of interest to those at synod involved in the discussion on affirmative action. Highly recommended.

HL makes some  good points but not enough facts to support them. While the world is globalizing our churches are trending to congregationalism (and  regionalism).  In a voluntary organization that is usually an easy solution.  The boards of the Denominational Ministries are well represented by Canadians so we can have an impact.

The impact of the GR "HO" is, and I agree with with HL, a real challenge.I am just in the process of looking at some of the financial data in the Acts of Synod over the last 15 years. I am far from finished but what I see so far is interesting in a good way. The CRCNA has many strengths that would be difficult to replicate IN BOTH USA and CANDA if we were seperated.

The discussion on how we should organize as a church is in the works and comments like those of HL should be very welcome. Let's make sure the task force who working on this has strong Canadian input.

Like HL, I too have woked for international organizations in both Canada and Holland. I am all for partnerships across boarders of which CRCNA ministries have literally hundreds.

Let's continue the discussion.

Keith, the issue with homosexuality is not the numbers but how the church as an organization deals with the subject. If the media would deal with the subject  based on your percentages (which I agree with) there would rarely be an article on it.  Maybe the church might be wise to treat the subject as 1% of its issues?

Your comments on pornography are well taken.

Henry thanks for your comments. I am a bit older and also a keen observer of the CRCNA. In my final term on one of the CRCNA Boards (as a vocal Canadian). 

In a recent news release I noticed that Joel B and Peter B have been reappointed as ED and key Assistant. That is too bad. Peter (recognizing the key support he has been) should have been replaced by a Canadian. That would have been a wise move.

In my previous comments you will know that I do not support a "seperation" of the Cnd CRC or even a Canadian Regional Synod.  But let's keep on talking. It's interesting that the CRCNA spends a great deal of effort figuring out how to diversify its leadership. I might suggest that the search committee for the ED get the concurrence of every bi-national board before any recommendation is made to synod. They do that by providing their top three picks one of whom must a Canadian!