Funding Model Development Team offers thanks for valuable research and willing presbyteries

LOUISVILLE — Given an additional two years by the 227^th General Assembly to make a recommendation on the most sustainable and equitable way to fund the work of PC(USA) mid councils, the co-moderators of the Funding Model Development Team say they’re grateful for all the data that’s helping the team form the recommendation it’ll present to the 228^th General Assembly in 2028, which will be held online and in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

FMDT’s co-moderators, the Rev. Jeromey Howard, general presbyter of the Presbytery of Wyoming, and the Rev. Erica Rader, associate pastor at the Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos, California, spoke to Presbyterian News Service this week about the team’s work to date and the work that remains leading up to the coming assembly. The Rev. Dr. John Wilkinson, director of Stewardship and Funds Development who’s serving as staff to the team, also participated in the call.

The co-moderators said they appreciate not only the data supplied by Research Services under the direction of Dr. Sean Payne, but for the presbyteries that have joined cohorts to test possible funding models and opened their books to the team.

“To say we owe these presbyteries a lot is an understatement,” Howard said. “We have a deep sense of gratitude for those who said that with everything that’s going on, ‘we will be a part of this.’”

“I’m so impressed with ruling elders who are leading with financial support in their presbyteries,” Rader said. “I am blessed by the deep love people have for the church.”

“We wanted to be data-driven in any decision we make,” Rader said. The contributions made to the cohorts each month by Research Services “have been unparalleled in an area that’s not well understood.”

Howard said that finance experts in both the Administrative Services Group and Presbyterian Life & Witness have also lent their expertise, as has Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation President Ian Hall. “A lot of resources have been made available,” he said.

A little history

By adopting FIN-04, commissioners to the 227^th General Assembly (2026) approved a two-year extension for the FMDT to complete its field studies and analysis and make its final recommendations to the 228^th General Assembly.

The FMDT has been meeting since spring 2023. As they’ve continued their work — with the field study undertaken throughout 2026 — team members have noted at least four important contexts “that have created the current landscape”:

• Declining membership has led to declining per capita resources.
• The presbytery “squeeze,” which means that mandated remittances of per capita from presbyteries as required by G-3.0106 in the Book of Order have resulted in financial distress in some presbyteries.
• The unification of the former Office of the General Assembly and Presbyterian Mission Agency into what’s now PL&W means that multiple funding streams are now combined in one agency.
• Growing consensus that healthy presbyteries are critical for the denomination.

Long-term financial sustainability is not only “an indicator of vitality, it’s a topic that touches on a lot of what’s going on right now,” Wilkinson said.

With funds approved by the Unification Commission, the Rev. Dr. Sheldon Sorge has helped the FMDT coordinate field study work this year. Twenty-one presbyteries are participating using one of two models, the Percentage Model and the Per Capita Plus Model.

Presbyteries participating in the Percentage Model are Cascades, Greater Atlanta, Los Ranchos, New Hope, Philadelphia, Scioto Valley, Carlisle, Eastminster, East Tennessee, Great Rivers, Highlands of New Jersey, Coastlands, Long Island, Salem, Shenandoah, South Dakota and Utah. Those presbyteries participating in the Per Capita Plus Model are National Capital, Northeast New Jersey, Northern Kansas and North Central California.

Howard explained that under the Percentage Model, mid councils’ per capita income is being funded at the rate of 11% of their operational income. “By our data, 11% won’t be high enough,” he said. “We went with a number we won’t recommend.” Presbyteries meet monthly in cohorts.

The Per Capita Plus Model is the traditional per capita system augmented by “additional resources and support,” Howard said. Presbyteries meet monthly  and hear from guest speakers. “We are trying to build a healthier system. It’s per capita, but it’s not a control group,” Howard said. “The whole denomination is the control group.”

“We did not put a system in place with something intended to replace voluntary mission giving that occurs throughout the denomination,” Howard said.

Underlying the team’s study is the fact that presbyteries are required to remit the per capita funds they receive, but congregations aren’t required to pay them. “The notion of the Percentage Model is not necessarily to get more money,” Wilkinson said, “but to reduce that squeeze when they may not have received all that is required to be remitted.”

“That’s the theory being tested this year — to see what impact it will have on presbyteries.”

Rader pointed out the team’s diversity, both in terms of geography and roles within presbyteries and congregations. “We have had good guidance about different contexts and different sizes of mid councils,” she said. “We don’t have to rush. Moving at the speed of church is fine, faithfully trusting that God has much for us as a denomination.”

Neighboring presbyteries may have funding operations that vary considerably, Wilkinson said. “We are learning we have polity and practices that unite us, but there is massive diversity being practiced now around these matters,” he said. “We hope this group can capture that as a good thing and not a detriment.”

According to Rader, Wilkinson has helped the team understand that Presbyterians who are young adults are looking “to be invited into a mission that they care about.”

“That doesn’t mean that people are less faithful about their denominational identity,” Rader said. “Whatever we bring as a proposal, we know in our churches and contexts that people need to believe in it.”

The models are being tested in a time when relationships are strained, Howard noted, “from the congregational level all the way up. Even as a mid-council leader, our relationships between congregations and mid councils are strained as well.”

“What does it mean to be a good steward of our relationships? That has been part of our conversation,” Howard said. “It’s a big part of our work, and that’s how cohorts have been helpful.”

“If we’re going to have a healthy financial system,” he said, “we have to have healthy relationships.”

Under the current timeline, the field studies will be completed by the end of the year, with all the data in the team’s hands by mid-2027 “so we can flesh out a recommendation,” Howard said. That recommendation will be forwarded to the 228^th General Assembly.

“There will be no more extensions requested,” Howard said, but there will be “ongoing conversations with mid councils and with denominational leadership.” The team is scheduled to meet again in person in July 2027 at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

“We said yes to [serving on the FMDT] and then we started unwinding all the implications,” Rader said. “We are committed to finishing.”