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The Presbytery of Arkansas met for it's 156th Meeting on June 1, 2024, at Central Presbyterian Church in Russellville. The agenda had two major items of business for which the presbytery’s Coordinating Team felt we needed to attend in person to be fully present for the discussion.
The Financial Assets Task Force recommended that the presbytery fully fund four requests and answer the recommendation from the Administrative Commission of First Presbyterian Church of North Little Rock (Argenta) with three of the requests. Each of the requests came in at roughly the same time and were presented to the Presbytery at the 155th meeting in March. In response to all of the requests, the presbytery elected a Financial Requests Task Force to study the requests and bring a recommendation back to the body.
It was a historic meeting for us as the presbytery approved four requests totaling $1,560,000.00. The largest gift was made to Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center for $760,000.00. Ferncliff is in the midst of a capital campaign, and this will move them much closer to receiving a one-million-dollar matching gift from the Mabee Foundation. The presbytery approved a $500,000.00 gift to the Thriving in Ministry program that will go toward a matching grant from the Lilly Foundation that will sustain the current program for several years in the future. Our own MWS Phil Blackburn is the director of the program which is funded by a previous one-million-dollar grant from the Lilly Foundation. The program works toward leadership needs in small or rural congregations in the Presbytery of Arkansas – and along with the gift from Ferncliff meets two of the requests from the Argenta Administrative Commission. The presbytery made a gift of $50,000.00 to “The Van”, a ministry which works with the homeless population of Little Rock and North Little Rock. First Presbyterian Church of Argenta was closely supportive of “The Van” and the session had requested a gift be made to them from proceeds of the sold property. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Vera Lloyd Presbyterian Family Services the presbytery made a gift of $250,000.00 to complete their campaign to renovate the gymnasium which is the focal point for the children and youth on campus.
As you may recall, the property of First Presbyterian Church of North Little Rock was sold on December 29, 2023, for one million dollars. The presbytery cleared just over $934,000.00 after closing costs and costs from the Administrative Commission. Those funds along with financial assets from the recently closed Westminster Presbyterian Church of Little Rock (over $411,000.00) and some of the funds from the recently sold church in Brinkley will cover all of the gifts. The Ferncliff and Thriving in Ministry gifts will be distributed over a 5-year period from these funds that will be invested in the Balanced Fund at Texas Presbyterian Foundation. If the market performs similar to recent 5-year average yields, the presbytery could still have over $200,000.00 remaining after all funds have been distributed.
We can celebrate what we accomplished at this meeting as we made investments that will benefit children and youth in our state for decades to come. We can celebrate a gift that will make a major impact for a ministry that provides much needed daily assistance to the homeless people of our largest population center. And we have made investments that will potentially impact the majority of our congregations and their leaders for several years to come.
The other important business before the presbytery was to hear from Mark DeVries of Ministry Architects as he shared the latest version of a mission statement, values to guide our work and ministry, and goals for the presbytery with one year and three-year benchmarks. After questions and discussion, the presbytery adopted these as a “working framework” with the understanding that final edits would be brought back for the presbytery to formally approve in October. |
