Pittsburgh Presbytery planning to reorganize

Pittsburgh Presbytery planning to reorganize

• Pittsburgh Presbytery
• reorganization that would divide its 145 congregations into four geographical branches
• "With 300 leaders at meetings, "we have congregations and pastors who live in isolation from one another."
• 37,000 members in Allegheny County
• the 3rd largest regional governing body in PC(USA)
• 250,000 of principal from its endowment each year to balance their budget
• $2.8 million budget.
• 50 congregations either can't or won't pay their "per capita"
• Ten of those are withholding money in protest of denominational policies
• Last year the presbytery voted to stop forwarding roughly $30,000 per year to the national church on behalf of the congregations that didn't pay.
• last month the denomination's highest court ruled that the decision violated the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
• The reorganization plan would cut the presbytery staff from 16 to 11, assigning one staff member to each of the four branches.
• The fact that only a third of congregations now participate in presbytery meetings is due "to decisions that have come out that angered various people who have become disillusioned with the presbytery system as a whole,