Topic > Reflections on Leaders in a Connected Church

In January 2010, I had the privilege of being able to take a course at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, KY, titled “Leaders in a Connectional Church.” The course aimed to show how the leadership of the Presbyterian Church connected to the presbyteries and congregations that make up its body through intensive work with the General Assembly Missionary Council (GAMC) and researching how the current structure came into being. My position was within the offices of the Executive Director and Communications, which I was excited to be a part of given my background in radio and broadcast. To my surprise, however, the GAMC had only begun to expand multimedia in the last 5 years and most of the bases were still under heavy construction. But despite this surprise, I was pleased that the general vibe (indeed, in everyone I spoke to) was one of embracing change in a positive sense, not just for the sake of change. There has been a real recognition and understanding that what the Church has done will no longer work for the future, correlating very well with the changing times of the past. This article will examine some of these times of change relative to the current atmosphere and present arguments for an increased GAMC-wide television presence, clearly defined job titles and descriptions, and a restructuring and reorganization as part of the reform changes in the next cycle of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PC(USA)). The process in the last major reformation of the Presbyterian Church was the period in which the church underwent "incorporation," borrowing structure, language, and goals arising from the rapidly growing corporate culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ...... half of the document ...... Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993). Jerry Van Marter, “GAC Communications and Fund Development Staff Reorganized,” in Presbyterian News Service [accessed January 31, 2010]Presbyterian Church (USA), “PC(USA) Structure Chart,” in Pcusa .org [accessed January 31, 2010]Jack Haberer, “Rediscovering the Reformed, Being Reformed Church,” in Presbyterians Being Reformed, ed. Robert H Bullock Jr. (Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2006), 41.Richard Jackson Harris, A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication, 4th ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2004), 9-11.Ad Council, “About the Ad Council,” in adcouncil.org [accessed January 31, 2010]Ed Shane, Selling Electronic Media (Boston, MA: Focal Press, 1999), 348.