In 1997, The Mississippi Joint Committee unanimously opposed the proposed change for the restructure of Reformed University Ministries as it applies to the Mississippi Joint Committee. Also, the Committee is prepared to voice this opposition to the member Presbyteries.

TO: The MNA Appointed Study Committee for Reformed University Ministries to Study Presbytery Overtures 17, 18, and 33 Concerning the Constitution of RUM as a Separate and Permanent Committee

FROM: The Mississippi Joint Committee for Reformed University Ministries

DATE: March 3, 1997

At the 24th General Assembly overtures were presented from the three (3) Mississippi Presbyteries and Southeast Alabama Presbytery. The overture recommends the study of a proposal to create a General Assembly level committee for the oversight of RUM. The effect of these overtures would be that the RUM Committee would no longer be a subcommittee of MNA. Having received the overtures, the MNA Committee appointed a Study Committee to consider them.

This appointed Study Committee has apparently summarily dismissed these overtures and their recommendation for a General Assembly permanent committee for RUM. In its stead, the Study Committee has indicated its intention to recommend to the MNA Committee that a new more centralized structure be imposed on RUM. This would effectively be a recommendation that the overtures be answered in the negative. However, before the Study Committee took a final vote, they believed it was wise to consult with the Mississippi Joint Committee.

The Mississippi Joint Committee would make the following responses to the proposed recommendation for structural changes to Reformed Universities Ministries:

1. The Mississippi Committee is concerned that the Study Committee did not review the content of the overtures and did not have an official representative of the overturing Presbyteries to speak on their behalf or to defend their merits.

2. It appears to the Mississippi Joint Committee that the Study Committee has stepped beyond the bounds of its assignment. Neither the General Assembly nor MNA has asked for it to recommend such proposed structural changes. Indeed, the overtures which the General Assembly sent down to MNA point in the exact opposite direction of the Study Committee’s proposals. The Study Committee should act on the overtures handed down to it, research them, debate them, vote them up or down, and report their findings to MNA, and through MNA back to the General Assembly.

3. The Mississippi Joint Committee does not have the authority to assent to such a proposed organizational structural change. The Mississippi Committee answers to the Presbyteries which it represents. Any such changes would have to go before the three Presbyteries for approval. Assembly agencies and subcommittees have no sovereignty whatsoever over Presbyteries.

4. Regarding this proposed change, the basic issue is: Will RUM be “Atlanta driven” or “Presbytery driven”? Will RUM be “top down” or “grassroots”? Will RUM Atlanta be seen as a “supervisor” or a “facilitator and servant” of the brethren? This philosophical question really appears to be the crux of the issue for the Mississippi Committee. We have always been very concerned about attempts to circumvent or reduce the authority of Presbyteries.

5. The proposed change will directly and indirectly result in bureaucratic centralization of authority and administration. Presbyterian history shows centralized bureaucracy had always bred mediocrity, theological reductionism, and heterodoxy.

6. This proposal of the Study Committee creates a greater potential for micro-managing local affairs from the “top”. This violates current management theory, current trends in the national (and world) government, current trends in the PCA (e.g. MTW).

7. This proposed change violates the principles of the Southern Presbyterian, “grassroots” approach to oversight of church agencies. The PCA specifically refused to call its agency coordinators “directors” for this very reason. We do not believe in coordinators usurping the authority of church courts, but merely in their facilitating mutual Kingdom labor. They are servants, not Lords, hence “coordinators” not “directors”. Disagreement with this philosophy is to argue for an entirely new philosophy not yet adopted by the PCA.

8. This proposed change is a novel approach which differs from the basic principles of the affiliated agreement between RUM Mississippi and PCA RUM. This should be remembered by all involved in the discussion. Any unilaterally “imposed” violation of the agreement by Atlanta would render that agreement null and void. The word “imposed” is in quotes because Atlanta does not in fact have the authority or ability to “impose” on RUM Mississippi. RUM Mississippi is under the authority of and controlled by the three (3) Presbyteries.

9. Some have argued that this proposed change in organization and structure is consistent with the original design and structure of RUM. First, we may note that the Presbyteries and Campus Ministers asked for changes in the structure of RUM. Second, the manual cannot override Presbyterial power or the basic affiliated agreement. Third, even if the proposed change is historically consistent, we must recognize that the Presbyteries, Area Coordinators, and Campus Ministers are adamantly opposed to micro-managing from Atlanta and realize the superiority of handling things from the field.

10. The Mississippi Joint Committee unanimously opposed the proposed change for the restructure of Reformed University Ministries as it applies to the Mississippi Joint Committee. Also, the Committee is prepared to voice this opposition to the member Presbyteries.

11. It is the firm belief of the Joint Committee that any effort to bring the authority, structure, power and money under the Atlanta office, and thus reduce the role of the Mississippi Joint Committee to mere advice and consent, will remove the final authority away from Presbytery and may have direct and severe negative financial consequences.