Illiana Presbytery of the PCA met on Saturday, October 9 Illiana Presbytery had unanimously voted in October to reject the BCO 14-1 and 14-2 amendments’ AC funding plan. However, they wanted to make it clear that they did not oppose the AC but wanted to consider other options that would fund it.

They considered the Hedman proposal and Northwest Georgia proposal as well as the Ohio Presbytery overture (below). Illiana Presbytery voted to pass the Ohio Presbytery proposal that would deal with the financial troubles of the AC by funding byFaith magazine (which has cost of between $300,000 and $500,000 of a $2 million budget) independently.

The overture proposes to cease using AC funds to fund the magazine and web site and fund the magazine by other means. Assuming current funding levels, this would give the AC a large surplus.

The PCA formerly had a magazine. Christian Educations & Publications published it. They asked to be relieved of the magazine because of its financial burden. The logic of the overture is that if the AC was also relieved of this burden, then they would be on better financial footing.

Here is the overture:

Overture Concerning the funding of ByFaithMagazine and ByFaithOnline

Whereas, the congregations of the PCA are called to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of their abilities; and

Whereas, each congregation should freely and voluntarily give to the Permanent Committees and Agencies of the General Assembly; and

Whereas, the Administrative Committee in years past has struggled to raise and receive support from Presbyteries and local congregations; and

Whereas, in the past five years between fifteen (15) and twenty-six (26) percent of the Administrative Committee’s budget includes a subscription magazine called byFaith and its web magazine byFaithOnline.com, and

Whereas, the Administrative Committee is coming up short of its budget between thirteen (13) and seventeen (17) percent each year of the last five (5) years; and

Whereas, since its beginning byFaith has struggled to attain a consistent number of over 10,000 subscribers; and

Whereas, in 1990 the denomination’s news magazine “PCA Messenger” struggled with approximately 10,000 subscribers and stated that to be viable there would be a need for 20,000-25,000 subscribers; and

Whereas, in 1994 CE/P asked to be relieved of their duty of supporting financially the work of the PCA’s news magazine because of the burden it had on the committee’s budget of which it was then passed to the Administrative Committee to which it is a burden now; and

Whereas, if byFaith was allowed to stand on its own outside of the support of the Administrative Committee’s budget the Administrative Committee would be able to meet their budget each year according to past years;

Therefore, be it resolved that Ohio Presbytery overtures the 39th General Assembly of the PCA to encourage the Administrative Committee within the next year to equip, to the best of its ability, byFaithOnline and byFaith Magazine to financially stand on its own outside the support of the Administrative Committee, and

Therefore, be it further resolved that at the end of this one year period, before the time of the 2012 40th PCA General Assembly, that the Administrative Committee no longer support financially byFaith Magazine or byFaithOnline.

Wes White is a Teaching Elder in the PCA currently serving as Pastor of the New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Sturgis, SC. This article first appeared on his website at weswhite.net and is used with his permission. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]