PC(USA) General Assembly: What You Need to Know.

Dear Colleagues in Earth Care,

Greetings as we breathe the breath of the Holy Spirit in these Sundays after Pentecost!

The 2012 General Assembly timeline is ticking away towards our journey to Pittsburgh.........

PEC continues our plan to welcome you and invites you to join us at booth 310 in the Exhibit Hall and join in our July 5 luncheon where we will announce our winners of our individual and group creation care awards. We will also welcome new PEC Steering Committee members. (Remember, if you haven't yet, you can vote for them before June 15 here.) Food for the luncheon will be purchased at the local market and we will enjoy fellowship of PEC members and other friends.  Members of the Executive Committee of PEC will be there --  Jane Laping, Vice-Moderator, Sue Smith, Treasurer, and I.  We look forward to meeting and greeting you!!! 

We recommend that you to review and talk with your presbytery commissioners about the following:

• There are two Overtures being presented supportive of environmental justice, which PEC recommends passage of:

• Overture 096 in Support of the Environmental Protection Agency from Baltimore Presbytery
• Overture 059 in Support of a '50 Year Farm Bill' (sustainable ag) from Heartland Presbytery

• There is also a recommendation from the Special Offerings Advisory Task Force which recommends sweeping changes to our current special offerings set. There are also three Overtures which recommend retaining a structure similar to our present structure (Overtures 101, 103, 108).  I recommend that you review these and ask commissioners to read carefully the report of the SOATF in order to be well informed and ask questions they may have.  These changes affect the funding of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, our direct partner in agricultural sustainability. It also affects other areas (Self-Development of People, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, and Peacemaking). See the report below, taken from the PCUSA website.

The Holy Spirit -- and the energy of Wind and Flame -- be with you!!!! 

 Grace and Peace,

 Diane Waddell

 Moderator, Presbyterians for Earth Care

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from the PCUSA Website:

Special Offerings report recommends changes to the Peacemaking Offering

The Special Offerings Advisory Task Force has completed its 3-year study and will bring recommendations to the 220^th General Assembly when it meets this July in Pittsburgh.  Among the sweeping changes to the four special offerings is the recommendation to replace the Peacemaking Offering with a new offering called the World Communion Offering to support “global witness and outreach beyond the United States.” Like the Peacemaking Offering, congregations and presbyteries would retain 25 percent each of the new World Communion Offering. The task force’s recommendations, if approved, would also shift “peacemaking activities” to the One Great Hour of Sharing Offering, to be funded alongside “community development, disaster assistance, and hunger ministries.” The report also recommends that percentage allocations be eliminated from the special offerings and that future program funding instead be done based upon alignment with strategic priorities identified by the General Assembly Mission Council.