Christian Church(Disciples of Christ)
Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ)
Contact: news@cm.disciples.org
95b-101
November 22, 1995
ST. LOUIS (DNS) -- It's a done deed. After 13 years of dreaming, struggling, planning and praying, the overseas mission boards of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ finally have come together.
Starting Jan. 1, a Common Global Ministries Board will act on behalf of the Disciples Division of Overseas Ministries and the United Church Board for World Ministries. The respective governing bodies jointly met here Nov. 13-15.
"We're finding a new path, but finding it together," said the Rev. Patricia Tucker Spier, president of DOM. "We're feeling our way . . . it's like trying on new clothes."
She further described the session as a "transition meeting" in which the boards approved "provisional rules and structures to give the Common Global Ministries Board a framework in which to operate."
"We have turned a dream of faith into the reality of a common staff and budget to do mission in the 21st century," added the Rev. David Y. Hirano, executive vice president of the UCBWM.
While the November gathering was the last meeting of the DOM and BWM boards in their current forms, the bodies will continue to exist as legal and corporate entities, according to Spier. Joint projects will be administered under the banner of Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ.
The Common Board had been approved by the World Board in 1994 and the Disciples General Assembly in October. The UCBWM directorate, whose annual meeting preceded the joint business session, elected 20 persons to the new governing body. The full Common Board, including 20 Disciples representatives and six international partners, meets in April 1996 for the first time.
The new union, however, emerged despite existing difficulties. The World Board brings a $2-million deficit to the partnership and an outside management audit had recommended elimination of some elected and support staff, consolidations and the closing of the New York office.
In two emotional sessions, some staff and board members called for slowing down the procedures and for making strategic planning as important as financial planning. Subsequently, the joint boards set up a committee to design a strategic plan that will review the whole mission program, and study whether to maintain a New York presence and to continue the position of general secretary for mission program.
In addition, the work of the office of the secretary for racial and ethnic minority constituency education and development, now vacant, will be filled. Earlier, the BWM directorate voted to eliminate the position of associate/office of the executive vice president.
The two boards also appointed 22 new missionaries.
In other business the DOM board:
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