Magazine

Budget Woes at Church Offices

conniepurvis

A sharper-than-expected decline in Presbyterians Sharing income will result in the loss of up to five positions at the church’s national offices as well as a two-year salary cutback.

The budget called for Presbyterians Sharing to raise about $8.6 million in revenue for 2009, but indications are that only about $8.4 million will come in.

Stephen Roche, the church’s treasurer and chief financial officer, told staff at a meeting called to announce the reductions that there was no way to know if the drop in contributions was a result of the recession or whether contributions would recover.

Since 1999, Presbyterians Sharing revenue has ranged from $8.6 million to a high of $8.76 in 2006, but it has fallen short of budget expectations since 2003. In 2008, the budget shortfall was nearly $400,000.

The payroll cuts will come in the form of a one-week shutdown of the national office building in 2010 and 2011, during which time staff will be forced to take an unpaid leave. In addition, no cost of living allowances will be granted for the next two years.

Reason Versus Religion

Keith Randall

To the God-inspired men who wrote the Bible, Earth was the centre of the universe God created for us. Prophets and kings would have found it easy to imagine a sovereign atop the clouds ruling his dominions, sending emissary angels to encourage or rebuke wandering desert nomads. How dramatically this clashes with our “modern” perspective in which our dear green and blue planet is so infinitely tiny as to almost surpass imagination. And there, perhaps, is the key.

We Don’t See Miracles Anymore

Keith Randall

The Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, Montreal, proposed a daring theme for Lenten chapel services: questions often asked but seldom answered in church. One rearranged this wanderer’s worldview, like a kaleidoscope’s shifting pattern. “Why don’t miracles happen anymore?”