Excerpted from Episcopal News Service by Mary Frances Schjonberg:
The Episcopal Church’s Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance (PB&F) has begun the many months of work that will result in a 2016-2018 budget being proposed to the 78th General Convention in July 2015.
PB&F members spent the bulk of their Oct. 27-29 meeting getting a crash course on how the triennial budget has been constructed in the past and how the process has been changed this time around.
Both Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings were each asked to describe for PB&F members their vision for the 2016-2018 budget and the process being used to build it….
Maine Bishop Stephen Lane, PB&F vice chair, told his colleagues that their work calls them to balance listening to the church’s desires with “our own passions and commitments.”
“We will receive data from across the church… it’s not agendas, its data; listening to people [and learning] what their concerns are is [the] data,” he said. “We start with data and there will be lots of it, but eventually we take that data and make choices about it. That’s where your own visions are really critical.”
Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission (FFM) chair Bishop Mark Hollingsworth and the Rev. Susan Snook, who heads FFM’s budget subcommittee, discussed with PB&F the current triennial budget and council’s budget process thus far.