Grants to Spur Growth, Ethnic Outreach in Presbyterian Churches

By Audrey Barrick, Christian Post Reporter Friday, June 01, 2007

Sixteen churches were awarded grants to help grow existing congregations and develop new ones within one of the largest Protestant denominations in the nation.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the largest Presbyterian group and the eighth largest Protestant group in America. In the past year, however, the mainline denomination suffered one of the largest membership decreases among other church groups.

With the U.S. population growing and changing in terms of ethnic diversity, the Mission Development Resources Committee of the PC(USA) recently granted $1.1 million in grants to 16 church-related projects – 65 percent of which are racial-ethnic projects – in a commitment to church growth.

"Each of the new projects is a story about Presbyterians responding to God's call," said the Rev. Eric Hoey, director of the General Assembly Council's (GAC) new Evangelism and Church Growth program area, according to Presbyterian News Service.

Hoey, who was newly named to his post in February, said churches have to be "dynamic."

"When the GAC, presbyteries and synods collaborate on these types of evangelism projects, we are sharing the gospel in ways that meet the needs of a diverse and changing culture," he added.

Comunidad Presbiteriana Hispana New Church Development in Springdale, Ark., received a $100,000 grant to plant, organize and nurture the First Hispanic Presbyterian Church in Northwest Arkansas, which will worship God in ways reflective of the Reformed tradition and appropriate to Latino culture in a bilingual, multicultural setting, the denomination's news service reported.

Also reaching the Hispanic community, Maranata Presbyterian Church New Church Development in Orlando, Fla., was granted $100,000 to expand the word of God to the Hispanic community in the fastest growing area of North East Orange County. Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority group in the nation currently making up 14 percent of the U.S. population which is projected to increase to 25 percent by 2050.

In other outreaches, Meridian New Church Development in Boise, Ind., plans to develop a church where the outcast and the successful and the young and the old can have an authentic encounter with the living Lord with a $95,000 grant.

The Mission Development Resources Committee awards two rounds of grants each year to aid presbyteries and synods for growth. The first round of grants was announced in March in which over $1 million went to 14 church projects.