NCC Reshapes, Announces Nominee for Top Position

By Nathan Black, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Amid structural changes and staff cuts, the National Council of Churches announced the nomination of the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon as the top official of the ecumenical group.

Kinnamon, a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergyman and a long-time educator and ecumenical leader, was nominated to succeed the Rev. Bob Edgar as NCC general secretary. Edgar resigned on Aug. 31 to head the Washington-based advocacy group Common Cause.

If affirmed by the NCC Governing Board and General Assembly next month, Kinnamon will become the council's ninth general secretary.

His nomination, announced earlier this month, comes as the ecumenical group cut 14 staff positions and announced reorganization due to an "expected budget shortfall" for fiscal year 2008.

Although the organization has millions of dollars in financial reserves, the governing board is committed to operate only on available revenues, according to a statement.

"This plan moves us forward toward long-term sustainability so that the important ecumenical witness of the Council can continue well into the future," NCC's president, the Rev. Michael Livingston, said in a statement.

While acknowledging the reorganization and staff reduction, general secretary nominee Kinnamon said he is confident that member churches will renew their commitment to the missions and ministries that they carry out through the NCC.

"Because of their life together, I hope churches will engage each other in depth and with accountability," he said, according to the NCC News Service. "I hope to encourage member churches to pray for one another and know one another at a deeper level than simply across a meeting table or picket line."

Kinnamon hopes the council can be more than an agency that does things for churches. "It's a community of the churches themselves," he said at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis shortly after his nomination was announced.

Michael Kinnamon is a member of the National Council of Churches Governing Board and chair of the Council's Justice and Advocacy Commission. He has overseen the commission's development of resolutions and statements on a wide range of justice and peace issues and was the primary drafter of the NCC's Strategic Plan drafting committee over the past three years.

The National Council of Churches was founded in 1950 and claims a membership of 45 million people in more than 100,000 local congregations in the country.