Synod Week Article #2: A Plea to the General Synod of the ARP Church - Andrew Di lulio and others

A Plea to the General Synod of the ARP Church

Purpose

Fathers and Brothers,

The purpose of this letter is to highlight a perspective on the state of the ARP denomination, and specifically the Pension Plan, that has not been fully represented. This letter is not intended as a minority report. Furthermore, this letter is not to be received as official business. It is not an attempt to circumvent our Presbyterian Form of Government—its courts, committees, or established and proper channels of communication and discussion. Rather, our purpose in writing this letter is to build up and foster faithful Presbyterian dialogue.

To this end, our hope is that this letter will impress on General Synod our deep concern and burden for the viability of the ARP Church. We believe the ARP Church has approached an existential crisis and, if we desire to continue the pursuit of sacrificial Kingdom ministry, we must respond accordingly. We also intend in this letter to suggest some ways forward as we pursue together faithful stewardship of all that has been entrusted to us.

Posture

With this, we want to make our posture clear. First, we come to you with gratitude for all of those who have so diligently applied their expertise and experience toward finding a solution to our underfunded pension plan. We recognize and deeply appreciate the countless hours and genuine care these men have invested in pursuing said solution. The reports we have received, and their accompanying documentation, have set a high bar of excellence. For that, we are grateful.

Second, we come to you in humility, recognizing our own shortcomings and weaknesses. We do not pretend to have the perfect solution, nor do we pretend to have the only true, or even the best, perspective on the issue at hand. We do have serious concerns and perspectives that we believe have been underappreciated thus far. We bring these in humility and full submission to this court. 

Third, we come to you in the spirit of brotherhood to which we have all been called. We seek to work together to bring glory to Christ, and we want to pursue the peace, purity, unity, and prosperity of his Church and of this body to which we have committed ourselves. We are not seeking to bring anything adversarial or contrary to this discussion. Furthermore, we recognize the only way forward is in a spirit of grace, humility, and comradery as we all submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Perspective

With this posture, we come to you with very serious concern for the state of our denomination. These concerns are not new to any of us. In the wake of the 2005 meeting of General Synod, a Vision Committee was created (at this time the ARP reported 35,640 members). In 2007, that committee presented its findings, noting that the ARP is “tolerant of mediocrity,” “addicted to niceness,” and “indifferen[t] to excellence,” all of which is evidence of a “culture of negligence” (ARP membership was 34,939). In response, a Strategic Planning Committee was created to plot a path forward for the denomination. After five years of work, this committee presented their final findings in 2012 (ARP membership was 34,349). In the years that followed, there seemed to be little to no verifiable response to their recommendations. The minutes of Synod record during these years a growing confidence that Erskine College, under two new presidencies, was heading in a good direction, as well as several commendable efforts to update various governing documents of the Synod. But little to no action was taken with respect to the matter of denominational decline, as raised in the reports of the 2007 Vision Committee and 2012 Strategic Planning Committee. From 2012-2019, the Synod experienced a 35% decline, with membership dropping to 22,393.

More recently, at its 2019 meeting, in response to the Board of Benefits’ recommended action for fixing the Pension Plan, Synod appointed a Blue Ribbon Committee to consider other options for solvency. That committee has presented recommendations to our 2020 General Synod that it admits fall far short of the actuarial recommendations. In explaining this disparity, the report mentions an assumed reluctance on the part of the denomination to do what is actually needed: "The consensus of the MBRC, reinforced by the consensus of the SCDMFS, is that the Synod will not approve a contribution rate of 16.00% or 16.50%, so the MBRC has concentrated on options that assume a contribution rate of no more than 12.00% of payroll" (p. 6). We believe that if the Synod limits itself to admittedly inadequate recommendations, we are consigning ourselves to our fate as a body trapped in the "culture of negligence" described in 2007. Meanwhile, our total membership continues to decline.

The problem with our pension plan is, as indicated by the report of the Special Committee on Denominational Ministry Spending (Index 11), a symptom of a structure that is broken and no longer viable. We are not suggesting that any of the agencies of the ARP were created with unfaithful desires or aims. Put simply and sadly, we as a denomination are no longer able to perpetuate the manifold efforts and comforts that have been our privilege to support for these many years. Between 2005 and 2019, our denomination has seen dramatic decline, both in membership and in financial stability. We are living beyond our means, and the call to faithful stewardship has not been sacrificially pursued.

Additionally, our pension problem is now public to the American Church and, if not fully resolved, could disincentivize new ministers and churches from joining the ARPC (including our own church plants not yet organized). Furthermore, it may incentivize young ARP ministers and even whole churches to leave the ARP. This would hasten the denomination’s demise—the very thing we are all seeking to avoid. Therefore, no matter how costly and painful, we must do whatever is necessary to become solvent immediately.

Our desire is for our denomination to pursue Kingdom over comfort. We need to be willing to do whatever is faithful to enable churches and ministers to pursue Gospel ministry as they serve their families, their congregations, and the denomination. This includes, but is not limited to, the dissolving of Synod agencies, the selling of Synod assets, and the restructuring of our denomination’s programs. This would not mean that the specific goals with which our Synod agencies are tasked would cease to be pursued. On the contrary, it is crucial that we have churches and presbyteries that passionately pursue these goals, recognizing that other NAPARC denominations do pursue these efforts by the faithful and sacrificial work of Presbyteries and churches. This much may be necessary if we are going to equip the General Synod to fulfill its primary calling, which is to be the higher court of our Presbyteries, governing and supporting our Presbyteries and local congregations in their calling to proclaim the truth of the Gospel and to build up the saints for the work of ministry.  

No matter what route is taken, one thing remains abundantly clear to us all – the ARPC needs to pray to the LORD of the harvest. Specifically, we need to put the LORD our God to the test by bringing the full tithe into the storehouse (Mal. 3:10-12). Ultimately, this is not a problem for our God. Let us pray that he will grant us a solution through our hard work and commitment or even through his supernatural intervention.  

What we would like to see

Therefore, we make the following requests:

1. That every member of the ARP Church bring this matter fervently before our heavenly Father in prayer.
2. In response to Recommendations #2 and #3 from the MBRC, that Synod give current and new ministers and their churches the freedom to study and decide for themselves where and by whom their retirement plans are administered.
3. In response to Recommendation #5 from the MBRC, we would ask that Synod adopt the recommendation of our actuaries and commit $5.5 Million (or no less than the current actuarial recommendation) to the refunding of the pension plan.
4. In agreement with Recommendation #1 from the SCDMFS, we would ask that “the Moderator appoint a Restructuring Committee of 6 members, made up of 3 Pastors and 3 Elders, to examine our present structure and formulate a plan for denominational re-structuring and report back to the 2021 General Synod with its recommendations for the Synod’s adoption” (Index 11). 
5. We would ask that General Synod create an “escape” clause for ministers who wish to leave the ARP Pension Plan and invest in a plan of their own choosing.
6. We would ask that General Synod appoint as many additional committees as are necessary so that the legalities and various scenarios toward the pursuit of solvency can be examined in a thorough and timely manner.

We recognize these are drastic recommendations we are making. We also recognize that an ARP Synod that took these measures would feel very different from the denomination we have been. But if these measures enabled us to retain the congregations and ministers that we have, to attract new congregations and ministers who are drawn to our distinct ethos, and to pursue our calling sacrificially at the level of Presbyteries and congregations, would we not be a Kingdom-refined denomination – that is, a better version of ourselves?

To this plea, we, the undersigned, do prayerfully and humbly commit our names.

Andrew Di Iulio

Philip Bunch Jr.

Jay Crout

Scott Cook

Steve Kern

Matt Miller

Mark Miller

Matt Awtrey

(NOTE: www.seventeen82.com is a platform to develop discussion and dialogue about the issues of the church. As the ARP Church gets ready to meet this week. We have opened this up to all our regular authors and well as any other who wished to write about the issue before the upcoming ARP Synod this week. - The Editors)