National Council of Churches Names New Leader Amid Cutbacks

c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) On the heels of budget and staff cutbacks, the National Council of Churches has nominated a veteran educator and ecumenist to be its next general secretary. If affirmed next month by the NCC’s governing board and General Assembly, the Rev. Michael Kinnamon will assume the helm of the New […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) On the heels of budget and staff cutbacks, the National Council of Churches has nominated a veteran educator and ecumenist to be its next general secretary.

If affirmed next month by the NCC’s governing board and General Assembly, the Rev. Michael Kinnamon will assume the helm of the New York-based ecumenical agency in January.


Kinnamon, a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergyman and a professor of ecumenical studies at Eden Theological School in St. Louis, serves on the NCC’s governing board and chairs its justice and advocacy commission.

“What I want to stress is that the council of churches isn’t just an agency that does things for churches,” Kinnamon told the NCC. “It is a community of churches itself.”

Founded in 1950, the National Council of Churches counts some 35 member “communions,” representing 45 million Christians from Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox church bodies.

The council takes on projects including interfaith relations, peace and justice work, and an annual “Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.”

Kinnamon’s nomination comes less than a week after the council announced it will eliminate 14 staff positions _ including two deputy general secretaries and six associate general secretaries _ to cope with a budget deficit.

The council lost $1.2 million in its last fiscal year, according to Acting General Secretary Clare Chapman, following a smaller deficit the year before. Due to the fundraising prowess of former General Secretary Bob Edgar, who now heads the Washington-based group Common Cause, the council has some money in the bank _ about $5.5 to $6 million, according to Chapman.

“The lights are on, everyone is being paid,” she said. “(But) we can’t continue on a long-term basis of having a million-dollar deficit.”


Part of the deficit may be due to the timing of certain foundations grants, Chapman explained, adding that no future cuts are expected.

The Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ and a long-time member of the NCC’s governing board, said a financial crunch is also hitting mainline churches.

Rising energy and health-care costs gobble up the budgets of local congregations, meaning less money gets passed up the foodchain to parachurch groups like the NCC.

The UCC’s own budget has plunged 10 to 15 percent over the last five years,Thomas said. While UCC sends the same percentage of its budget to the NCC, the actual amount gets smaller as the budget declines.

“I think for the near term we’re going to have to get used to this,” he said.

The Rev. Michael Livingston, who’s serving a two-year term as NCC president, said the timing of the cutbacks and new general secretary announcements were coincidental but, in a way, fortuitous.


“It makes sense to welcome a new general secretary into a staff and a program that’s in good shape and doesn’t require that he or she get cast into an organization with great instability and turmoil,” he said.

Kinnamon, who has worked for ecumenical causes for more than 25 years, said he hopes the NCC’s members will “engage each other in depth and with accountability.”

“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 said.

KRE/LF END BURKE 575 words

A photo of Michael Kinnamon is available via https://religionnews.com.

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