What's Ahead at the General Assembly

This Fourth of July morning marks the mid-point of the Assembly, a brief pause while committee reports are put in order, and the commissioners catch a quick breather before they undertake the marathon rounds of plenary sessions yet to come.

Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I'm reposting here a section from The G.A. Junkie blog - a remarkable site that displays the product of a lot of hard work on the part of its author - that summarizes the most notable actions coming out of committees and when they can expect to come before the full General Assembly in plenary session:

Marriage - The request for an AI was not recommended but the overture asking that the Directory for Worship be changed to read that marriage is between "two people" is recommended

Mid Councils - Recommendations to form a task force to reduce the number of synods, no provisional experimental/non-geographic presbyteries, a task force to review GAMC and OGA and a Racial Ethnic Ministries Task Force (Outlook article)

Middle East - MRTI's divestment recommendations recommended (Outlook article)

Special Offerings - Recommendation that most are preserved in their current form with the Communion Offering to be restructured (Outlook article)

Church Orders - Most asked-for changes to the Book of Order were not recommended, but on a split decision (28-20) they are recommending adding to G-2.0104a (previously G-6.0106a) the phrase "This includes repentance of sin and diligent use of the means of grace." (Outlook article)

Confessions - The revised version of the Heidelberg Catechism was recommended as well as a recommendation for a redo of the process to add the Belhar Confession (Outlook article)

Plenary sessions resume at 2 PM this afternoon. Bills and Overtures has posted a proposed docket for the rest of the Assembly. Live streaming will resume and Bills and Overtures has done a pretty good job of spreading out the reports generally giving us one high-profile issue per session:

• Confessions - Wednesday afternoon
• Mid Council Issues - about 10 AM Thursday morning
• Middle East - about 3 PM Thursday afternoon
• Mission Coordination (Special Offerings) - Thursday evening
• Election of Standing Committee Members - Friday Morning
• Review of Biennial Assemblies - Friday Morning
• Immigration Issues - about 10 AM Friday morning (this is the hot-button item of the session)
• Civil Union and Marriage - about 1:50 on Friday afternoon
• Church Orders - about 3:30 on Friday afternoon
• Peacemaking and International Issues - Friday evening

Thanks, Cynthia

For the past couple of years, Cynthia Bolbach, a ruling elder from Washington, D.C., has been our Moderator. On Saturday, as planned, she passed the Moderator’s cross and stole to the Rev. Neal Presa, whom this Assembly had just elected as her successor.

Cindy has served the church during a difficult time. At the 2010 General Assembly, the church opened the door just a crack, removing a constitutional provision that barred those in committed same-sex relationships from ordination as deacons, ruling elders or teaching elders. Now it’s up to the ordaining bodies – presbyteries in the case of ministers, or local-church sessions, in the case of ministers – to decide who’s suitable to serve.

Because it’s the Moderator’s job when the Assembly’s not in session – which is most of the time – to travel around the country, even the world, promoting and interpreting what the church is doing, Cindy’s had to deal with more than the usual number of angry Presbyterians who just don’t understand why the national church would allow such a thing.

By all accounts, she’s done a marvelous job. As with no other issue, the question of the ordination of gays and lesbians brings out the worst in some people. Again and again, Cindy has walked into confrontational situations and faced anger, in some cases even outright meanness, with patience and grace.

She’s not walking much any longer. During her moderatorial tenure, Cindy was diagnosed with cancer. She’s not shared the particular type of cancer she has, nor her prognosis – preferrring to keep that information private – but she did let it be known that her swan song here in Pittsburgh is taking place during a round of chemotherapy treatments.

Cindy preached, and presided over the opening session of the Assembly, from a wheelchair. This is something she chose to do. She had a very able Vice-Moderator, the Rev. Landon Whitsitt, who could certainly have carried on in her absence, but it was obviously important to her to finish the job herself. On both days when she was in front of the Assembly, Cindy seemed low on energy, but she fulfilled her role with grace and good humor.

Cindy simply did what people with cancer most want to do. She kept on living.

I don’t think she’ll be much in evidence during the rest of the Assembly. Having passed the mantle to her successor, she may have gone back home to continue her treatments, for all I know. Or, she may be simply taking it easy, conserving her energy for the things she most wants to do.

Whatever the case, whether here in Pittsburgh or back home in Washington, Cindy is surrounded by the prayers of a grateful church. We admire her strength, perseverance and faith.

Insights from Brian McLaren

For about an hour and a half this afternoon, I had the rare opportunity - along with a number of other colleagues from presbytery and synod leadership - to sit at the feet of Brian McLaren, one of the most compelling voices in the so-called Emerging Church movement.  Here are a few random notes I took, based on his off-the-cuff remarks:

The Baby Boomers left the church, then came back later. The next generation after them left but didn't come back. This is the source of many of our present difficulties.

The Roman Catholic member-attrition numbers are even worse than the mainline Protestants', if new immigrants are excluded. Roman Catholic sociologists studying the situation have confirmed this, and have observed that their institutions as they know them are simply not sustainable in the long term, unless major changes are made.

There is a need for serious theological dialogue about questions such as: "What do we mean by sovereignty?" Some hear that word and think it means "control," as in God micro-managing everything that happens. Can God be sovereign but not in control?

Church is like group aerobics. People join those classes to do a workout they'd never do alone. It's a kind of liturgy. The problem is that, for all too many, church is a bad workout.  There are so many mean people in our churches in leadership roles, who should not be there if we really applied our beliefs consistently.

Liturgical, social-justice, charismatic, evangelical: according to Phyllis Tickle, these are the new divisions within American Christianity. These true dividing lines between Christians laterally cross denominational lines. Those firmly grounded in one of these four traditions will typically have more in common with friends from a another denomination who follow the same tradition than they do with a random person from their own denomination.

We are experiencing both emergence and convergence. We also have divergence from many elements of American culture (which was not true 50 years ago). The culture has its own ethic that is becoming more firmly established all the time, regardless of the teachings of the churches. For example, unless we in the churches affirm that maximizing profits is always the highest goal, we've diverged from the culture.

In Christianity for the Rest of Us, Diana Butler Bass says the pendulum is swinging back from "spiritual but not religious," and that these people are now hungry for spiritual andreligious. There are some indications that they're not so much against "organized religion" itself as against religion organized for the wrong purposes.

People are looking for religion to organize for the right purpose: not so much for purposes of self-governance (the old model), as to conduct wholistic mission.

One of the wisest things church leadership consultant Lyle Schaller ever said: "You bring in a new day with new people."

The new day will require welcoming in significant numbers of the erstwhile spiritual-but-not-religious.

The PC(USA)'s new "1,001 New Worshiping Congregations" project will not succeed unless we can make room for the innovations of the newcomers, and unless we can make sure they won't be constantly criticized. We must create safe zones for innovation. Existing churches will need to actually see these innovative communities succeeding before they will begin to emulate their practices.

Innovation: it's not just for Pentecostals anymore.

Few Presbyterians remember that Calvin started writing the Institutes when he was 19. Presbyterians have probably not listened to a 19-year-old ever since.

A California presbytery created what it calls a "polity-free zone." The executive presbyter had to run interference for it, over the objections of some old-timers.

We must be alert and able to reach out to people from other, more conservative denominations who are being pushed out of their churches because they believe essentially the same things we believe.

One of our greatest challenges is to surface our ethos.  Two leading characteristics of our Presbyterian ethos are participatory decision-making and serious biblical scholarship. These are immensely attractive to many refugees from other denominational traditions.

Presbyterian polity is one way of doing participatory decision-making, but it's not the only way.

Religious leaders, working ecumenically, need to become the guardians of the common good in the local community. Politicians of an earlier era may have claimed to do that, but they can do it no longer because the corporations are now calling the shots, through campaign contributions.

You can't confront injustice without making enemies.

Some Episcopal dioceses have successfully transformed their annual diocesan conventions into something that looks rather like revivals. People are glad to attend because they leave energized.

Almost all innovation happens at the margins, not at the center. It's no accident that Jesus came out of Nazareth rather than Jerusalem.

Youth, by definition, are at the margins. We need to pay close attention to the innovations they are championing.

Those in power must use their power to protect those who are trying to innovate.

The Open Door

The 220th General Assembly is unusual in that its Sunday-morning worship was not in the familiar cast-of-thousands, stadium-style format.  Rather, local congregations of Pittsburgh Presbytery invited their ecclesiastical visitors from afar to come worship with them.

This morning, along with two others – my roommate, Paul (stated clerk colleague from Elizabeth Presbytery), and Doug (campus minister at Eckerd College) – I drove to one of the churches not on the official list.  Turns out, the only reason this church hadn’t rolled out the red carpet along with others from Pittsburgh Presbytery is that, at the time the local arrangements committee was putting the list together, this congregation didn’t have a Sunday morning service.  They used to meet only in the evening.

You’ve probably figured out by now that this bunch is “not your father’s Presbyterian Church” (to paraphrase that old car ad).  The Open Door is a self-described “missional church community.” It meets in a churchy-looking building that is, technically, no longer a church.  It’s a former Baptist Church that’s now a community center, from which the Open Door rents space on Sunday mornings.

In many ways, their worship looked and sounded familiar.  It followed the typical Presbyterian order of worship, although in a very informal way.  While there were no hymnbooks, the words projected on the wall came from traditional hymns.  The singing was accompanied by a single guitarist (I understand this isn’t always the case, and that they often sing other songs besides).  Still, this decidedly younger crowd did fine with the traditional hymns, which are obviously part of their repertoire.

The sermon by Pastor B.J. Woodworth – who on this sweltering summer day was clad, like most of his congregants, in baggy shorts and a loose-fitting shirt – was on the Kingdom of God, and was quite good.

The Open Door folks are pretty mission-oriented (true to their motto).  Today’s service included the laying-on of hands – not to ordain officers, but rather to commission several interns who are working in an “urban farming” vegetable-garden project.

The Passing of the Peace was something else altogether.  The actual “Peace-be-with-yous” were over pretty quickly, but the interlude continued for probably 10 minutes, with folks moving around to visit with one another, fetch cups of coffee, etc.  Obviously, fellowship is a big part of what this church is all about, and the boundary between worship and the rest of congregational life is pretty porous.

The biggest eye-opener for me, though, was personal. Two of the worshipers were dead ringers for our son and daughter, both twenty-somethings.  Not only did they look like Ben and Ania, they also dressed like them. (Readers who have met our kids will probably be able to pick these young adults out in these pictures.)

Knowing that, at this stage of their lives, my kids – whose names remain on the roll of the church I serve for the sake of good old dad – don’t make congregational worship a regular part of their week, it was a powerful thing for me to see their döppelgangers so actively involved here at The Open Door.

It made me wish there were an Open Door worshiping community in their neighborhoods, so I could point them in that direction.

Maybe we’ll just have to start one in Point Pleasant.

A statistical presentation at the General Assembly this afternoon reported that the average age of Presbyterians is 60 and climbing. Obviously, we’ve got to rethink some of the things we’ve long been doing in worship.

It’s becoming more and more evident to me that the future of the denomination is in church-planting efforts like The Open Door.  So, what are we waiting for?

Report from GA: We Have a Moderator

NOTE: My posts from the General Assembly are mirrored on the New Jersey GA participants' Blog, "Walking, Running, Soaring in Hope."

It’s always a fascinating exercise to observe the election of a moderator at the General Assembly – particularly so in light of the national Presidential contest, whose relentless lack of civility has all the appeal of fingernails scratching across a blackboard.

We Presbyterians do so much better. Are there differences among us? Of course. But there’s a common value of unity that’s so much stronger. That gives me hope for the church.

I’ve watched a number of these question-and-answer sessions over the years, but I never tire of marveling how unpredictable the process is, and how it so often happens that front-runners emerge only after the Q&A has begun. Sometimes it’s one clear choice. Sometimes, as happened tonight, it’s two or three – which means several ballots. It’s all about thinking on one’s feet, being gracious, showing compassion, having theological integrity – and, most of all, displaying a love for the church that’s natural and in no way affected.

Symbolism is also important. Who the successful candidate is, demographically speaking, has an influence. If the person looks the way most commissioners would like the church of the future to look, that’s a significant – but by no means deciding – factor.

Even though there were several front-runners, we had four outstanding candidates. Any one of them could have done the job admirably. That’s usually the case. People just don’t get the endorsement of their presbyteries to try for this crazy job if they don’t have a lot going for them.

I always feel for the unsuccessful candidates. Some years back, one of them made up a bunch of campaign-style buttons that said “Member of the Almost-But-Not-Quite Moderators Club,” and handed them out at General Assemblies for a few years after that. They’re a distinguished bunch, and I always feel sad that we as a denomination don't find a way to tap more of them for other national leadership positions.

One of the popular parlor games at the General Assembly is to speculate on how each Assembly’s choice of moderator may or may not be a bellwether of which way the Assembly will go on the big issues before it. Neal is clearly in favor of making some space in the church for those who would like to perform weddings for same-gender couples (at least in the several states where this is legal). I wouldn't read too much into that. I’m not so sure this is the reason he got elected. It’s more about what he symbolizes: the younger, more multicultural church we Presbyterians wish we were.

They say if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, but my wish is that Neal’s moderatorial tenure will be more than just a symbolic expression of our desire to be well-positioned to serve the needs of 21st Century America – demographically speaking, the country we actually are and are becoming.

Here are the vote totals, in case anyone’s interested in the nitty-gritty...

FIRST BALLOT

Robert Austell - 26%
Randy Branson - 9%
Susan Krummel - 25%
Neal Presa - 38%

SECOND BALLOT

Austell - 27%
Branson - 4%
Krummel - 27%
Presa - 42%

THIRD BALLOT

Austell - 25%
Branson - 2%
Krummel - 26%
Presa - 47%

FOURTH BALLOT

Austell - 22%
Branson - 2%
Krummel - 24%
Presa - 52%

Non-Geographic Presbyteries?

It's getting to be that time of year - well, every two years.  General Assembly will soon be upon us. One of the most riveting issues coming before the Assembly, for those who work with Presbyterian polity, is the report of the Mid-Councils Commission.

Now, I realize any non-Presbyterian reading these words - and, if truth be told, all but a small segment of Presbyterians - will gaze upon them and respond: "Say what?"

Yet, to those who regularly imbibe the rarified air of church governance discussions, the Mid-Councils Report is one of the most paradigm-shifting changes to come down the Presbyterian pike in decades - rivaled only by the 2010 Assembly's passage of the new Form of Government (nFOG) and, before that, nothing (not, at least, since the reunion of northern and southern Presbyterians in 1983).

That's because the Mid-Councils Report recommends that synods be abolished.

Yea, gentle presbyter, abolished. That entire section of the Form of Government will simply be cut from the good book - no, not that Good Book, the other one - as brazenly as ol' Tom Jefferson took scissors in hand and excised Jesus' miracles from the New Testament.

OK, I'll admit I'm waxing hyperbolic here.  But seriously, the reduction in the number of councils (née governing bodies, née judicatories, née courts) is a rather big change.  If this proposal survives the Assembly intact, and if its constitutional amendments are subsequently approved by a majority of the presbyteries, the only remaining councils above the level of the congregation will be sessions, presbyteries and the General Assembly.

Doing without synods is not a new idea. Our mother kirk, the Church of Scotland, has never had 'em.  Here on our side of the Pond, the idea's been kicked around for the past couple decades at least - but this is the first time it's coming to the General Assembly with the unanimous endorsement of one of the Assembly's own special working groups, complete with all the enabling amendments to - in the resolute words of galaxy-striding space Captain Jean-Luc Picard - "make it so."

Most seem to think the Assembly will indeed do its part to make it so (although, in typical parliamentary fashion, probably not without tacking on enough minor amendments to allow the commissioners to see their fingerprints upon it).

The Abolish Synods movement is all about the so-called shrinking planet, as "leaving on a jet plane" has become commonplace and burgeoning communications technology offers unprecedented opportunities for keeping in touch across the miles (et tu, Twitter).  The Scots never thought they needed synods because their entire country is no bigger than South Carolina.  Now that our trademark wide-open spaces are neither so wide nor so open, we're coming to realize synods are a luxury we can no longer afford.

While the abolition of synods has been commanding most of the denomination's attention of late, another of the proposed changes has barely shown up on the radar screen.  If the Mid-Councils Report passes the Assembly and the presbyteries, it creates an unprecedented opportunity to tinker with the structure and membership of presbyteries. The report proposes that, for a trial period extending until 2021, congregations be given the opportunity (with presbytery approval) to pull themselves out of their present presbytery and join another 10 or more congregations in forming a "provisional non-geographic presbytery for specific missional purposes" that's more to their liking.

A huge question - one that may or may not be asked explicitly at the Assembly, although it will be on the minds of nearly everyone - is whether the desire to flee theological diversity for a community of the like-minded constitutes a specific missional purpose.  Congregations inclined to follow the lead of the newly-formed Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (née Evangelical Covenant Order) will likely welcome this move, because it provides a mechanism for doing what they've long dreamed of doing: stepping away from those pesky liberals who are comfortable with the idea of gays and lesbians holding church office, and associating only with biblical literalists like themselves who believe the only place in the church for such reprobates is on their knees in tearful repentance.

There's a superficial appeal to this flexibility, to be sure.  Who doesn't want to be missional, after all?  (It's the denominational buzz-word du jour, even though there's little consensus on what it means.)  Yet, as Wilson Gunn points out, in a recent Presbyterian Outlook article, the "provisional non-geographic presbytery for missional purposes idea" has some hidden pitfalls:

"While 'Geography isn’t what it used to be,' geographic proximity is a value. When times are tough we need to sit beside each other in the flesh. Presence is incarnational. Geographic boundaries are not 'arbitrary.' Most were created to provide an intentional variety of congregations in each presbytery such that the small, resource-strapped congregations and the relatively robust, larger congregations share common resources within a presbytery. This self-selected non-geographic approach can quickly concentrate the larger congregations across several presbyteries, leaving the remaining smaller congregations, who rely significantly upon the encouragement and guidance of presbytery committees and staff, in a presbytery completely lacking the resources to be able to serve them. The rich are likely to get richer and the poor poorer in this design."

Pastors of larger congregations are disproportionately represented among the leadership of the ECO.  Whether intentional or unintentional, the "missional" similarities they claim as justification for their separation will in many cases have the consequence of robbing neighboring smaller congregations of the sort of support, encouragement and leadership-training resources they could otherwise obtain from their larger neighbor - not to mention the lost per capita and mission funding they would otherwise have contributed to their former presbytery, to the mutual benefit of all.

Furthermore, Gunn sees such significant progress being made already by traditional presbyteries in the direction of becoming more missional that he questions the need for such presbyterial vivisection:

"The proposed purpose of these non-geographic presbyteries is being accomplished without reconfiguring presbyteries. Presbyteries, as noted in the commission report, are already experimenting. Presbyteries are already on the way to flat, flexible and faithful. Connectionalism has already taken a different shape than the former regulatory, centralized control. Mission dollars go directly from congregations to the local and international mission field. Once upon a time, 90 percent of a congregation’s undesignated external mission giving routed up through the denomination. Now we see about 10 percent of that mission dollar, yet National Capital Presbytery has over 100 different international mission projects that are sponsored by our congregations. I see just as much missionary energy, it’s just decentralized now."

Does "non-geographic" truly translate into "missional"?  It's for the General Assembly to decide.

The 80/20 Rule

With over 20 years’ experience running annual stewardship campaigns in the local church, there’s one rule I’ve found to be reliably true – in every church I’ve known, of every size and description.  A wise and experienced pastor shared it with me years ago.  Knowing this rule goes a long way towards dispelling the anxiety ruling elders feel about money, as they wonder how it is that stewardship campaigns still fall short of the glory of God.

It’s called the 80/20 rule.  It goes like this:

In any church, 80 percent of the money is given by 20 percent of the people.

“What’s that?” you say.  “That doesn’t sound right.  Why, it’s downright unfair!  Everybody oughta pull their weight.  We’ve got to fix that.”

Good luck on that one.

Every once in a while, some well-meaning church member will stand up in a congregational or session meeting and say: “I know the solution to the church’s financial problems.  Let’s just divide our budget deficit by the number of members, and ask everyone to pay his or her fair share.”

Nice idea, but it ain’t gonna happen.  It violates the 80/20 rule.

We’ve tried just about every flavor of stewardship campaign over the years (except the every-member canvass, an artifact of the 1950s that scares most contemporary churchgoers to death).  After the dust settles and the pledge cards are safely gathered in, that golden percentage survives pretty much unscathed.  80/20 rules!

Sure, we’ve had some successes over the years.  Some years we’ve had significant increases in overall giving.  Yet, always those increases come more heavily from the 20% who are already giving generously than the 80% who aren’t.

“Well, that’s no mystery,” you may be thinking.  “Surely the 20% are the wealthier members of the church.  They’ve simply got more to give.”

Wrong. Any experienced pastor will tell you that generosity in giving doesn’t track very closely with how much money givers have in the bank, or the mutual fund, or wherever else the propertied classes are parking their simoleons these days.  Some of the most generous contributors – the people who reliably come through in the clutch, year after year – are the last people you’d expect to be giving at those levels.  They’re people who live modestly, but they’ve also learned the grace of giving sacrificially.

Conversely, the wealthiest people in the typical congregation – the fortunate few who could easily dip into their more-or-less liquid assets and write a check to accomplish some wonderful things for the Lord – are more likely to be numbered among the 80% than the 20%.  Go figure.

Yes, that’s it precisely.  Go figure.  Lots of wealthy people have gotten to be wealthy because they spend a whole lot of their waking hours doing just that: figuring.  They’re good at it.  They’ve learned how to use money to make money.  They’re justifiably proud of what they’ve accomplished.

A financial-services company recently bought a series of TV commercials that portray people going about their everyday lives.  The good citizens of Commercialtown - an appealing, affluent suburb - all have a financial figure floating like a halo over their heads.  Each person's number is in the hundreds of thousands – in a few cases, even millions – of dollars.

“What’s your figure?” the voiceover asks.  How much money will you need in retirement, to maintain the sort of lifestyle you've come to enjoy?

I see what they’re getting at, but this sort of thing doesn’t do a whole lot for the cause of Christian stewardship.

For many 80-percenters, a whole lot of their personal self-esteem is wrapped up in that imaginary net-worth figure floating over their heads.  Asking them to put a small dent in that figure – even to advance the work of Christ – is sort of like handing sledgehammers to a roomful of diehard antique-car enthusiasts and suggesting they go out and start whaling away at the fenders of their classic Corvettes and Mustangs.  Not likely to happen.

The sad truth of it is: to wealthy 80-percenters, stewardship appears to be a losing game – no matter how big their net-worth figure has become.  That’s because there’s always someone trimming his hedges or washing her car outside the house next door, whose figure is sporting more zeroes than theirs.

Jesus may say “Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin,” but lots of wealthy eighty-percenters devote oodles of time to making themselves more like “Solomon in all his glory.”  They know how to read the Wall Street Journal (from back to front, because that’s where the stock listings are found). They go online several times a week – some, even several times a day – to monitor how their investments are doing.  They’re forever figuring out new and creative ways to reduce their tax liability.  Heck, some well-heeled 80-percenters – most, in fact – actually hire people to help them do these things better!

Is it any wonder that, when it’s time for their church’s annual stewardship campaign, so many of them respond as though we were asking them to turn their fiscal canoe around and start paddling upstream?  (In point of fact, we are, but that’s neither here nor there.)  It all sounds so counter-cultural to them, so contradictory to their workaday (investaday?) values.  The Sermon on the Mount will do that for ya, every time.

The sad truth is, despite their impressive financial achievements, a great many wealthy 80-percenters are deeply fearful people.  Would that they could have more heart-to-heart conversations with a risk-taking 20-percenter!  Would that a neighbor in the pew (from whatever income level) could take them aside and witness to the peace and joy that comes of transforming a closed fist to an open hand!

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter a whole lot what flavor-of-the-year the Session has picked for the stewardship campaign strategy – as long as it contains three elements:

The first is prayer. That goes without saying.

The second is preaching on a stewardship theme, ideally for more than one Sunday.  (It also helps if the preacher is a 20-percenter.)

Third, and most important, the campaign has got to include some way for one or two of the church’s 20-percenters to witness publicly to how much fun it is to lick and seal an offering envelope with a sacrificial gift inside (or to click their mouse on the “Pay” button, as the case may be).

I say “most important” because what we’re really up to in running a stewardship campaign is not raising money for the church.  We’re about the business of conversion.  Not only are we trying to convert a few more 80-percenters into 20-percenters, we're also trying to convert fearful, hesitant disciples into risk-takers who practice their faith with boldness, in every area of life.

Considering that money is, far and away, the most persistent and insidious idolatry of our culture, conversion often has to start there.  But it won't end there.

It won’t happen to every one of the 80 percenters, not all at once.  No stewardship campaign strategy is that good.  But it doesn't have to be.  Just a few conversions a year will do it.  Relying on the gracious and often surprising interventions of the Holy Spirit, slow and steady wins the stewardship race.