A 12-member advisory committee appointed at the council's Tampa meeting in February, including three young adults and three youths as well as provincial youth, young adult and higher education coordinators, reported back to the Congregations in Ministry (CIM) committee with recommendations regarding the expenditure of $1 million in funds for new youth and young adult initiatives authorized by General Convention (A065, A077).

The advisory committee established priorities for the funds, stipulating that groups should be accountable to Executive Council for monies spent. Priority is to be given to groups and programs that have the greatest potential for effecting "structural and substantive change serving a long-range vision," with precedence given to broad-based projects over congregational or diocesan-only proposals.

"It was edifying to see the Executive Council take the suggestions of our church's young adult and youth leadership seriously in accepting and endorsing the recommendations of the advisory committee," commented Thomas Chu, director of the church's Ministries with Young People program. "This enables the Episcopal Church to move boldly in reaching out to young adults and youth on campus, in schools, in church, and beyond."

The council also authorized a total of $108,050 over the next two years for peer ministry program development in youth and campus ministries.

The council approved creation of a six-member task force to develop a comprehensive plan to seek major gifts from individual and institutional donors for the work of mission on the national level. The requests would be "non-competitive" with congregations and dioceses.

Primary beneficiaries of the anticipated gifts would be the various 20/20 mission initiatives passed by General Convention but unfunded in the current triennial budget.

The request grew out of a resolution, A140, submitted to the last General Convention by the Standing Commission on Stewardship and Development, which called for changes in a long-standing but unwritten policy that prohibited Church Center program staff from carrying out extra-budgetary fundraising for programmatic purposes. "This means, among other things, that opportunities to seek available foundation funds are not pursued," reported an interim task force on mission funding. "Nor are major gifts sought by the Church at the national level."

A similar concern was expressed by the Standing Commission on Domestic Mission and Evangelism, which reported to General Convention that the Episcopal Church is "rich in resources but has not adequately developed those resources in aid of mission."

The resolution also encouraged the Presiding Bishop to "seek prospective gifts as an early test of the feasibility of this effort."

The mission funding task force is to report to the council at its November meeting in Boise, Idaho.

Members from the CIM were asked to consult with Church Center staff, members of the Standing Commission on Ministry Development, and the sponsors of two General Convention resolutions--B024 and A120--regarding the development of a strategic vision for theological education in the Episcopal Church. Neither resolution was funded, but CIM said the two should be considered jointly.

B024 called for the formation of a nine-year Executive Council Task Force on Lifelong Christian Education and Formation, while A120 mandated a six-year strategic planning committee to prepare an in-depth study of theological education in the church.

Executive Council also voted to establish a new four-person Committee on the Visual Arts, to advise national leadership on "policies, procedures and possibilities" related to the visual arts in the Episcopal Church. The committee would serve as a liaison with the Episcopal Church and the Visual Arts (ECVA) organization, a community of artists, arts supporters, and art historians that encourages the integration of the visual arts in the church and promotes awareness of the spiritual role of the visual arts.