Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

Finance Ministry changes hands

by Stephanie Byrd

February 18, 2006

When Ophelia Greene retires next month, Ardie Aldrich will serve as our new Director of Finance and Accounting, working with Jean Hagin and Sharon Hunt.

Ophelia has led the ministry since May 1995. “I am leaving this position,” she says, “to redeem the time with God and family.” Last year she was diagnosed with cancer and began a course of chemotherapy and radiation treatments in August. This illness made her appreciate the importance of family, and she concludes, “I need to make a profound difference in the amount and quality [of] time spent with my family. My desire is to become a better wife, mother, daughter-in-law, sister, aunt, and friend.”

Ophelia is a member of New St. Peter’s Presbyterian Church, where her husband, Elliott, is Associate Pastor. They have three sons, Richard (22), Randall (19), and Ryan (12).

“When I was hired,” she says, “PCPC had 44 employees and the budget was $3.4 million.” Now, at the time of Ardie Aldrich’s hiring, the church has 110 full- and part-time employees and the budget is $12.2 million.

Ardie grew up in Millerton, Pennsylvania. In 1981, he graduated from Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh with a B.S. in Business Administration. He is a Certified Public Accountant in Texas, where he moved after college.

For 18 years, Ardie worked for the Texas Credit Union League, beginning as a staff accountant and eventually becoming Chief Financial Officer.

Ardie then worked as Controller for Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas, which provides mentoring relationships to high-risk children from single-parent homes in 17 counties. “I wanted to go someplace where my work was doing more than just contributing to someone’s bottom line,” he says. The organization hired him to help consolidate the operations of three agencies that had just merged. He set up new accounting, budgeting, and payroll systems and created financial and operational policies and procedures—“a fun challenge,” he recalls.

After that organization’s headquarters moved to Arlington, he became Chief Financial Officer at Global Partners Ministries, which provides church mobilization, outreach, church planting, and leadership development services to churches and other ministries worldwide. Joining Christian ministry was “something I had really wanted to do for a long time,” Ardie says.

He was hired to address a similar situation to the one he had faced before—Global Partners had four different divisions whose operations were practically independent. His job was to transform a financially inefficient organization into an efficient one. “God had that place picked out for me,” he says.

Now God’s purpose is to put Ardie in charge of PCPC’s Finance and Accounting Ministry. Rob Allen, Pastor of Administration, says, “I’m excited about him being here. He has past experience doing things that we want to do in updating and upgrading the Finance department.”

One of Ardie’s initial goals is to create a new chart of accounts to provide for additional financial reporting and to take better advantage of the Shelby database. “It’s a lot of work up front,” Rob says, “but when it’s done it’ll make the work for our staff and Finance and Accounting easier. It’ll be a lot more efficient.”

Ardie will also be looking at the recommendations recently made by an auditor, planning improvements to internal controls and reporting systems. His perspective as a newcomer who doesn’t take our processes for granted will offer an opportunity for growth, he says. “I’m trying to see what I can do to continue moving this ministry forward to wherever it needs to be.”

Ardie and his wife, Lisa, have been married eight years. They have five children: Carolyn (28), Max (26), Jordan (16), Chase (14), and Hillary (13). Jordan, Chase, and Hillary still live at home and attend the Rockwall public schools.

The Aldriches are active members of Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall. Ardie coordinates their 50–60-member adult Bible fellowship, which is like a Sunday School Community at PCPC, and the family participates in a cell group of several families within the fellowship.

For eight years, Ardie and Lisa have been involved in divorce recovery ministry. They have led Lake Pointe’s divorce recovery ministry for the last six years, taking the ministry’s existing curriculum and adapting it with material of their own. They now lead the class twice a year for ten weeks and offer a biweekly interim support group. “We’ve been able to greatly expand how much the church is able to do for people who are suffering the consequences of divorce, through our involvement and the involvement of many other volunteers,” Ardie says.

His personal faith has grown through his divorce and other hard experiences. He appreciates the book of James for its practicality and insight. “You’re going to have to go through trials of many kinds to develop perseverance,” he says, citing James 1:2–4. “Without perseverance, you can’t have maturity.”

Ardie looks forward to working for PCPC. “I really feel like he’s called my wife and me to be a part of the ministry here,” he said. “Working with a Christian evangelical organization that reaches out to the community and beyond is something that I find very appealing, because that’s what Christ has said to do.”