wfn.org | Church to give away most of its $60 million bequest

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Dec. 5, 2000 News media contact: Thomas S. McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.10-21-71B{546}

By Alice Smith*

ATLANTA (UMNS) -- Members of the United Methodist Church in St. Marys, a
small  Georgia coastal town near the Florida border, are determined that a
mammoth $60 million bequest will be spent almost entirely on others.
Meeting Dec. 3 in a three and one-half hour session, the congregation
decided to put a modest $2.8 million into the "Warren Bailey Memorial
Endowment Fund" that will generate about $100,000 a year in income for the
church. That is the amount the congregation's benefactor, the late Warren
Bailey, had given the church annually over the past several years. The money
will be used for missions and special projects.
The352-member church will also give $500,000 to the Magnolia Manor being
built in St. Marys, a gift Bailey had promised before he died. The manor is
a complex of residential facilities for older adults related to the church's
South Georgia Conference.
Of the remaining bequest, some $16 million will be given away up front and
the bulk of the estate, about $40 million, will be lodged with the St. Marys
United Methodist Church Foundation to support non-profit causes. 
The church filed the incorporation papers with the state of Georgia Dec. 4.
The foundation will be a separate entity from the church, but the by-laws
require that the nine members of the board of directors will be elected by
St. Marys.  All of them must be United Methodist, with two-thirds coming
from the St. Marys congregation. The original nine members of the board are
all St. Marys members. 
The board of directors will appoint an interim president to assist in
developing investment strategies and creating guidelines for grant
distribution.
The church's pastor, the Rev. Derek McAleer, expects that the first gifts
from the $16 million will be designated in February and March. The church's
missions and finance committees will make recommendations which must be
approved by the administrative council.
In early conversations, church members have indicated they would like to
make contributions to Magnolia Manor, educational efforts, the children's
home of the South Georgia Conference, general youth programs, and other
mission projects.
The first foundation grants will probably be made in the summer of 2001,
McAleer said. Already the church has received 200 requests. 
^From the time the congregation learned last summer St. Marys would be
receiving a giant bequest (they didn't know the specific amount at the
time), McAleer and others have been concerned about possible pitfalls from
such a windfall-divisiveness among the congregation over how the money
should be spent and spiritual malaise as people neglect their own calling to
be good stewards in light of the church's bequest. 
"We saw the need of pointing out where the land mines are ... and made an
effort to say, 'there's danger here.' ... They (the congregation) heard that
message loud and clear."
In fact, the congregation voted down a recommendation from an advisory board
to set aside $4 million for a future building program or capital funds
campaign. Instead, members voted to add that amount to an original proposal
to give away $12 million up front.
The $12 million figure, McAleer said,  represented a double tithe of the
original $60 million. A tithe is considered to be ten percent, he pointed
out.
"I am very happy with the (Dec. 3) meeting," McAleer said. "We had a lengthy
discussion without argument, and we came away very clear about what the will
of the church is. There wasn't any question about what folks wanted to do,
and I don't have the sense there were any losers."
Since the congregation learned last summer of the huge bequest coming its
way, members have methodically gone about determining how to best utilize
the money to benefit mission and ministry.
A 14-member advisory board was appointed to make recommendations. Among
other things, they talked to other churches that had received large bequests
and found out that while they are a great boon, they can also be a
detriment.
"A couple of other churches we talked to were paying one-third to one-half
of their operating expenses out of their bequests," McAleer said. Therein
lies a spiritual danger, he said, "of depending on the bank account to
provide the needs and vision (for the church)."
In its deliberations, the congregation used as its guide a passage from 1
Timothy 6: 17-21 which cautions against putting one's "hopes on the
uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with
everything for our enjoyment." The passage further admonishes those who are
rich in resources to "be rich in good works, generous and ready to share."
Since August, when the 14-member advisory committee was appointed, the
church has conducted two church-wide meetings and a number of small group
sessions to discuss what to do with the bequest. Members of the advisory
committee also sought professional advice and attended a conference of
non-profit foundations. The recommendations of the advisory board were
distributed several days ahead of the Dec. 3 meeting and discussed in three
different presentations.
The Bailey request was a surprise to the church because he had not attended
in a number of years, although he was a member and supported the church
financially.
He amassed his fortune throughout the Camden Telephone Company, which his
father purchased in 1927 and now has been sold to the Chicago-based
Telephone and Data Systems. 
Reports in newspapers described Bailey as being a penny-pincher in a number
of ways, especially with regard to personal matters. He lived simply in a
small apartment in the telephone company for much of his life, and, after he
bought a modest brick home, refused to pay a city garbage pick-up fee.
Instead, he took his own garbage to the dump.
Yet, particularly in his later years, he was generous to churches and
community causes in his hometown.
He was married only briefly and, while he kept to himself most of the time,
friends were quoted as saying he had expressed regrets that he never
remarried and had a family of his own.

# # #

*Smith is interim editor of the Wesleyan Christian Advocate newspaper which
serves the North and South Georgia Annual Conferences of the United
Methodist Church.

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United Methodist News Service
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