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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (108
notes).

Note 108 by UMNS on May 21, 1997 at 16:58 Eastern (5903 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                          296(10-71B){108}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722            May 21, 1997

Funding patterns task force
finds its work a complex puzzle

by Daniel R. Gangler*

     ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (UMNS) -- Determining the giving patterns
of United Methodists is like putting together a 5,000-piece jigsaw
puzzle without the picture on the box.
     This puzzle metaphor by task force member James Ehrman, an
attorney from Youngstown, Ohio, clarified in visual terms the work
and frustration of the 18-member task force studying the funding
patterns of United Methodists during its meeting May 16-17 here.
     The task force does much of its work in subgroups of
approximately four people each. Subgroup topics are social
economic, local church, church spending and stewardship.
     Economist Donald House, who chairs the church spending
subgroup, said preliminary evidence suggests that local churches
are more likely to pay apportionments if:
     * there is growth in membership;
     * debt service is a small percentage of spending;
     * apportionments are a small percentage of spending;
     * spending per member is small; 
     * a large proportion of members enroll their children in
Sunday school.
     The stewardship subgroup offered 10 recommendations to
increase stewardship education in local congregations. These
preliminary recommendations include developing a stewardship unit
in Bible study curriculum, creating audio-visual resources,
encouraging stewardship education for pastors and promoting
"whole-life stewardship" that emphasizes 100 percent, not just a
tithe (10 percent), belongs to God.
     The stewardship subgroup also noted that few seminaries offer
courses in stewardship and said that most church members equate
stewardship with meeting the budget rather than with stewardship's
deeper theological implications as a part of Christian living.
     Reporting for the social economic subgroup, the Rev. Patricia
Farris, a district superintendent in San Diego, said that the
church cannot ignore the negative economic impact that society has
imposed on lower income and unskilled workers.
     Farris also said that such changes as the loss in federal
funds for food stamps and other economic safety nets to the poor
will increase the impact on local congregations that provide for
the poor through ministries like food pantries.
     During a question-and-answer period, House challenged the
social economic subgroup several times about the disparity
allegedly caused by the increasing split between society's rich
and poor.
     "Why do we have a substantial growth in our living standards
(as a nation)?" he asked. Answering, he said there are a lot of
self-imposed pressures among couples to get the best.
     "If I look at my father's generation with no Medicare, no
food stamps, no Social Security -- that generation gave a higher
percentage of income to the church than today's generation," he
said.
     Preliminary findings that the task force received involving
church giving and social issues were discouraging to the point
that the social economic subgroup concluded that a radical change
is needed in the way United Methodists look at giving to the
church.
     The local church subgroup chimed in with more discouraging
words that "changing attitudes within local churches appear to be
straining confidence in the apportionment system." That is the
historic United Methodist system whereby churches are expected to
contribute to denominational causes beyond the local church as
determined by a formula.
     According to the Rev. Lovett H. Weems, president of the Saint
Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo., and the subgroup's
leader, broad research on church funding found that theological
and social issues espoused by the denomination continue to cause
division and mistrust, a long-suspected fact now documented by
sources.
     The most thoroughly documented report came out of the church
spending subgroup led by House. One part of the subgroup's report
listed 16 commonly assumed relations between apportionment giving
and the church, such as the importance of the bishop in motivating
local churches to pay their apportionments in full.
     The church spending subgroup will research such assumptions,
which also include the relationship between apportionments and the
role of district superintendents, the rising cost of pastors'
pension and health-care benefits, apportionment formulas and local
church benevolence spending.
     Task force members were alarmed by preliminary findings that
spending for local church benevolences (mission projects)
increased 88 percent from 1974 to 1995, after adjusting for
inflation.
     "This pattern strongly indicated a growing preference for
local benevolence spending among local churches," said House.
Coupled with this trend is the finding that, in 1981, local church
giving funded 91 percent of the denominational budget. By 1994
that had dropped to 84 percent.
     A compilation of the four subgroup reports will be written by
a five-member team appointed by Bishop Alfred L. Norris, who
chairs the Connectional Ministries Funding Patterns Task Force.
The team's document will be available for a mid-July telephone
conference call.
     The Connectional Ministries Funding Patterns Task Force was
appointed by General Conference -- the denomination's top
legislative body -- last year in Denver. It will report its
findings to the next General Conference meeting in Cleveland in
the year 2000.
     The task force will meet next in October.
                              #  #  #

     * Gangler is an associate editor of the "United Methodist
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