wfn.org | Some leaders at First Church, Marietta, Ga., oppose action

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

redirecting churchwide giving

April 6, 1998	Contact: Thomas S. McAnally (615)742-5470, Nashville,
Tenn.  (10-21-71B){213}
		
Seven "concerned members" of First United Methodist Church in Marietta,
Ga. -- officers or former officers -- released a statement April 3
giving "another view" of action taken recently by the church's Board of
Stewards to redirect giving to churchwide causes.

The board of the 5,200-member congregation voted 142-58 March 22 to
"redirect" about $58,000 from churchwide causes. The reason given for
the action was the "lack of doctrinal integrity" of United Methodism at
the denominational level.

"Well-intentioned people on both sides of this issue, in an attempt to
'correct' the United Methodist Church, have been led to extremism," the
seven church leaders said in their statement.

"They are the moral police and they are coming your way."  

A task force within the congregation had reported to the board its
objections to statements and actions by certain bishops, seminary
professors and staff members of general boards and agencies, according
to the Rev. Charles Sineath, senior pastor at the church for 21 years.

In their statement, the seven signers said actions by the board have
left them "shocked, hurt and angry."

The issue began, they said, when board members were subjected to a
"vicious attack" on the United Methodist Church at their January
meeting, and were asked to authorize a select committee to study
withholding support of ministries beyond the local church.

The subsequent committee report, they said, lacked fairness, balance and
accuracy, and was "un-Methodist" in its approach.

"Withholding is an extreme measure cutting at the very essence of the
connectionality we enjoy as Methodists," they said. "It is a secular
solution for a spiritual problem -- we become more and more like those
whose positions we oppose."

They also charged that clear goals and objectives are lacking. "What do
we seek? What change is acceptable? Who will judge? There is only
silence on these substantive questions."

They called the board action a double-edged sword. If withholding is
supported for regional or churchwide ministries, they asked, "why not go
and do likewise within one's own church?" 

"Should you believe the 'watchdog' groups whose main effect is anger and
dissension, or accept the frailty of our own institutions, working
within our system to make corrections where appropriate?

"Because our senior pastor, the Rev. Charles Sineath, is leading this
effort, there is a significant minority in our church that is today
without a pastor," they said.

After the action was taken in March, Sineath told a reporter from the
Wesleyan Christian Advocate, the newspaper of Georgia United Methodism,
the 142-58 vote was significant.  

"I would call it an act of conscience where others will call it
denominational disloyalty. . . . We see it as denominational loyalty,
tough love. . . . The 58 were hurt because we made the decision we did.
The 142 were hurt because the issues were such we felt compelled by
conscience to make that decision."

Among churchwide apportionments rejected were the Episcopal Fund, which
supports the expenses of bishops; General Administration Fund which
provides for expenses of the General Conference, Judicial Council, and
special commissions and committees established by the General
Conference; World Service Fund, which supports the work of churchwide
boards and agencies; Ministerial Education Fund, which supports seminary
education; and the Interdenominational Fund, which supports the work of
ecumenical agencies such as the World and National Council of Churches.

Of the money that would have gone to these causes, $25,000 is going to
the Wesley Foundation at the University of Georgia; $25,000 is going to
a camp redevelopment in the conference; and $6,427 is going to a boys'
home in the Marietta District.

North Georgia Bishop G. Lindsey Davis called the report from the board's
select committee "biased" and "full of half truths." He said the action
violates the covenantal, missional commitments a United Methodist
congregation makes to the denomination.

"We work in a web of intricate connections, and part of our
understanding of what it means to be a community of faith is to be
involved in that kind of connection," the bishop said.  "To go off on
your own, so to speak, flies in the face of our polity, discipline and
order."

Signers of the April 3 statement were: James and Julie Galt,
chairpersons of the Council on Ministries; Bill Waldrop, chairman of the
Board of Trustees; Alan Price, past chairperson of the Staff-Parish
Relations Committee; Emerson Cochran, immediate past chairman of the
Board of Trustees; Buck Northcutt, past chairman of the Board of
Stewards; Clare Newsmith, an officer in United Methodist Women.
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