wfn.org | Task force struggles with choice in church funding

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

Feb. 10, 1999	Contact: Joretta Purdue*(202)546-8722*Washington
10-71B{078}

DES PLAINES, Ill. (UMNS) - Should local churches have more choices in
deciding how their dollars are spent for the denomination's ministries?

That was a major question facing the United Methodist task force on funding
patterns as it met Feb. 5-7. The Connectional Ministry Funding Patterns Task
Force devoted more than half of the meeting to the issue, primarily as it
relates to the desire of some congregations to designate how their financial
support for churchwide ministry and administration is used. 

The task force met to weigh the responses of two groups - conference
treasurers and board members of the General Council on Finance and
Administration (GCFA) -- concerned with the content of its preliminary
report. 

Choice was a major issue for 11 conference treasurers who voiced their
concerns in a joint half-day session before the task force's deliberations.
The task force also had its first opportunity to consider reactions from the
GCFA board members, who had heard a presentation at their December meeting.
The GCFA board is the parent body of the task force.

Currently, eight funds support the churchwide ministry, programs and
administration of the 9.5 million-member denomination. Those include a wide
range of ministries, such as support for ministerial education,  the bishops
and their offices, and Africa University.

The denomination collects the funds through a system of apportionments,
which are "fair-share" amounts that each annual conference pays to support
churchwide ministries. The apportionments are set by General Conference, the
denomination's top lawmaking body, and the annual conferences in turn
determine the portion that each of their local churches should pay.

After extensive research, the task force decided to recommend continuing the
concept of apportionments, while suggesting a different formula for
computing them. The proposed formula would no longer use membership as a
basic factor. Instead, it would be responsive to local church conditions.
The formula, like the task force's report, is still subject to further
change.

Conferences particularly want more choice with regard to supporting the
World Service Fund, the largest apportioned amount. It covers the
denomination's mission work, advocacy, scholarships and cooperation with
church-related educational institutions, spiritual formation,
communications, archives and other projects.

For several years, controversy has centered on the denomination's agencies
for missions and for social justice and advocacy - the Board of Global
Ministries and the Board of Church and Society -- both of which are
supported by the World Service Fund.

Because the conference treasurers had been almost unanimous in asking for
choice in World Service, task force members explored ways to do this. They
struggled at length with the issue of the whether it is appropriate for
local churches and annual conferences to select which agencies and projects
to financially support. For a while, discussion seemed to favor allowing the
conferences to give money for the fund's two dozen line items individually.

"When many people view apportionment systems, they come to it from a taxing
system, but that's not appropriate for a church," said Don House, an
economist from Bryan, Texas. The new formula strives to be "an expression of
capabilities and generosities."

While recognizing that the denomination needs a way to register dissent,
some task force members said that "voting with dollars" ran counter to the
concept of stewardship that they are promoting. 

In the end, the task force decided to recommend keeping apportionments for
the World Service Fund as one unit and to continue recommending a change in
the rules so that conferences are not required to combine the fund with
their other apportionments.

A revision will be given to GCFA members in May. The agency's board will act
on the report either then or in its November session. Afterward, the
material will be sent to General Conference, which will meet in Cleveland
May 2-12, 2000.

In earlier sessions, the task force decided to recommend reducing the number
of churchwide "special Sundays with offerings" from six to two: One Great
Hour of Sharing and World Communion Sunday. The other four causes -- Human
Relations Day, Native American Awareness Sunday, Peace With Justice Sunday
and United Methodist Student Day -- would be supported through regular
church budgets. At the meeting just ended, however, the task force deferred
to the recent decision of the joint GCFA-General Council on Ministries
committee on special Sundays, which favors a total of four.

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