wfn.org | Georgia pastor involved in apportionment issue being moved

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

March 15, 1999 News media contact Thomas S. McAnally*(615)
742-5470*Nashville, Tenn. 10-71B{140}

By Alice Smith*

ATLANTA (UMNS) -- After 22 years as senior pastor of First United Methodist
Church in Marietta, Ga., the Rev. Charles Sineath will be reassigned in
June, according to an announcement made at the church's three worship
services March 7.

"We're in consultation with Charles concerning his future appointment and in
consultation with the church about new pastoral leadership," said North
Georgia Bishop Lindsey Davis. "Charles has given solid leadership to the
church, but he's an itinerant Methodist preacher. Every year, we move 150
preachers out of 1,200."
        
During Sineath's tenure, Marietta First has almost doubled in membership,
growing from 2,364 in 1977 to 5,305 in 1998. It is the fourth largest church
in the North Georgia Conference.

While Sineath, 60, believes the church's decision to "redirect" its general
church apportionments was a factor in the cabinet's decision to move him, he
doesn't believe he's "been unjustly or unfairly treated."

"I realized when I made that choice, this was a possible consequence," he
said. "I knew that ahead of time, and I don't hold anybody else responsible
for my choice but me."

Methodist preachers should be "instantaneously ready to pray, preach or
move," he said. "Theoretically, if I had not made the choice, I still might
have been moved."

The apportionments issue surfaced about a year ago, when the church's board
of stewards said it was re-channeling for 1998 almost $60,000 in general
church apportionments, or funds asked of each congregation to support work
at the denominational level. Instead, those funds would be sent to more
ministries in the North Georgia Conference.

At the time, Davis described the action as a violation of the covenantal
commitments inherent in United Methodism.   

"Your church is not an independent congregation," he wrote in a pastoral
letter to the congregation in March 1998. "You are intricately connected to
the North Georgia Conference and the national and global church through a
vital covenantal web of interactive relationships."

Throughout the debate and decision over withholding apportionments, Marietta
First has been clear its criticisms are lodged at the denominational level.
The board of stewards cited the lack of doctrinal and scriptural integrity
on the part of certain bishops, seminary professors, and staff members of
general boards and agencies who advocate for full acceptance of
homosexuality, espouse extreme feminist theology, or question the deity of
Jesus, his incarnation or blood atonement.

Last summer, the church appointed a task force to examine these issues in
depth and report back to the congregation. The task force, representing the
varying viewpoints in the congregation, is currently in consultation with
general agency executives.
           
In December, the board of stewards again voted to redirect in 1999 some
$67,000 in general church apportionments to other ministries but agreed to
pay conference apportionments in full as requested. The church's total
apportionments for 1999 are $268,087.

Both votes last year passed by large majorities, but the decisions caused
sharp divisions within the board itself and the congregation at large. Some
members have been equally outspoken about their desire to continue paying
apportionments at 100 percent as the church has done for decades.

Sineath said he would make the same decision today that he made last year,
but he would handle things differently.

"We made a lot of mistakes in the way we presented this to our board. We
assumed our board knew a lot of these things (about the national church),
and that was a false assumption. The second false assumption is that they'd
just take my word for it.

"I'm not sorry for what we've done," he continued, "just the way we've done
it. I wish we had done it a better way, but you don't ever get that chance."

He said he was still reeling emotionally from the cabinet's decision, but
"I'm going to be submissive to the bishop and cabinet, and I mean that in
the biblical way. I see them as my spiritual authorities, and I respect them
as women and men of God, so I'm not going to be rebellious or obstinate."

While the announcement of the move caused consternation among much of the
congregation, Sineath said he was trying to demonstrate to his congregation
that he is not angry or placing blame.

"We live in a culture where everybody has to blame somebody.  I don't like
that," he said.  "Some want to blame the bishop or the system or the staff
parish committee. The committee didn't do me in. The bishop didn't do me in.
... I'm not even blaming myself.  I feel comfortable with the stand I took."

#  #  #

*Smith is executive director of the Georgia United Methodist Communications
Council.

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