wfn.org | Georgia church withholds funds amid talk of split

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

April 15, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71B{203}

By Alice Smith*

ATLANTA (UMNS) -- The board of stewards of Marietta First United Methodist
Church has voted to withhold all of the financial support that it typically
provides at the conference and denominational levels, as some members talk
openly about leaving the church and forming a new congregation.
        
The 108-56 vote took place April 11 and applies to all of the
"apportionment" dollars that have been requested of Marietta First by the
larger church. Through apportionments, United Methodist churches support
work in their respective annual conferences as well as throughout the
denomination.

The board's vote occurred as North Georgia Bishop G. Lindsey Davis and his
cabinet journeyed to Epworth by the Sea, a church retreat on St. Simons
Island, Ga., for their annual appointment-making session. The pastoral
assignments they were to make included a new senior pastor for Marietta
First. With 5,302 members, the church has the fourth-largest United
Methodist congregation in Georgia.
        
Earlier this year, Davis announced that the Rev. Charles Sineath, 60, would
not be reappointed to Marietta First after 22 years.  Since then Sineath has
announced his plans to retire in June from the United Methodist ministry.
   
The decision to withhold all apportionments, except the pastor's pension,
was an expansion of an earlier decision by the board of stewards not to pay
several "general church" funds that support the work of the church on the
denominational level.
        
Now all apportionment funds will be held in escrow until a congregational
task force, appointed to study the work and budgets of several United
Methodist general agencies, makes its report and the board has "sufficient
information on which they can make an intelligent decision," said board
Chairman Bucky Smith.
        
Sineath said he did not support withholding all apportionments because much
of the money supports work "pleasing to God."

"I'm hoping and believing ... they will be reinstated in time (under) the
leadership of a new pastor," he said.
        
"The good thing about (the funds) being put in escrow," he continued, "is
they're not being redirected, so that if there is a change of mind, the
money will be there to support those things that are pleasing to God."

The church's total apportionments for 1999 are $268,087. Previously the
church had decided to withhold about $67,000 of that amount.
        
Smith said the board had wanted to withhold all apportionments back in March
1998, when the apportionment debate surfaced for the first time. Then, the
board voted to pay all of its conference support for 1998 but to "redirect"
to conference causes the amount that would have gone to certain funds at the
denominational level.
          
"Only through Charles' leadership and the board's respect for him did we
withhold only about 25-26 percent," Smith said. "Now that Charles has been
taken out of the picture and is not being reappointed, the  action reflects
what the board wanted to do a year ago."
        
However, the move is not supported throughout the congregation. Bill
Waldrop, chair of the church's trustees, pointed out that the board of
stewards said a year ago it would pay conference apportionments in full
because those funds support ministries that "honor God."

"Then again on Nov. 9, 1998, our board of stewards again voted that our
apportionments in the conference are 'pleasing to God. What changed?"
Waldrop asked. "The bishop decided to reappoint Rev. Sineath. So, our board
of stewards votes to pay no apportionments, except for the retirement fund.
This is clearly an act of retaliation."
        
Others in the church, however, believe the cabinet's decision to move
Sineath was the punitive action. "The Methodist system is broken and
corrupt," said church lay leader Robin Burruss, "and I don't think we should
put a penny into a broken and corrupt system."
        
Still, all three men said they believe the congregation will be open to a
new pastor.
        
"Marietta First will be very Christ-like in their receiving of the new
pastor," Smith said.  "He is not responsible for any of this."
        
"When the announcement is made, it will be clear to everybody ... we have
given them one of our best," promised the Rev. Jamie Jenkins,
Atlanta-Marietta district superintendent. "Our intention is to send a person
... Marietta First will be happy to have, who is consistent theologically
with who they are, who has preaching skills ... and the ability to provide
strong pastoral leadership."
        
Clearly, the new pastor will be faced with bringing healing to a divided
congregation. "We have conflict in our Sunday school classes," Waldrop said,
"conflict in our choir, conflict in the staff that works at the church,
conflict everywhere you go.
        
"Our energies," he continued, "have been totally consumed with striking out
at other people's doctrinal shortcomings while our church has suffered in
its ministries. This has been a heartbreaking, tragic and deeply hurtful
thing for our church."
        
Sineath has advocated the withholding of certain general church
apportionments because "conscience compels us not to be part of what is
displeasing to God."
        
"We're not dealing with persnickety things," he said in an earlier
interview. "We're dealing with issues we think are at the heart of our
faith, the incarnation, the authority of Scripture, the blood atonement."

A 38-page report compiled by a group within the church last year cites a
number of incidents in which certain general agency executives and seminary
professors are alleged to have questioned the deity of Jesus and the
authority of Scripture, or to have espoused feminist theology or the
acceptance of homosexuality.
        
That report, however, does not address Emory University's decision to allow
same-sex ceremonies under narrow circumstances, although that action keeps
resurfacing in board discussions as a key reason for withholding
apportionments.
        
In 1997, Emory's board of trustees, which includes five United Methodist
bishops, voted unanimously to allow same-sex ceremonies in the university
chapel if the couple's faith permits it, and if the ceremony is conducted by
a clergy person of that faith who has a direct tie to the university. Only
two of the 24 religious groups on the Emory campus are part of a faith that
allows such ceremonies. No such service has occurred to date.
        
But, Burruss says, the possibility of such a ceremony taking place at all
"is contrary to Scripture and not the right thing."
        
Of the apportionments asked of Marietta First, only a minuscule amount would
ever go to Emory, either through conference or general church
apportionments. The only funds on the national level would come through the
Ministerial Education Fund to Candler School of Theology at Emory. On the
conference level, the Georgia Commission on Higher
Education and Campus Ministry provides funding to Oxford College, a division
of Emory University, and the Wesley Fellowship at Emory, the ministry for
United Methodist students.
        
Meanwhile, a letter from Marietta First member Ellen Beebe, posted on the
World Wide Web page of the conservative Confessing Movement, stated: "A new
church is forming
-- non-denominational, Wesleyan in nature." An "informational" meeting is
scheduled for April 27 at Mt. Paran Church of God North.

In a telephone conversation, Beebe confirmed that some Marietta First
members will likely organize a new church. "How many people will go, or what
format it will take, or what the plans are, I have no idea."
        
Jenkins acknowledged that Marietta First members will have to "make
decisions regarding where they feel comfortable in worship and giving
themselves in service. ... I'm not encouraging anybody to leave, but if that
is the choice they make, I suppose that's a choice you can honor."
        
Burruss said he did not know whether or not he would join the new church.
"Right now I feel like I'm running a race, and I don't know where the finish
line is. The Lord has told me I have to run right up to the end, and as long
as I'm here, I'm going to fight this."
        
As to whether or not Sineath will be the pastor of the new church, he would
only say, "I have several options."
        
"I've got a fire in my belly to preach, and that's all I really know how to
do, preach and be a pastor," he said. "I'm going to take retirement, and
then I'm going to decide what kind of ministry God wants me do. That's all I
can say, that I'm listening and praying."

# # #

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

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