wfn.org | Church agency welcomes executive nominee, tackles finances

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Oct. 9, 2001 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{458}

By Linda Green*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - The churchwide Board of Higher Education and
Ministry welcomed its new general secretary nominee and addressed financial
challenges during its Oct. 4-7 annual meeting.

The Rev. Jerome King Del Pino has been nominated by the agency's governing
members to be the top executive of the United Methodist Board of Higher
Education and Ministry. He awaits election to the post by the General
Council on Ministries, which meets this month.

Del Pino outlined his expectations in his first address to the board,
delivered at a local church. The board will operate with absolute
transparency, and it is not going to be empowered by the good of its mind or
by the dollars it expects to get from the denomination's General Council on
Finance and Administration, he said. "We will not find renewal in that. We
will not find renewal in the conviction that all we have to do is tinker a
little bit more to that which is not broken."  

He said his expectations are based on the belief that the church of Jesus
Christ is "not to be played with." The board must celebrate its traditions
and memories, but have its eyes focused on the future, he said. "... Our
celebration of new beginnings should declare to our constituencies and the
wider church and beyond that we renew our commitment to be a community
created and sustained by Holy Spirit power."

The use of reserves to fulfill the mandates of General Conference has placed
the agency in a financial dilemma.

The board is funding the work to establish a $300 million endowment for the
church-related historically black colleges, as well as a separate endowment
to address seminary student debt and establish theological education in
Eastern Europe. The combined cost to the board for the 2001-2004 quadrennium
would be nearly $3.1 million, or an annualized cost of 2 percent of the
agency's 2002 budget.

During the annual meeting, the budget was the main concern of each unit of
the agency. Board treasurer Raul Alegria told the governing members that
General Conference's reduction of the agency's allocation from the World
Service Fund has caused the agency to project that it will use up to $2.5
million of its unrestricted, board-designated net assets. The total net
assets, not including money designated for loans and scholarships and other
related funds, was $16 million as of Dec. 31. The board uses income from
several sources, including interest and dividends, service fees and sale of
publications. The World Service Fund is the denomination's largest fund for
churchwide ministries.

The reduction of funding to the board, combined with new program
initiatives, reduced the board's churchwide allocation by $4.6 million to a
total apportionment of $15.3 million or $3.8 million annually for the
quadrennium. Alegria said that the level of board receipts from World
Service for 2001-2004 is lower than the $4 million received in 1989.

Reserves provide a financial cushion to protect or provide for cash flow,
maintain support through budget fluctuations, protect assets, fund major
repairs and serve as a hedge against market fluctuations. 

Substantial debate accompanied Alegria's presentation of a proposed 2002
budget that recommended the use of certain income and gains on fund balances
to support the board's overall programs, including those mandated by General
Conference. The use of income excludes money for loans and scholarship,
which is separated from board receipts and not supported by World Service
dollars.  

"This is not something new that we are doing," Alegria said. "It started
when the board approved its 2001 budget for the projected use of
unrestricted net assets to provide revenue sources needed to fund planned
expenditures of programs, including Eastern Europe theological education,
black college endowment, seminary indebtedness and the restructure of the
Division of Ordained Ministry."

Alegria provided a financial picture showing the gradual decrease of
unrestricted board- designated net assets or reserves. Fund balances stood
at $15 million at the end of 2000, but continued use would reduce them to
$3.5 million at the end of 2004 based on assumptions in investment income
and projected planned spending.   

Less money is available to achieve General Conference's mandates, so the
board must make difficult choices, Del Pino said. The agency will address
expenses exceeding income without "truncating essential programs of the
board" that are outlined by the Book of Discipline and General Conference
directives, he said.

The board is concerned about dipping into "our reserves, which are really
endowments that have been perceived and utilized that way," he said.  

As a first step to help the board resolve its budgetary woes, Del Pino
created a six-member finance team to assist with a program audit and to work
on the challenges the agency faces as it tries to fulfill its mandates.

In a presentation by the Rev. Bob Kohler, a staff member, the board received
a report of statistical trends in pastoral ministry. Kohler said that during
the 1990s, the focus of ordained ministry officials revolved around the high
rate of pastoral retirements. The issue confronting the church today is the
decline in the number of people entering probationary and full conference
membership, he said. "It is as if we escaped an angry bear and ran into the
den of the lion."
 
The issue is not a shortage of pastors, he said, citing the increased use of
local pastors. The issue is whether the denomination will have a sufficient
supply of seminary-trained pastors to meet its pastoral needs, he said.

Board members also:
7	Honored the Rev. Roger Ireson, former top executive, with a $5,000
gift to the Roger W. Ireson Scholarship at Garrett-Evangelical Theological
Seminary, a book and video tribute.
7	Learned of a developing study on Hispanic theological education.
7	Received a compact disc from Elena Stepanova, pastor/chaplain at
Prison #2 in Ekaterinburg, Russia, where the prisoners sang songs of
solidarity with the United States in the aftermath of the tragedy of Sept.
11.
7	Learned that United Methodist chaplains are valued across faith
traditions because of their willingness to work cooperatively in the free
exercise of religion.
7	Learned that the agency's Section on Chaplains and Related
Ministries is working on two fronts - helping with the trauma resulting from
the Sept. 11 attacks and participating in the military activity that has
followed, as well as identifying needs and providing pastoral care.
7	Learned that Education: The Gift of Hope, the study resource written
to address problems in public schools and to guide congregations in helping
local schools, has been revised to include a chapter on violence.
7	Learned that as of Aug. 31, more than $4.2 million in scholarship
funds had been awarded to 3,579 students.

# # #

*Green is the news director of the Nashville, Tenn., office of United
Methodist News Service.

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United Methodist News Service
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