Clergy Day With the Bishop
March 27, 2007 – Cokesbury United Methodist Church, Knoxville, Tenn.
April 17, 2007 – State Street United Methodist Church, Bristol, Va.
“Why Are We Here?”
Bishop James Swanson
Transcript:
“… When we understand ourselves as being interconnected and interrelated, we cannot afford to let anything divide us. Even though it may be very difficult for you -- because of your own nature or because of the person you are to trust those who are around you -- somehow you must strive to do that, and so we want to begin a process of building trust and a sense of teamwork. Thirdly, you are here to help us to explore new ways to equip our churches to fulfill God’s mission of making disciples to transform this world. There are those of you who are doing excellent jobs out there, who have learned things that the rest of us need to be beneficiaries of. But because there are times we are so isolated and because the trust level is not there, rather than call upon those who are doing well, we look at them with suspicious eyes. We ought to understand that because we’re in this together, if God has blessed somebody with some knowledge, wisdom, or understanding about how to get the job done, somehow we’ve got to overcome some of our hesitancies and learn to listen to what they have to say, that we all might be faithful to what God is calling us to do. So we want to hear from you today as well. But we’re also here that you may discover, and that we may all discover, some new resources that may be available to us, that have probably been around for some time, but because we have not been we have not been in conversations the way we ought to, we may not be aware of them.
“In order to do this we will bring before you some resource persons who will share with you some information that can be used to equip your people for ministry, and more than anything else, equip you for ministry. I’m one of those persons who believes that the church grows as the pastor grows. As the pastor takes on new knowledge and new meaning and new understanding, I believe congregations reflect that new understanding as that pastor implements that into his or her life.
“I realize that in talking to my superintendents, there is some anxiety out there about this meeting. And I kept saying to them, “Why? Why would folks have any anxiety about coming to see the Bishop, especially since we’re in this thing together? In fact, one thing you need to learn about me, there’s a little bit of impishness in me. I love, Amen, to be impish. And so the more they told me ‘the anxiety level is up,’ the more I smiled, Amen. I was having a little fun about it. When my mother called me home, when I was kid, it depended upon the tone of her voice whether or not I needed to be filled with anxiety. If the tone of her voice was also followed by the fragrance of the food that I liked, I didn’t worry about it, Amen. But I want you to know the tone of my voice was not a tone to call you here and spank you, or to hound you, or to dog you. Because I’ve been a pastor, and I know how difficult that ministry and that job is. But I also know that I could not have been as effective if not for sister and brothers who came along beside me to help me understand how to best serve God and serve God’s people.
“So you’ve not been brought here to be spanked. Some of you resist spanking, anyhow, Amen. It wouldn’t do me any good or you any good. You’ve been brought here to share information, and I trust that you will receive it in that spirit.”
“How Did We Get Where We Are?
Rev. Grady C. Winegar
Conference Secretary
Handouts
* Holston Conference Membership Statistics 1956- 2006 (MS Word doc)
*Single Figure Fair Share Apportionment Figure: Holston Conference 1968- 2006
(MS word doc)
Report:
I am not going to choose a text, but if I were choosing a text, I would read II Thessalonians 5:9-11. This is good news. What Paul wrote to Thessalonica is good news all up and down the hills and valleys of Holston. From the earliest days of the frontier circuit riders, we have had to defend our doctrine of salvation by grace through faith against the Calvinist idea of double predestination. Paul’s word is: “For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other…”
That is why we are here today at the call of our Bishop. We are here to celebrate the glorious destiny of salvation we have in Christ. We are here to encourage one another and build up each other.
The 1967 “Journal” records the first year of my ministry after Seminary. I was the Associate Pastor at Red Bank in the Chattanooga District. As we worked with the Finance Committee on our Conference Askings, Senior Minister, Elton Jones, and I, like all pastors then, had to monitor our gifts to nine separate funds:
1.World Service and Conference Benevolences
2.General Church Administration
3.Holston Home for Children
4.Minimum Salary Fund
5.Conference Colleges Operating Fund
6.Ministerial Support
7.SEJ Ministerial Education Fund
8.Building With Christ Fund
9.Morristown College
These nine funds were determined by six different agencies.
The next year, at the 1968 Holston Annual Conference, as we celebrated the creation of The United Methodist Church, James Franks, a layman from Newport, Chairman of the Committee on Financial Structure, presented a report calling for a Single Figure Fair Share Apportionment for each church. The apportionment would be calculated by giving a 25% value to membership and a 75% value to what was spent (less building improvements, debt retirement, advance specials, and any amount paid in excess of the Fair Share). The report urged all churches to “accept their Fair Share of the Conference budget in full and to pay in full.” District Superintendents carried the message to each Charge Conference, where they were required to vote on the acceptance of their Fair Share. Pastors were expected to help create a culture of 100% payment. We began at 92% for the first year and fell to 88% for the second and third years. Ralph Mohney, President, and Richard Timberlake, Secretary of the Commission on World Service and Finance, gave tremendous leadership to the Conference in those transitional times. There was an expectation of 100% payment. Most pastors shared that expectation with their congregations as part of their covenant with the Methodist connection. Although the Conference has never reported 100% payment of the Fair Share in 38 years, some Districts have paid 100% several times.
As you can see on the handout, the golden age of the Fair Share was 1973-1979, with 1976 the highest at 93.98%. By a very small amount, 2006 was our record-low percentage paid at 88.04%. Across the years there have been five other years in the 88 percent range.
It is very interesting to study the impact of inflation on the Conference Budget, growing from $2.6 million in 1968 to $15.3 million in 2006. The inflation rate from January 1968 to December 2006 is 491.79%. If we apply that inflation rate to the 1968 Budget, we get a 2006 Conference Budget of $13,032,887. In other words, it would require $13 million to purchase what $2.6 million bought in 1968! Our actual 2006 Budget was $15,310,588, or $2.2 million above the inflation rate. The primary reason that the increase in the Conference Budget is more than the rate of inflation concerns the cost of our pension and health care insurance.
Just for comparison purposes, it is interesting to compare what has happened to pastor’s salaries during the same period. In 1968, the minimum salary for a Full Member Elder or Probationer with an M.Div. was $6,000. In 2006, the minimum was $33,822. The inflation rate alone would have made the minimum $29,507 in 2006. In other words minimum salary was paid in 2006 in an amount $4315 above the rate of inflation from 1968.
Why was 2006 our record low year in Fair Share payment at 88.04%? How did we get where we are? There are many excuses and rationalizations, but when we get to the bottom line or get down to brass tacks, I find four compelling reasons.
1.Many clergy and laity have not taught or practiced the best in Christian stewardship education and cultivation.
2.We have misplaced some of our culture of expectation of 100% payment, forsaking our covenant together.
3.We have not done enough to tell the story of where the money goes in Christian ministry supported by Fair Share.
4.Several of our churches have built bigger barns to store new riches of people and ministries, but have helped to pay for them with the Fair Share.
5.We have blamed “them” (the Conference) for demanding too much of “us.”
But we are “them.” They are “us.” The Fair Share money does not go into some big black hole; nearly 50% of it comes right back in benefits to the pastor and much more to the church. As a matter of fact, 40.3% of the Fair Share goes to two things: Pastor’s pension and pastor’s health care (25% of the premium). When we add in the Ministerial Education Fund for seminary or the Course of Study, Continuing Education, Board of Ordained Ministry expenses for candidacy, the Pastoral Counseling office, and Equitable Compensation, which supports salary levels in special places of need, the Fair Share directly benefiting pastors gets to 50% of the total Fair Share. No pastor should be embarrassed that one half of the Fair Share directly benefits him or her. It is part of the cost of doing business in The United Methodist Church.
On the flip side, in terms of membership, “How did we get where we are?” Since 1956, we have lost 22,596 members in Holston. Since 1963, our high membership mark, we have lost over 32,910. During this time frame nationally, we have lost over 3,000,000 members. This has happened during population growth across most areas of the conference. The issues are complex and the reasons vary from church to church. Some our churches are poorly located; some are poorly operated; some of our churches resist change; others lack the facilities to attract newcomers. Some churches lack hospitality skills, some lack leadership; some lack evangelistic passion to win souls for Christ.
On top of this, the secular world is not knocking down the doors of even our growing churches; therefore we would do well to focus upon the essential things we can all do as clergy.
1.We can recapture our mission “to make disciples of Jesus Christ.” That’s a grand mission statement, but we need to define it specifically. The Discipline does that for us in Par. 122. That is a critical paragraph: “The Process for Carrying Out Our Mission.” “We make disciples as we: – Proclaim the gospel, seek, welcome and gather persons into the body of Christ; – Lead persons to commit their lives to God through baptism and profession of faith; – Nurture persons in Christian living through worship, the sacraments, spiritual disciplines, and other means of grace…; – Send persons into the world to live lovingly and justly as servants of Christ by healing, feeding, caring, freeing…”
2.As clergy, we need to take an honest look at our ministry. We are busy, but busy with what? We are sometimes exhausted, but from what? Our agenda is loaded, but who sets our agenda? One of the greatest temptations or seductions, which comes to a pastor is to scratch where everybody is itching, to try to meet all needs of the members; to allow our daily agenda to be set by whatever is happening. This is a reactive leadership style, which says, “Call me if you need me.” It also says, “I need for you to need me.” We need to be proactive leaders, setting our agenda around the church’s mission. Our temptation, in an oft-repeated phrase, is to be keepers of the aquarium rather than fishers of women and men. Our temptation is to be chaplains rather than missionaries or evangelists. Of course the aquarium has needs. Of course, we have to “pay our dues” in tending to the flock under our care. The problem is when we stop there, weary and distracted, behind our four cozy walls. Those members who ask for our attention or complain are our squeaky wheels and the squeaking wheel usually gets the grease! Tuned to them, we do not hear the cries of the lost. And before we know it, we are also lost in a declining church.
That’s how we got where we are. But we were not destined for this! Therefore, let us encourage one another. Let us focus on the essential things. Let us be proactive in making something happen in our ministry to the glory of God! Amen.
Conference Finance and Clergy Benefits
John Tate, Conference Treasurer
Sandra Davis, Council on Finance and Administration President
Charlie Harr, Board of Pensions Chair
* PowerPoint Presentation/Charts and Graphs
John Tate transcript:
“What I’d like to do is start out with two definitions for apportionment. The first one comes from Wikipedia, which means “distributions and allotments in equal shares.” The second definition of apportionment, or some of the things I’ve heard in the past three months on the job. This is a United Methodist definition: The first is, ‘It’s a tax.’ I know quite a lot about taxes. Having spent the last 11 years in the municipal government, I understand how people feel about taxes. The second thing, ‘The first thing that’s cut from the local budget.’ When money’s tight, that’s the first thing that’s cut out. I’ve been the finance chairman at Fairview UMC in the past, and I understand exactly what happens in finance committee meetings. I understand where you are in that realm. The third thing is, ‘Money that’s withheld to show your displeasure with the Bishop, the district superintendent, or any other entity within the annual conference.’ That’s supposed to be in jest, but I think there’s some truth in each of those.
“Basically apportionments are the only way that the Annual Conference has to fund health insurance and pensions. Basically, if apportionments don’t happen, pensions don’t happen, health insurance doesn’t happen, and the ministries that the Annual Conference is trying to provide don’t happen as well.
“I’ve become educated on the process of Fair Share, exactly what the inputs are. The Council on Finance and Administration actually adopted a proposed budget two Saturdays ago. So what I’ve done is calculate the 2008 apportionments. I won’t give those in detail, yet, but I have some of the statistics from that. Let’s just talk about some of the inputs that are involved as part of your Fair Share calculations. Obviously, one thing is the Holston Annual Conference budget. The second thing has several different fields, and these are the reports you are sending into the district superintendents office, which includes district funds, some of your compensation, housing allowance and expense, and your church programming expense. I believe a couple of years back, they actually took attendance or membership out of the formula, and now it’s based entirely on those inputs with some of the expenditures that are happening at the local church. Another part I would like to point out: There’s actually a 10 percent cap on any increase or any decrease in our annual apportionment. Those are basically the inputs that are part of your apportionment.
“Now I would like to talk about the raw numbers. These numbers are preliminary. The proposed conference budget for 2008 is $15.7 million. The total church spending is $70.6 million. The unadjusted decimal: Basically what that is, is taking the conference budget and dividing that by the total church spending and coming up with an unadjusted decimal. Then, basically because there is a 10 percent cap on any increase or decrease, that will actually roll back in and change the decimal percentage. So, on the next slide I have your formula for you. The adjusted decimal is roughly 24.5 percent, and you can take your 2006 Table 2 and plug that number in if you’re really dying to know what your 2008 apportionments are.
“The next slide talks about your formula. You’re welcome to use any of these PowerPoint slides for your church budget presentations. But basically, A divided by B equals C. C adjusted for the cap, up or down, equals D. And then D times E, which is your local church spending, equals what your apportionment is. So, it’s a fairly simplistic calculation, once you know a few key inputs: the Annual Conference budget, the total church spending, and the adjusted decimal.
“I guess what I would like for you to hear out of my presentation today is this: There are really three ways to reduce your local church apportionment. The first thing you can do is control your Annual Conference budget. The second way is that you hope other local churches will drive up total spending so that yours comes down. The third way is to reduce your local church spending as well. Those may not be easy or good ways, but those are three ways to change what your local church pays.