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What will it take to get Holston Conference churches to pay apportionments in full this year? A bishop’s challenge, a large church’s example, and lots of team effort.
By Annette Bender
Steve Sallee has an announcement to make.
As senior pastor at Cokesbury United Methodist Church in Knoxville, the Rev. Sallee has struggled with his church's failure to pay its Fair Share apportionment. He had a long record of pastoring congregations that paid 100 percent, but when Cokesbury took on a $7 million construction project in 1997, the church got behind in paying its askings.
By the end of this year, Cokebury's financial dedication to the conference won't be an issue, because as the pastor with 1,800 in average worship attendance says:
“It is Cokesbury's plan to pay our askings 100 percent this year.”
For many of Holston's 925 churches, paying the Fair Share apportionment in full represents a significant amount of money. It's significant at Cokesbury as well. Out of a $1.9 million budget this year, Cokesbury's apportionment is set at $270,000. The plan to eventually pay 100 percent, says Sallee, was implemented in April 2002, when Cokesbury began sending 10 percent of its weekly offerings to the annual conference. In June 2003, Cokesbury upped the amount to 15 percent of the church's weekly offerings.
“We've calculated that will get us within $20,000 of paying our askings in full,” says Sallee. “We think that by not hiring some staff and not initiating any new programs this year, we'll have the money in December to make that final payment.”
New Movement
Cokesbury is one of many Holston churches that are redoubling their efforts to pay their apportionments in 2003. Earlier this year, Bishop Ray Chamberlain challenged all 925 congregations in the conference to pay their total askings. Some churches – especially those in the Knoxville District, which finished last among 12 districts by cumulatively paying less than 76 percent in 2002 – are developing plans to reach the 100 percent goal this year or within three years. “We're excited that churches have decided to pick up in their efforts to pay 100 percent this year,” Chamberlain said recently. “There's a whole new movement toward at least increasing the percentage given.”
Fair Share apportionments – also known as “askings” – are a method of giving that proportionally allocates the conference budget to local churches. In turn, the conference gives an apportionment to the general church. Chamberlain's challenge for Holston congregations to pay 100 percent was spurred by a conference-wide budget crunch that started in 2002.
At the end of 2002, Holston churches gave an average 88.6 percent of their Fair Share apportionments – compared with 90.2 percent in 2001 and 91.0 percent in 2000. The decline in giving amounted to a $1.76 million shortfall in last year's $15.1 million budget, according to Conference Treasurer Clyde McDonald's office. Consequently, ministry team leaders revised their 2002 and 2003 budgets at 40 percent of what was originally planned.
So far, the news isn't better in 2003. At the end of July, apportionments received from local churches were 1.6 percent less than at the end of July 2002. A 1 percent drop in giving has huge consequences for the conference's 2003 budget of $15.66 million, according to Council on Finance & Administration Chair (CFA) Mai Bell Hurley.
“For every 1 percent decrease in apportionments, the conference receives about $156,666 less in revenues,” Hurley said. Nine of Holston's 12 districts are behind in the average amounts they paid this time last year. The result is large reductions in funding for ministries. Besides cuts in camping, prison, children's, youth and other ministries, contributions to Holston's three colleges may be cut. (See “Discipleship Team recommends funding cuts for colleges.”)
Some church leaders have attributed the declines in giving in part to the economic downturn. “But I maintain that most churches can pay 100 percent if they have a mind to do it,” Bishop Chamberlain said recently. “You really do what you want to do. If you want to go out to eat two times a week, most people find a way to do it. If a church wants to buy a church van, it buys a church van. It's essentially a matter of priorities.”
Rich Traditions
The denomination has prepared resources galore on the value of apportionments. (See “For more info.”) For some groups, the initiative to give total askings may be more ingrained than in others, church leaders say.
Morristown District, for example, led the conference in giving last year by paying nearly 97 percent of its Fair Share. The Rev. Richard Patterson, Morristown District superintendent, says the district “has a history of seeking to respond to the conference askings and district askings.”
“There is a lot of stability in our congregations, where people are strong United Methodists and want to support the United Methodist Church,” he said. “There's a good feeling among the churches of what our conference is doing, of what they can do through the conference that they can't do individually.”
Comparatively, Tazewell District was seventh among 12 districts by paying 90 percent in 2002. Yet Tazewell churches have progressively improved in giving since 1998, when they paid an average 79 percent of their apportionments. With the exception of the Morristown and Oak Ridge Districts, every other district has experienced drops in apportionment giving during the last couple of years, according to the conference treasurer's office.
“There's a lot of pride in paying your own way, and I've tried to push that issue,” says the Rev. Gene Lovell, Tazewell District superintendent.
Across the denomination, some conferences have traditions of paying 100 percent of their apportionments to the general church. Red Bird Missionary Conference has maintained its record of paying 100 percent for two decades, according to the General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA).
The Wisconsin Conference and West Michigan Conferences also have long records of paying their askings in full, according to Steve Zekoff, assistant general secretary of communications in the GCFA's Evanston, Ill., office. Of 64 United Methodist conferences, nine paid 100 percent of their askings to the general church in 2002, Zekoff said. Holston Conference paid 89.95 percent, ranking sixth among the Southeastern Jurisdiction's 15 conferences.
Making Strides
The truth is, most congregations really want to pay their apportionments, church leaders say.
“I do believe there are an awful lot of churches that want very much to pull their share, and it embarrasses them and hurts them and pains them not to,” says the Rev. Stella Roberts, Knoxville District superintendent. “Some of them just haven't been able to see a way clear to do everything they want to.”
Sallee, for example, says he has been “very sensitive” to criticism aimed at Cokesbury UMC when the church focused on paying a $7 million debt for what is now Cokesbury Center.
“It was not our intention not to pay our askings,” he said. “It was our intention to seek God's will, and to grow this church with mission and ministry that's reaching into the inner city of Knoxville.”
Since Cokesbury made the decision in 1997 to buy 10 acres and a 68,000-square foot building across the highway from the main campus, average worship attendance has grown from 800 to 1,800. Meanwhile, Cokesbury's apportionment has increased from $160,000 in the late ‘90s to more than a quarter of a million dollars today.
In addition, the Knoxville church provides rental space for the conference offices, Knoxville district office, and Cokesbury Bookstore at one-third to onehalf of the market value, according to Sallee.
“I just want people to know our true heart is to be a good team player,” he said. “If the church had stayed on one side of Kingston Pike, where we were landlocked, we probably could have paid our askings 100 percent. The growth came from taking a risk, and now we will pay out this year at a much higher rate than we ever could have before. And we'll do it from now on.”
Aware of the district's low payout in 2002 (“Nobody likes to be on the bottom,” says Roberts), other Knoxville churches are making strides in meeting their Fair Share obligations, too – sometimes in creative ways.
In May, the Rev. Jim Bailes undertook a “Run for the Son,” promising to jog one mile for every $500 given by his congregation toward the Fair Share. He ended up running 12 1/2 miles and raising $6,000 – which probably won't be enough to help the church meet its $70,000 apportionment this year, Bailes admits. But the congregation is working hard – by showing the conference's “Vision & Sacrifice” video, offering “Financial Peace” classes and sponsoring church-wide stewardship studies – to educate the newer, younger members about tithing and apportionments.
“The last two years have been the first time in the church's history that we have not paid 100 percent,” said Bailes, citing demographic changes and a large facility that serves the urban community but requires great upkeep. “That absolutely bothers us. But we are very confident about the future and promised God and the conference that we're going to pay 100 percent as soon as we can.”
At Central UMC, parishioners are participating in a “mason jar ministry” – saving a dollar everyday in mason jars – helping the church to pay $16,282 for apportionments during the first six months of 2003. Meanwhile, at Fountain City UMC, church leaders are delaying the hiring of new staff, using volunteers for facility management, and monitoring spending closely in order to meet their $204,183 obligation to the conference in 2003.
“I haven't talked to anyone who's anti-apportionment in this congregation,” says the Rev. Jim Whedbee. “It's an important part of our ministry, of our identity. If we're going to be United Methodist, we're going to be United Methodist.”
Second Mile
Church leaders have other suggestions for helping the conference meet Chamberlain's 100 percent challenge. Middlebrook Pike UMC uses a common-sense tactic employed by the Wisconsin Conference to pay their askings in full: They divide the apportionment by 12 and pay with monthly checks.
“You don't wait over three or four months or until the end of the year,” says Middlebrook Pike's Rev. Nathan Malone, whose church will give $117,000 to the conference this year. “It should be a priority throughout the year. I guess everywhere I've been, I've just treated that as the way we need to be.”
At Washington Pike, Bailes suggests that staff members forgo salary increases until apportionments are paid. “I don't think it's right for pastors to have pay increases when the church doesn't pay askings, so we've held the line on salaries.”
In Morristown District, Patterson echoed Chamberlain's challenge by announcing that he expects 100 percent payout from his 67 churches this year. In some cases, he expects even more.
“Churches that have been blessed by God should seek not to pay 100 percent but pay more than 100 percent,” Patterson said. “That will help make up for some of the churches that are financially pressed because of the economy. I don't think we'll pay 100 percent unless we have churches that are willing to go the second mile and pay more.”
But perhaps more than anything, church leaders believe an effective way to promote giving in the local churches is to communicate the good that apportionment dollars do here and all over the world.
“What we need is to lead people to understand the value of the connection,” says CFA Chair Hurley. “There are things we can do collectively that we cannot do separately. If we do a better job of telling that story, then we'll inspire people to do a better job of paying their apportionments.”
“We'll never know,” says Fountain City's Whedbee, “how many people are won through Christ through these apportionments or how many new ministries are started elsewhere. But we trust our church and our leaders to spend those monies in a way that will help the work of the kingdom. We're part of a larger and greater church than our own church.”
For Roberts, who is requiring Knoxville churches to create apportionment-paying plans at charge conferences this fall, the motives for paying 100 percent are obvious.
“Because of what we went through last year and really seeing the extent to which ministries had to be cut, we've maybe gotten each other's attention with the importance of this,” she said. “I hope we're trying to get the message out that some greater cooperation is needed among us. We're all in this together.”
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