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Giving sets two-decade record

By Dean Snyder
UMConnection Staff

Apportionment giving is up. So is second-mile giving.

Baltimore-Washington Conference churches met their apportionments at a higher percentage in 2001 than in any year since 1978, while also dramatically increasing second-mile giving.

This is an astonishing record, Bishop Felton Edwin May said during a Jan. 16 meeting of the conferences Council on Finance and Administration. I want to thank God for the way in which our congregations, our pastors and lay leaders, with all that transpired in 2001, have demonstrated their commitment to mission and ministry in the name of Jesus Christ.

Apportionments are the amounts requested annually of each local church to support global and conference ministries as determined by annual and General conferences. Each church is asked to give its share of ministry expenses based on a formula passed by the annual conference. The formula is intended to share costs based on each congregations ability to contribute.

In 1978, more than two decades ago, conference churches paid 92.8 percent of apportionment askings, according to the Rev. Ken Tyson, former conference treasurer. Giving had never reached that percentage again, until last year.

As of Jan. 7, when the conference books were closed, 92.8 percent of 2001 apportionments had been received by the treasurers office.

And, of course, in 1978 the budget was $5.3 million, Tyson added. By comparison, the 2001 budget was more than $13.8 million and the amount given in apportionments was $12.3 million.

Non-apportioned, or second-mile giving, also increased dramatically in 2001. Contributions to the United Methodist Committee on Reliefs appeal Love in the Midst of Tragedy, in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, resulted in an increase of giving to denominational Advance specials of $476,000 from the Baltimore-Washington Conference. Also, miscellaneous gifts increased $310,000, primarily due to a conference appeal on behalf of Gibbons-Resurrection UMC, according to a report by the Rev. Jim Knowles-Tuell, conference treasurer.

Knowles-Tuell believes a primary reason for the high level of support in 2001 is local churches enthusiasm for the conferences ministries. We have a program that is keeping people excited, he said. New church starts, Baltimore Holy Boldness, shalom zones, the Baltimore Christmas Conference people see were serious about doing ministry.

He also believes that church leaders became aware after Sept. 11 of the need to contribute to ongoing ministry as well as special appeals. A lot of charities were concerned that they were going to go down but people became aware of it and gave to the church as well, he said.

Several churches paid more than their apportioned amounts in 2001, Knowles-Tuell said. In some cases, churches were making up for apportionments they failed to fully meet in previous years.
Some districts have made significant improvement in the percentage paid due to the efforts of the superintendent, he added.

The Rev. E. Allen Stewart, superintendent of the Washington-Columbia District, which significantly increased the percentage of apportionments it paid, said he has been talking frankly with leaders of churches that do not pay apportionments in full. Im telling them that if they cant afford to pay their apportionments over the long term, then they cant afford to have a full-time pastor, he said.

Many members of Washington area churches have come to United Methodism from other denominations and do not understand connectionalism, Stewart added. When they find out how the money is spent and how far reaching the ministry is, they plug into it.