{"id":4363,"date":"2013-06-10T10:15:14","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T17:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=4363"},"modified":"2013-06-10T10:23:04","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T17:23:04","slug":"commentary-moving-into-the-future-with-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/commentary-moving-into-the-future-with-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: Moving into the Future with Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rev. Kathy Neary, Pastor of Orchards United Methodist Church in Vancouver, WA. <\/strong><\/em>
\nReposted by request from Kathy’s Blog, Future Faith<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church has a very bright future.\u00a0 We are called to be in ministry with our neighbors to build the kingdom of God, and we have a plan. \u00a0We are called to relieve suffering in the world, to help people connect with God and Christ, and to create justice.\u00a0 And we have a plan. We envision our future taking shape in new faith communities and in revitalized existing congregations and local ministries.\u00a0 We have begun a $3 million campaign to raise money for these endeavors.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good plan.\u00a0 I am excited about our future.<\/p>\n

However, if I were an investor who was asked to contribute to our capital campaign, one of my first questions would be \u201cWhat is the financial viability of the Conference right now and in the immediate future?\u201d\u00a0Currently we don\u2019t have a rosy picture for our financial situation.\u00a0 There are three indicators that our present situation is unsustainable.\u00a0 First, while the Annual Conference has been getting smaller in terms of membership and average worship attendance, our budget has continued to increase.\u00a0 Second, to pay for our Annual Conference budget, we must apportion it to the local churches at rates of 25 to 28% of total salaries and programming costs in the local church.\u00a0 Third, to \u201cbalance\u201d our conference budget we write in fudge factors to make up for the amount we will fall short every year.\u00a0 These fudge factors are named the \u201cconference benevolence support fund\u201d and the \u201cministerial support fund.\u201d\u00a0 These funds are then added to the overall budget, which in turn increases the amount that every church is apportioned.<\/p>\n

In order to move into the future we have to deal with our current reality. We need tobecome financially viable and stable for the near future.\u00a0 I am suggesting that we move toward a conference budget that can be supported by apportioning the budget to the local churches at a 10% level.\u00a0 In other words, local churches would pay 10% of the amount they pay for salaries and programming to the Annual Conference.\u00a0 I also propose that we do this by cutting our Annual Conference budget by 10% each year for four years.<\/p>\n

I have proposed two resolutions that would move us toward this goal.\u00a0 The first is to cap the district superintendent\u2019s total compensation package at $100,000, a reduction from the current $139,000 (Petition 5-14).\u00a0 The second is to maintain the Office of Connectional Ministries budget at its current level of $834,486, even though the OCM is taking on the cost of two more positions (Petition 5-15).\u00a0 These two petitions, if passed, along with the reductions already part of the recommended 2014 budget, would result in a decrease of 10% in our conference budget compared to the 2013 budget.<\/p>\n

Our future is bright. However, not only must we plan for the future we want, we must also deal with our current reality so that we can move with confidence and strength into that future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rev. Kathy Neary, Pastor of Orchards United Methodist Church in Vancouver, WA. Reposted by request from Kathy’s Blog, Future Faith. The Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church has a very bright future.\u00a0 We are called to be in ministry with our neighbors to build the kingdom of God, and we have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-18n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4363"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4367,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions\/4367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}