Reprinted from United Church News
by Will Matthews
The UCC's five-member Collegium of Officers painted a bleak financial picture of the church's national setting Thursday, April 20, even while highlighting increased giving and financial stability at the local settings of the denomination.
During the first evening of a three-day gathering of the boards of the UCC's four national Covenanted Ministries, the Collegium discussed publicly for the first time a report it drafted earlier this month calling for a streamlining of the church's Cleveland-based national offices.
The report was prompted by what denominational leaders say is a hardening of the national setting's financial woes.
The Collegium said Thursday that funding in 2005 for National Basic Support, the main source of funding for the work of the Covenanted Ministries, was just $10 million, $500,000 less than projections and down from $12.5 million in 1995, 1999 and 2000, and $13.1 million in 1985.
The $10-million national basic support budget for 2005 equals the church's 1967 budget for National Basic Support, according to Edith Guffey, the UCC's associate general minister and president.
"It would take $58 million in 2005 to equal the buying power of $10 million in 1967," Guffey said.
Collegium members also said Thursday that they project a 2006 shortfall of as much as $1 million.
In an effort to stabilize the national setting's financial position, the Collegium is proposing sweeping changes that, if enacted, could substantially alter the way the national church is governed. The Collegium is suggesting an examination of the "size, number and role" of the Covenanted Ministry boards and the Executive Council, the size and design of the Collegium of Officers, the assignment of national work and staffing settings, and the role of the general minister and president.
Specifically, the Collegium on Thursday recommended an immediate hiring freeze on most vacant positions and the development of new shared-staffing models across the four Covenanted Ministries, a significant reduction in funding for the final year of The Stillspeaking Initiative – meaning the production of no new television commercials – a "complete review" of the church's approach to fund raising and the development of specific mission priorities to guide the national setting's future work.
At the crux of the financial woes plaguing the national church is the fact that as giving at the local settings of the church have increased steadily over the past 20 years, the percentage of those dollars retained locally has increased as well.
More than $471 million was given at the local church setting in 1985 and, of that, more than $28 million, or 5.9 percent, was forwarded on to the UCC's Our Church's Wider Mission (OCWM) as basic support for conference and national work.
Giving in local churches was almost double that in 2004 – nearly $899 million. But only $31 million of that was forwarded to OCWM in 2004, a mere 3.5 percent.
Additionally, the percentage of total basic support dollars retained by the conferences has increased as well, from less than 49 percent in 1975 to almost 68 percent in 2005, according to denominational leaders.
"It is the shifting sand of OCWM that has set us back," Guffey said.
Church leaders attribute the diminishing funds being given by the local church to the national setting to both an increased commitment by congregations to local mission needs and to the national setting's own failure to adequately articulate the importance of the its work and vision.
"The case for mission support in local communities is clear and compelling and very visible," said the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president. "We haven't made our case as visible and compelling and clear."
Guffey said that at least part of the solution needs to be a renewed commitment by national church leaders to "being out and among local churches and getting to places that we're not often invited to."
"Churches are doing more local mission than ever before," Guffey said. "They are seeing the needs of their community and they are responding, and that's great. But we have to do a better job of telling the story and showing the importance of mission beyond the local setting. A lot of people don't know the work and mission of the national setting. We have been working on that for a long time, but it is difficult."
Beginning today and continuing tomorrow, the four Covenanted Ministries' boards will discuss the Collegium's report and recommendations, and then decide how to direct the church to respond.
