November 28, 2005

"Balancing Our Budgets"

In our household my wife Marsha balances our checkbook and takes care of writing bills, making deposits, etc. She does consult with me occasionally about budget decisions, but I am grateful that she keeps our budget balanced. One thing she does which I really appreciate: the first check she writes each pay period is our church pledge. Somehow doing it that way ensures that we keep that commitment to God and the church. As someone else has said it, we are called to "Give to God what is right, not what is left over." Marsha keeps our budget balanced, and she does it by putting our first commitments first.

Both of our Annual Conferences in Indiana are working hard to balance our budgets, too. In both conferences there have been some very painful budget cuts made, for a total of nearly $3 million removed from the budgets. Why? Because in both conferences the leadership is committed to having a balanced budget, which means that we can't spend more than we receive in apportionment giving from the local churches. For too long both conferences have operated on a budget which has not been "real" -- clergy and lay members at each Annual Conference for nearly 20 years have adopted budgets that they knew would never be fully-supported. Everyone was a part of this game, but it has led to severe cash flow problems in both conferences, because you can't keep adopting budgets which are larger than your income.

Now that the budgets for 2006 are more realistic and based upon a conservative estimate of what the actual income will be -- now is the time for everyone to be involved in keeping those budgets balanced. As my wife reminds me, there are two ways to balance the family budget: reduce spending or increase income. The leadership in both conferences has reduced spending, and now it is time for every local church -- led by their pastors who are given the Disciplinary responsibility of providing for spiritual and temporal leadership -- to make sure that we all do our share/our tithe/our giving in order to keep the budgets balanced.

As we approach this year-end of 2005, I can tell you that things are very, very tight in both Conferences. Spending has been reduced, but income is barely covering basic costs. Normally the month of December is a generous time of local churches catching up on their apportionment obligations. We certainly need for December of 2005 to be such a generous time, lest we enter 2006 with a deficit which will cause our balanced budgets to be unbalanced right from the start.

Now is the time to keep our budgets and our priorities balanced. Thanks for your generous response and your faithful support.

from Bishop Michael J. Coyner

Indiana Area of the United Methodist Church
"Making a Difference ... in Indiana
and around the world"

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