General Conference delegates approve $642 million budget

United Methodist News Service
United Methodists must live with a spirit of abundance and not scarcity as they go into the world, the new president of the Council of Bishops told delegates on May 2, at the closing worship of the 2008 General Conference.
It is “incumbent on you and me as people of Christian faith that we not become stingy with the blessings—stingy with what we have received from God,” said Bishop Gregory Palmer in his sermon to close the denomination’s top legislative assembly. Palmer, who leads the church’s Iowa Area, was installed as president of the council on April 26.
“I am more hopeful for the church tonight than I have ever been because I am more vulnerable than I have ever been, and I need to depend more on the Holy Ghost than I have ever depended on the Holy Ghost,” he said.
Palmer’s sermon closed the April 23-May 2 assembly shortly before midnight.
Earlier in the day, the delegates approved a $642 denominational spending plan for the next four years built around four areas of focus for the immediate future:
> Developing principled Christian leaders
> Creating new places for new people by starting new congregations and renewing existing ones
> Engaging in ministries with the poor
> Improving global health, especially attacking the killer diseases of poverty.
The budget calls for a 1.2 percent increase over each of the four years from 2009 to 2012. Church finance leaders acknowledged this increase does not keep up with inflation projections but said it is sufficient.
Prior to the meeting in Fort Worth, the conference received 27 petitions asking for a total of nearly $50 million above the $642 million bottom line. That was pared down during General Conference to $3.7 million in unbudgeted items.
The General Council on Finance and Administration and the church’s Connectional Table worked with the general agencies to accommodate the unbudgeted requests, covering them through mostly reserve funds and some budget adjustments.
Those include $2 million to support theological education in Africa; $400,000 for the African-American Methodist Heritage Center; $600,000 to study structural issues related to the church’s increasingly global nature; $290,000 for the committee on central conference affairs; $300,000 for a new committee on faith and order; $115,000 for the church’s Judicial Council; and $50,000 for the Sand Creek Massacre site.
The final day began with a sermon by Mississippi Area Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, who urged the 992 delegates to go home from General Conference focusing less on the decisions made and more on things learned.
Social issues consumed much of the closing hours of business.
The Board of Church and Society and the Women’s Division of the Board of Global Ministries will continue as members in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.  General Conference affirmed by a vote of 416-384 its 35-year relationship with the interfaith association.
The assembly added a statement on abortion to the Social Principles with language offering “ministries to reduce unintended pregnancies” and to assist the ministry of crisis pregnancy and support centers that help women “find feasible alternatives to abortion.”
The assembly retained language defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Pastors or district superintendents may now ask the bishop to give sacramental authority to a deacon if an elder is not present. That right is confined to the location of a deacon’s primary appointment.
In areas where it would take a great deal of time to deliver the sacraments to people, a layperson is given the right to deliver the Communion elements.
The assembly affirmed the validity of scientific findings as ways to expand our understanding of the natural world and the mysteries of God’s creation and the Word.
Noting that Israel continues to violate international law by building a wall on Palestinian land, the conference called upon Israel and Palestine to uphold U.N. resolutions and International Court of Justice rulings.
The conference asked the denomination’s Board of Church and Society to identify and publish on its Web site educational resources on stem-cell research. The resolution encourages pastors to use the resources to become informed about the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research and to offer these resources for study in their local churches.
If annual conferences ratify the action by a two-thirds majority, the constitution will be amended to make it clear that all people shall be eligible to attend worship services and, upon taking vows, become church members.
People who join United Methodist churches henceforth will promise to be faithful in “their witness” as well as in their prayers, presence, gifts and service. The conference also voted to add the witness phrase to the liturgy used by the church when a person makes a profession of membership.
For more General Conference news, visit www.umc.org.