United Methodist Budget Case Study

Pastor Fred Dyess had retired after serving as pastor for thirty years and Director of Missions for the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans for fourteen years. The Lord called him out of retirement to start a new church. Bro. Fred checked with the Eastern Louisiana Baptist Association Director of Missions, David Brown, to learn what areas the association had targeted for a new church and what was needed. He was told that the Louisiana Baptist Convention required a new church to have a sponsoring church. Dr. Roger Dunlap and Macedonia Baptist Church gladly voted to be our sponsoring church. The Louisiana Baptist Convention and the Eastern Louisiana Baptist Association each gave Victory a budget supplement of $500 per month decreasing

The annual increase of the tuition fee for the last five years is associated with the increase in the operating budget of the State University. Therefore, there is a need for the State University to cut down some of their operating cost and implement audit activities that should be carried

Financial Secretary: The most glaring issue, which opens up easy access for, would be embezzlers in the congregations check policy. All checks being written to cash basically enables anyone to cash out the check, the church, a rouge employee or volunteer, or otherwise. All checks need to be made out to the church, not to cash. It would be even better if the church went the route of many churches by allowing donors to have donations processed monthly (or weekly depending on donor preference) through

One becomes a member of the SBC by joining a Southern Baptist or mission church. In 1917, the SBC Executive Committee “was formed and composed of eighty three representatives from qualifying states and regions” (Southern Baptist Convention, n.d.). Executive Committee does not control the individual member churches, but reviews budget statements. In addition the committee receives and redistributes money given from “denominational churches, serves as a trusted agency for its Convention properties, and works to better community relationships” (Southern Baptist Convention, n.d.). This committee is not a board and is subject to review by any of its entities. It can make suggestions to entities, but each church is individually governed and are not held accountable to the Convention’s guidance. The Executive Committee handles many aspects of Baptists churches in order to provide better organization across all entities. Along with the committee and the thirteen supportive corporation, it is ensured each area of the SBC is maintained to include ministries, conventions, youth education and it many other areas of specialty. Every year an annual meeting is help with the representatives of each church that is in a “friendly cooperation” with the SBC. At this time new representative for the Executive Committee may be elected, financial reports are

Superintendent Mary Kamerzell presented the administrative budget proposal for the FY17 Maintenance and Operations Budget. She reviewed the revenue and expenditure planning assumptions and presented an at-a-glance budget summary of revenues and expenditures that highlighted anticipated changes to large budget categories compared to the current 2015-16 fiscal year

Table 4 – Expenses as a Percent of Total Spending (2013) Table 4 shows the average Rocky Mountain church spends above the UMC average on clergy compensation. Rocky Mountain has almost 4% more dedicated to staffing expenses, pushing its rank to 8th. The average Rocky Mountain church spends 2% more than the conference average on program cost but, the UMC average on operating cost. Rocky Mountain is paying its staff more, and its clergy just above the UMC average all while maintaining the conference average on debt payments. Moreover, the conference is spending 2% more in program spending, which if reduced would help bring the conference in line with the UMC non-capital spending average.

Since the signing of the executive order, many religious leaders have responded with disappointment that the bill has offered individuals or organizations protection from penalties when they are acting on their religious conscience.

Losing funding when running a human service program can be devastating to not only the person running the program but also to those who are taking part of the services that the program provides. To lose the backing from the faith-based funders and have to rely strictly on the funds

As the Seventh-Day Adventist Church grew, they developed Conferences around the World. For the purpose of this study, we will look into the Florida Conference. “Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is an unincorporated, nonprofit organisation which serves as the administrative body for its sisterhood of churches with an emphasis on evangelism, nurturing constituents, and operating a system of schools”, (Adventist, n.d.). The Florida Conference covers 57 counties of the 67 in the State of Florida, it also manages 206 churches, 56 companies, and at least 33

The United States as of November 2014 is $16,787,451,118,147 dollars in debt. Churches tax exemption causes the United States a burden because, as of a study conducted by Jeff Schweitzer, PhD, a former white house senior policy analyst, churches own about 500 billion dollars’ worth of untaxed property. According to another survey estimates that “stringent enforcement of religious tax exempt facilities could generate up to $16.75 billion in additional annual revenue - almost enough to fund NASA for a year.”( Bekiempis, Victoria, Newsweek Global) this is already a large sum of money but , “ Less conservative estimates, including an academic paper that pondered the fiscal implications of taxing all churches like for-profit corporations, put that number at $71 billion - enough to send a Mars Rover into space almost every two weeks.”( Bekiempis, Victoria, Newsweek Global) With that kind of money being taxed

It is evident that I have always been very interested in the financials of our church and recently they have bothered me. It seems we have been frivolously spending money lately, and while it may appear like small amounts at the time, it all adds up. When financials are as tight as they currently are we must first worry about keeping the lights on. This was especially evident to me when we decided to spend money for Pride in the Park combined with the add we purchased.

Tom Gallagher reported that the Ascension Health’s budget was slightly under budget for the 10-month reporting period. In addition, Mr. Gallagher provided an update the service agreement with Accretive Health for the Revenue Cycle Management for all of Ascension Health Ministries. Then, Mr. Gallagher talked about the FY16

In the secular world of business where profit is gain and competition is the norm. Religious institutions are not represented as a business structure or seen as having a business foundation with a biblical presence. The Great Hope Church is a Missionary Baptist Church that has been in establishment for one hundred twenty-five years, which makes the birth of the church around 1891. Of course, with the church being established or being in existence, they have undergone many changes. Churches are a non-profit organization but for the most part many of these non-profit organization are able to excel in revenue. Now, I want to make it clear as it relates to the Great Hope Church that ascertaining revenues was not always the bed rock of the church. Since the church was established before my time the last five years of serving there will be discuss.

Interviewer: How many of you are ready for manifestation? Audience: Yeah. Interviewer: Now, these three meeting can be the turning point in your entire financial affair. Reception is so important. Being able to receive when things is being put out. You have to know how to cherish and honor revelation.

The tax exemption system for churches is out dated and has many negative effects on the economy. Ryan T. Cragun, a sociologist at the University of Tampa, said in a Washington Post Article that not taxing churches is costing the United Sates seventy one billion dollars a year (Washington Post). However, what the article goes on to say is more astounding still. That number is almost certainly a lowball, because they didn’t take into