The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council began its three-day fall meeting here Oct. 23 with an agenda that includes consideration of a Church Center 2011 budget that is five percent lower than the version adopted by General Convention in 2009.
Revenue in the proposed reduced budget is $2.1 million less than originally projected, with income from dioceses projected at $682,946 less than expected. The revenue reductions come “as a result of an unpredictable delayed payment by one diocese,” as well as major cuts in Church Center spending that also will result in less revenue, according to a memo to council members from the church’s Finance Office. The specific diocese has not yet been disclosed.
Total revenue is projected to be $37,147,458, while total expenses are budgeted at $36,966,829.
If one were to wonder where that money is going, I suppose that would be perceived as impolite. Shooting fish in a barrel.
Furthermore, comments about lawyers making payments on their Bentleys might also be perceived as rude.
Stewardship season is upon us. No doubt, various TEC innovations have brought in many more members, who will dig deeply to balance the budget and fund various 815 initiatives.
Won’t it be wonderful when total revenue reaches half of that $37 million for the current leaders of TEC to spend?
I wonder which Diocese is delaying payment? If that number is the amount of the delayed payment, there can only be a handful that would pony up that large an amount.
I am delighted with the proposed cuts and hope they can find even more such operations to eliminate. After all, on top of getting rid of Youth, Missions, and so forth already (but keeping that sacred cow, Women’s Ministries, of course), the best thing they can do is reduce TECs visibility to nothing, shrink their outreach into oblivion, and spend every last dime they’ve got on ridiculous and self-defeating lawsuits. To my mind all of this is the ultimate outcome of the affirmative-action promotions TEC has been pursuing for the past few decades. After having been raised up as a leadership clique chosen for specific conglomerations of political preference, DNA, and chromosomes, the clique at the top of TECs soi-disant hierarchy cannot see that they themselves are not competent to make correct decisions and think that the mere possession of power is proof of their worthiness to exercise it.
I am with Sarah. The TEClub can’t go bankrupt (financially) fast enough (to reflect its spiritual bankruptcy). Only then, is it possible for true reform to happen. The monies my parents and grandparents gave have allowed the heretics to run amok.
Senior Priest,
I think you should say what you really think. 🙂
The current leadership in much of TEC is incapable of education (this is, in part, why it feels the need to ‘educate’ everyone else continually). It will continue to make the same self-destructive decisions until the infrastructure of power it so idolizes implodes. Along the way, I suspect there will be a serious move to merge TEC and ELCA in almost every way, as the cultures in each church will gradually sell out everything but their gender/political/sexuality obsessions, leaving little reason to remain differentiated. All the while, their revenue and membership will decline… and they will claim (as every suicide bomber, whether slow-motion or not must) that it is “God’s will.”
In another article KJS is quoted as saying we might need to re-think having an office in Manhattan. At the Provence IV Synod meeting in 2000, I proposed closing 815. You would have thought I had suggested killing somebody’s grandmother on the pool table at the country club based on the response that motion got. So some good may yet come from the recent unpleasentnees in TEC. BTW–I proposed we significantly downsize and move the headquarters to Lawrence, Kansas, because it was in the middle of the country, and at the time it was in a dry county–less mischief for staff and visitors to get into!
The Curmudgeon’s take on the two articles is worth studying.
#8. The United Church fo Christ did just this (move out of NYC several decades ago. They moved to Cleveland, OH. Theywere delighted with the low cost of office space and housing. Now their theology has gone pretty much unitarian, but at least they seem to be solvent. A move like this gets rid of a lot of status seekers from the staff. Can you imagine her nibs in, say, Dayton, OH?
Cheers,
NW Bob