Part one is here and part two is there. You are encouraged to take the time to listen to (suffer through?) it all.

Please note–these are both audio files. The time begins with a short Q and A to introduce me to those present before the questions shift to the subject at hand. Note, too that Bishop Kee Sloan of Alabama was invited by the Dean, Frank Limehouse, to come, which he (graciously) chose to do. During the time, Dean Limehouse invited Bishop Sloan to speak, and he chose to do so. This covers a wide range of recent events/developments and will be of broad interest to many blog readers–KSH.

This spring, The Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida will share $175,000 with its member congregations, a result of nearly 100 percent parish giving to the Diocese in 2011.

“We have attained a new culminating point in this ongoing labor towards maintaining a healthy, well-functioning diocese,” said Rt. Rev. Dabney T. Smith in a Feb. 2, 2012 letter to vestries. “In 2011 alone, our congregations prioritized their participation by contributing apportionment on a monthly basis, with all but 2 percent paid by year’s end.”

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For the fourth year in a row, President Obama is proposing lower tax deductions for the wealthy on donations to churches and other nonprofit organizations. And for the fourth year in a row, nonprofit groups say the change would lead to a dramatic drop in charitable giving.

The reduction, included in Obama’s 2013 budget proposal, rankled the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

“We were hoping this would not come up again this year. We asked that they not renew it, but unfortunately the request was not taken,” said Nathan Diament, the group’s Washington director. “It’s a real concern.”

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The Church of England in Lancashire has launched a county wide debate to make it ‘fit for purpose’ in a decade of decreasing clergy.

Paid parish priests are set to fall to 106 by 2019, compared with 250 in 2000 and 156 currently. Numbers of unpaid clergy are rising, from 44 to 59 between 2006 and 2011, but such continuing growth cannot be guaranteed.

‘We cannot have fewer clergy and continue as we are,’ said the Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev John Goddard, who chaired the year-long, 15 member task force that drafted a report on the Church’s future.

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….compared to other religious Americans, the Romneys and other Mormons are fairly atypical when it comes to passing the plate. Across the rest of the religious landscape, tithing is often preached but rarely realized.

Research into church donations shows a wide range of giving, with Mormons among the most generous relative to income, followed by conservative Christians, mainline Protestants and Catholics last.

Over the past 34 years, Americans’ generosity to all churches has been in steady decline, in good times and in bad, said Sylvia Ronsvalle, whose Illinois-based Empty Tomb Inc. tracks donations to Protestant churches.

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Read it all noting especially the eleven page pdf at the bottom which quotes the Motion documents in full.

One tension PB&F members discussed centered on responding to the financial challenges faced by dioceses while deciding how much money needs to be spent in support of the denomination-wide mission, ministry and infrastructure of the Episcopal Church.

Del Glover, chair of council’s financial committee, told the PB&F group that council had also struggled with what he characterized as the tension between “what’s a reasonable expectation to ask of dioceses and what’s a reasonable expectation for the use of the funds by the [church], and those are two separate issues.”

Another tension concerned paying for the costs of the church’s mission and current structure knowing that there have been many proposals to change that structure and, possibly, redefine the direction and focus of the mission and ministry.

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The budget, which will not be final until General Convention acts in July, proposes to set aside money for a “churchwide consultation” on the Episcopal Church’s future shape and work. It also includes money for pilot projects that Chief Operating Officer Stacy Sauls said could show how the church’s purchasing and organizational power could help congregations and dioceses free up more of their resources for mission work.

Sauls characterized such a cooperative arrangement as one way to bring about “long-term significant change” in how the churchwide staff relates to the rest of the church. Council accepted his proposal and his suggestion that the 2013-2015 budget “should open the door to doing long-term reform of how we do business as a church.”

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Mitt Romney’s newly released tax returns provide more than an accounting of the Republican presidential candidate’s remarkable personal wealth. The documents also give a rare glimpse into tithing to the Mormon church by one its most prominent members.

Romney reports he will give a total of $4.13 million to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over two years as part of his overall charitable donations. The former Massachusetts governor reported income of about $43 million for the two years. Separately, over the past decade, Romney and his wife, Ann, have given more than $4.7 million to the denomination through the Tyler Charitable Foundation, a multimillion-dollar trust the couple leads.

The LDS church famously seeks a high level of commitment from its members – in prayer, study, service to others and charity. A lifelong Mormon, Romney served as a missionary in France as a young man and as a top Latter-day Saint leader in the Boston area.

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Three Episcopal Church leaders challenged members of the church’s Executive Council Jan. 27 to engage in “adaptive change” in response to what they said are changing church and societal environments.

That challenge began immediately as the members received two different budget scenarios developed by council’s Executive Committee upon which to begin formulating a draft 2013-2015 budget. One scenario calls for asking dioceses to contribute 19 percent of their income and the other calls for dioceses contributing 15 percent. The larger income would be $103.6 million and the 15 percent-asking budget would be reduced by approximately $13.5 million, according to Treasurer Kurt Barnes.

In an emailed memo to Episcopal Church Center staff after the scenarios were presented to council, Chief Operating Officer Stacy Sauls noted that the 19-percent version plans on a $5.9 million decrease in income from the current triennium. The 15-percent version’s reduced revenue amounts to $19.3 million less than the current triennium.

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Broader Measures of Church Vitality

To get a broad-based sense of congregational vitality, we have used a number of measurements including church school enrollment, marriages, funerals, child baptisms, adult baptisms, and confirmations. These speak to a parish’s integration in the community and the possibility for future growth:

Change in church school enrollment: -33%
Change in number of marriages performed: -41%
Change in number of burials/funerals: -21%
Change in the number of child baptisms: -36%
Change in the number of adult baptisms: -40%
Change in the number of confirmations: -32%

While these numbers may not capture the totality of what is happening in the Church, we do not have a measure that is moving in a positive direction.

Do take the time to read and consider it all.

Delegates of the church will elect officers, approve a 2012 budget and pursue a new capital and congregational development campaign called A New Era of Mission.

The program aims to reverse the declines in membership the Episcopal Church has experienced over the past 40 years, said the Rev. Frank Logue, the assistant to the bishop of the Diocese of Georgia.

“It focuses on nine areas of funding, nine priorities for us,” he said.

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The Euclid Avenue Church of God and the Church of the Transfiguration sit empty on Cleveland’s former Millionaires’ Row, remnants of a heyday when mansions marched east from downtown.

Their congregations have fled. And historic preservationists fear that both churches will disappear, swallowed up by the Cleveland Clinic’s appetite for land.

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Thus what the Diocese asked Judge Bellows to do is precisely what Judge Bellows did, and now the Diocese has to admit that it will have to sell some of the properties in order to pay off its debts. This is not acting prudently, or even out of a sense of fiduciary duty — a fiduciary acts to conserve assets, and does not sacrifice them to solve troubles of one’s own devising. This is more the story of the dog in the manger, only written on a truly grand scale. Nevertheless, like the proverbial dog, the Episcopal Diocese will now pretend that it really wanted that hay all along, even though it can make no use of it.

And what, in the end, has Judge Bellows accomplished? Did he uphold Virginia law and precedent? Yes, he certainly did — once he was instructed by his superiors that the division statute did not apply to the facts of this case. But by awarding all the property to the people least able to maintain it and keep using it for church purposes, he took “neutral principles of law” to a truly Pyrrhic level. And in the process, the decision makes a mockery of all the hundreds of years of tradition which it claims to honor and uphold….

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With continuing Episcopal congregations either ill-prepared to maintain properties or altogether nonexistent, paired with a diocese that is stretched thin financially, there are few options for stewarding church properties awarded by courts. With the diocese indicating that the sale of non-consecrated properties will go to paying off legal costs, the only source of long-term revenue is either to grow the size of the continuing Episcopal parishes or to lease their consecrated property to others.

Having abandoned the practice of church planting, Virginia Episcopalians seem unlikely to grow their financially vulnerable congregations. The Falls Church continuing Episcopal congregation lists only an increase of 10 attendees in the past three years, with few baptisms and confirmations. Diocesan officials may be hoping that a large number of former Episcopalians will stay tethered to the property, thus returning to the Episcopal fold. If only 5 percent of the Anglican congregation remains with the property, it would more than double the attendance at the Episcopal parish.

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The years-long litigation has been expensive for all involved. The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has lost congregations that collectively contributed $10.4 million directly to the diocese in the 20-year period before the dispute erupted.

And the breakaway congregations have spent millions of dollars in legal fees. Warren Thrasher, executive director at Truro, said the 1,200 members of that church alone have spent roughly $2 million on legal bills, raised through a legal defense fund kept separate from the rest of the church’s ministry.

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The Bible says that God has poured out his mercy and Holy Spirit generously through Jesus Christ so we can be justified by grace (Titus 3:6). Why is mercy and forgiveness described in terms of ”˜generosity’? Because God is under no obligation to give us any good gift. In fact, our sin has forfeited any favor or blessing we might have had. Yet, instead of giving us the punishment we deserve, he took that himself and gave us the riches of mercy and grace. He forgave, he was generous with us sinners.

In the book of James there is another way that God is said to be generous. The author urges his readers to become spiritually mature and wise, and if they lack this, they should ask God, “Who gives generously to all without finding fault.” (James 1:5) Here God is generous not in forgiveness but in ministry. He builds people up and shares his wisdom with others, and he is not stingy with his service, only giving to ”˜deserving’ people. No, he ministers to others “without finding fault.”

Generosity, then, is basically a matter of the spirit….

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Twelve cathedrals will learn today that they been awarded fabric repair grants in the run up to Christmas. They each receive amounts varying from £10,000 to £118,000 from the Cathedral Fabric Repair Fund. The total grants amount to £718,000.

The twelve successful applicants were Bradford, Canterbury, Chichester, Coventry, Lincoln, Norwich, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Salisbury, Southwark, Wakefield and Wells cathedrals.

The Fund is a partnership between the Wolfson Foundation, Pilgrim Trust and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England (CFCE), all with long records of supporting England’s historic church buildings and their contents.

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Anonymous “layaway angels” are rescuing Christmas for needy families across the nation.

Mystery donors are visiting stores and paying the balance on accounts that allow customers to pay for purchases over several months. Some donors ask the store to apply the money to children’s toys or clothing; they aren’t told recipients’ names. Nor do recipients learn the identities of the donors.

More than 15 layaway accounts totaling almost $4,000 have been paid by strangers at a Kmart in Lafayette, Ind., says store manager Vic Sutherland. “It’s pretty awesome,” he says. “With the economy the way it is, you wouldn’t expect it.”

Fantastic stuff–read it all.

It is hypocritical and unjust of us to scapegoat bankers and industrialists and fail to notice greed and covetousness in our selves.
A bit of self-examination is in order. St Paul’s cathedral, which receives massive handouts from wealthy people and institutions in the City is ill-placed to condemn its benefactors. And wouldn’t you like a bit more money? I know I would.
At all times, but especially at Christmas, we should see ourselves as the far from perfect creatures we are ”“ the Bible’s word for this is ”˜sinners’. The remedy is to be generous, kind and charitable. For, as the Good Book says, ”˜Charity covers the multitude of sins.’

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Church foreclosures are at an all-time high. Since 2008 more than 200 churches and other religious organizations have faced foreclosure, according to real estate services firm CoStar Group. In the decade before 2008, church foreclosures were rare, averaging less than 10 per year.

Tim Trainor, a spokesman for CoStar, said 2011 is so far the worst yet, including the “highest dollar volume” ever in the second quarter of 2011, when 20 properties totaling more than $27 million went into foreclosure.

These foreclosures are likely just the tip of the iceberg. No one really knows how many churches not officially in foreclosure are on the brink. Take, for example, The Church at South Las Vegas. The church started in 2001 by Pastor Benny Perez now has more than 4,000 in regular Sunday morning attendance. But the church also has a $53,000 per month mortgage payment, and it can’t sell any of its real estate because that real estate is now worth at least $5 million less than what the church paid for it.

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Dioceses will be better placed to meet financial challenges in 2012 after the Archbishops’ Council cut its request for funding next year by £0.5 million. The Council has decided to request the same overall level of funding for its work in 2012 as in 2011, rather than the 1.8 per cent increase approved by the General Synod in July.

Although dioceses have already set their 2012 budgets, the resulting saving of £0.5 million will help dioceses meet other financial challenges whilst enabling the Council to meet all the commitments made when its budget was approved by General Synod in July….

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The Bishop of Remo Anglican Diocese, The Right Reverend Olusina Fape, has described the Mother of the Diocese and Iya Ijo of Our Saviour’s Anglican Church, Ikenne Remo, Ogun State, Chief (Dr) Mrs HID Awolowo, as a rare gift to humanity and a blessing to her generation.

Bishop Fape stated this on Monday in a short address at the laying of the foundation of a multimillion naira HID Anglican Church, Sagamu, a church whose construction is being financed by Chief (Mrs) Awolowo.

The diocesan mother had organised a launching for the construction of the church during the Synod of Remo Anglican last May and held at Ikenne. She made history as the first individual to solely sponsor the annual event.

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Two new ethical investment policies have been adopted by the Church of England national investing bodies following advice from the Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG).

The national investing bodies’ new policy maintains the toughest possible exclusion of companies involved in the production or distribution of pornography that their ethical investment research provider is able to implement….

The new policy on high interest rate lending builds on the previous policy under which companies involved in weekly collected home credit (‘doorstep lending’) were excluded from investment.

The new policy extends the investment exclusion to cover other forms of specialised high interest rate lending, in particular payday and pawnbroker loans.

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This leads to many more questions. Apart from the $6600 expensed for my work from the tithe, did the remaining $1.2 million make it to Rwanda? Is any of it sitting around in US corporations or bank accounts, waiting to be dispersed? Is the money resting in someone’s account? Who selected the programs that were funded by the tithe? Did this process of selection conform to the Rwandan canons? Why was this information not provided to the Rwandans when requested?

When I was interviewed by Bobby Ross Jr from Christianity Today and asked my views of this situation, I said this was a very very sad day for the church. There are a great number of people who are bewildered by the speed in which the AMiA seems to have come apart. The issues are confusing and statements of no friction between the AMiA leadership and Rwanda and that all is well are followed by the call that God is “doing a new thing” and the AMiA is being led out of the Eygpt of Rwanda into the promised land by its Moses — Bishop Murphy.

I do hope this ends quickly and that there can be a reconciliation of the parties concerned. This is a sad, sad story and its telling gives me no joy. However, I will continue to do my job and seek out and report the truth mindful that the pursuit of truth is the highest calling of us all.

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Charitable giving is trickling back up as the economy heals, but it could take years to return to pre-recession levels, nonprofit leaders say.

Giving totaled $291 billion in 2010, according to the 2011 annual report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. That’s up 3.8 percent from 2009 and follows two consecutive years of declines.

This year shows little change. Charity Navigator, a Glen Rock, N.J., organization that evaluates nonprofits, anticipates donations will be flat during the holiday season.

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Newcastle’s Anglican Cathedral parish has been urged to become ”˜”˜entrepreneurial’’ after a failed attempt at a $100,000 lifeline to keep it afloat in 2012. Fund-raising options including charging visitors to view Newcastle from the cathedral tower could be considered, along with cutting at least $60,000 from its budget.

Diocese trustees, including former MP John Price and former Lake Macquarie mayor John Kilpatrick, refused last week to issue an episcopal certificate, or diocese guarantee, for a $100,000 bank loan, just weeks after questions at a synod about $43million in outstanding loans across the diocese.

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On Nov. 29, the Synod Council of the Anglican diocese of Ontario “suspended” four of its programs and ministries to create a “credible, balanced budget” for 2012. Cuts include the diocesan newspaper, Dialogue, as well as the diocese’s summer residential youth program, Camp Hyanto.

The decision is meant to “relieve the financial load on the diocese,” said the bishop of the diocese, Michael Oulton, in a letter issued to parishes Dec. 3.

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Anglican Diocese of Otago and Southland manager Bronwyn Miller said the New Zealand Anglican Insurance Board was working frantically to determine a way forward.

While Ms Miller could not speak for other denominations, she said all Anglican churches, and she expected all other churches in the Otago and Southland region, would be affected.

Anglican Insurance Board chairman Don Baskerville said cover would likely be found, but he was wary of the price of that cover. “The prices will be ugly,” he said.

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