by Jay Therrell
October 11, 2022
In August of this year, the Wesleyan Covenant Association made the prayerful, unanimous decision of its Global Council to call upon laity in 19 annual conferences to begin withholding/escrowing their apportionments. We determined that these 19 annual conferences had placed onerous and punitive additional requirements to their disaffiliation processes under paragraph 2553. In some of the 19 annual conferences we believed that it might be impossible for a local church to complete the process and disaffiliate.
Since that time the WCA received almost 700 requests from churches around the United States asking for our instruction guide to help laity in making the decision to escrow apportionments. This decision was one of last resort. As my friend, Tom Lambrecht said: bishops and progressive leaders have pushed theological conservatives into a corner and the only leverage we have left is the power of the purse.
Since that decision was made, we have begun to see movement on the part of bishops and annual conference boards of trustees. Several have revised their disaffiliation processes to be more helpful. In a spirit of gratitude, the WCA wishes to extend our appreciation to those conferences for helping to make the process easier. No one is helped by trapping theologically conservative churches. The annual conference has a disgruntled church left in its midst that likely will not pay apportionments ever again. Laity eventually will begin to leave the church choosing a church home that aligns with their theology. Only the kingdom is harmed.
Helping theologically conservative churches to depart should be everyone’s goal. It is in everyone’s best interest in helping churches and clergy get to the place where they can best serve Jesus. It is un-Christian to attempt to trap churches and clergy and hold them in a denomination against their will.
Since August, the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference Board of Trustees has dropped their original ask of a percentage of the church’s fair market value and a percentage of the church’s financial assets. Today, the process is essentially a clean 2553 process with the small addition of 2% of the church’s listed insurance value on its year-end statistical report. We are grateful for this movement and pray the Western PA Trustees might be even more gracious to drop the 2% requirement to a clean 2553 process.
The Michigan Annual Conference was originally requiring all departing churches to pay four years of apportionments instead of the two years required by paragraph 2553. Since August, Michigan has dropped the requirement to two years of apportionments so long as disaffiliating churches join either the Global Methodist Church or a denomination that is a part of the World Methodist Council. Disaffiliating churches also must have their prior years’ apportionments paid in full.
Earlier this year, the North Texas Conference was not allowing any churches to disaffiliate. Their leadership claimed that there was no violation of paragraph 2553 in their conference and, accordingly, no church could leave. Since that time, North Texas has opened a disaffiliation process. Additionally, the North Texas Trustees have made the decision to, “…apply undesignated pension reserves against the NTC’s unfunded pension liability calculated by Wespath.” Further, they have taken steps to ensure paragraph 2553 is followed with respect to the calculation of apportionments owed by departing churches.
We have removed the above annual conferences from our list of conferences we feel are punitive in their approach to disaffiliation. We call on laity in those annual conferences no longer to escrow apportionments. In the remaining 16 annual conferences, we still think the power of the purse is the only available way for churches to effectively register their desire to be treated by the Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
In August, the WCA said
The time has come to stop supporting agendas that seek to hurt the orthodox, theologically conservative movement. It is time for us to send a collective message that we will not stand for this anymore. Bishops and other progressive leaders, when you choose to treat theologically conservative churches fairly and let us go, this can end. The choice is yours.
There is no need for there to be more acrimony. If the below annual conferences will follow the letter and spirit of paragraph 2553, churches will leave and in 14 months this will all be over. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
The Rev. Jay Therrell is president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association and an elder in the Global Methodist Church.
Annual Conferences Adding Punitive Requirements to Paragraph 2553
(We call on laity in these conferences to confidentially email apportionments@wesleyancovenant.org to receive an instruction guide on how to ask your church council to withhold and escrow ALL apportionments.)
- Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference (50% of fair market value of real estate and return of all restricted funds)
- California-Nevada Annual Conference (20% of fair market value of real estate, first right of refusal of Conference to purchase property back if goes up for sale in first seven years at 20% of fair market value, pro-rata share of Boy Scout settlement costs)
- California-Pacific Annual Conference (50% of fair market value of real estate, repayment of conference and district grants for previous three years)
- Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference (giving up all insurance local churches have paid premiums for through annual conference leaving churches widely exposed with little to no options for coverage. $6,500 administrative fee, $5,000 to support historic St. George’s, pro-rata share of Boy Scout settlement costs, an additional year of pay for pastor that doesn’t disaffiliate with church plus paying for two additional moves, Missional Transition Support Payment that includes up to 33% of value of church’s non real estate assets)
- Florida Annual Conference (giving up 26 years of insurance local churches have paid for through annual conference leaving churches widely exposed with little to no options for coverage, must buy insurance coverage for the Florida Conference to cover all their liability for previous three years)
- Greater New Jersey Annual Conference (repay conference grants for the last three years, pay unfunded retiree health care liabilities, pro-rata share of Boy Scout settlement cost, 18 months’ clergy compensation for pastors who do not disaffiliate, moving costs for two moves of such pastors, conference legal and court costs, percentage of all cash and investments equal to the percentage voting against disaffiliation, $3,500 administrative fee, possible payment for church property determined by conference trustees)
- Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference (50% of assets as a starting point for negotiation)
- Louisiana Annual Conference (payment of an extra year of apportionments totaling three years, pension liability calculated on the least favorable of 4 factors (not consistent church to church), repossessing of hymnals)
- Missouri Annual Conference (payment of an extra year of apportionments totaling three years, repayment of conference grants from previous five years)
- Mountain Sky Annual Conference (repayment of conference grants from previous ten years, pay percentage of fair market value of real estate determined by conference after local church votes to disaffiliate/church can’t take vote knowing how much it would have to pay)
- New England Annual Conference (onerous discernment period that includes, among other things, public comment meetings for people who don’t attend church to give their opinion)
- Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference (insuring the annual conference against any past or future claim connected to the local church or its property – insurance that is essentially impossible to obtain)
- Peninsula-Delaware Annual Conference (50% of appraised market value of real estate)
- South Carolina Annual Conference (no official process made public; bishop will not allow churches to disaffiliate under paragraph 2553)
- Susquehanna Annual Conference (65% of fair market value of real estate)
- West Virginia Annual Conference (requiring churches to close under paragraph 2549 instead of disaffiliating under paragraph 2553 – the conference so far has not shared with the WCA what, if any process is available utilizing 2549)