Southern Michigan Conference of the Free Methodist Church

Free Methodist Church

Board of Administration

P. O. Box 535002

Indianapolis, IN 46253-5002     

 

Greetings in the glorious name of Him Who loves us

and has saved us by His blood … Jesus Christ!

 

Rather than send you the regular report of actions taken at the spring meeting of your Board of Administration, we chose to wait until after a special meeting of the board, which was held July 6th.  That meeting is now behind us, and we want to update you on what’s happening within the Free Methodist church. 

 

Selling the World Ministries Center

When we moved into our World Ministries Center in Indianapolis, it perfectly met the needs of the denomination.  But much has changed since that move, back in 1990. 

As a result, your board approved the recommendation of a task force which has studied this issue since last fall, and will relocate our World Ministries Center to leased space after the sale of our existing building.  That will down-size us from the 40,000 square feet we now own to leased space of approximately 12,000 square feet.  The World Ministries Center will remain in Indianapolis. 

 

This change will save approximately $200,000 per year in operating cash.  It will also allow us to pay off approximately $500,000 in borrowing from our line of credit, and allow us to set up a “rainy day fund” to help smooth the cash-flow bumps that are always a part of the ebb-and-flow of giving over the year. 

 

Particularly in the current economic environment, we recognize it may take up to 3-years before our building is sold and we actually move.  We’re in a strong position of not being forced to sell our current facility, and have priced it accordingly, based on historic values, not a “fire sale” price.

 

Funding for Missions Countries and our World Missions Home Office

The BOA also took actions to adjust the model within which we raise funds for missions.  A change adopted 2 years ago has worked brilliantly to increase support for our missionaries.  But while we’ve succeeded in this move to support individual missionaries as opposed to “general giving” to the department of world missions, we have failed in raising funds for our “Country Shares” accounts.  So while we have the money to support a missionary in Rwanda, for instance, we don’t have any money to pay the operating costs of the buildings in which they work, or to underwrite scholarships for nationals to go to Bible school. 

 

The change of two years ago also made it difficult to support the small remaining U.S. staff that supports all of our missionaries’ work, our VISA teams, etc.  This work, headed by Dr. Art Brown, our Director of World Missions, is not supported by the E.P.P. giving from our local conferences and churches.  For the past two years, they’ve also not had a regular support system from “general giving” to World Missions. 

 

We expect that actions taken at our July 6th meeting will result in on-going, reliable support to both the various countries needing cash as well as our home missions office, without having to increase the E.P.P. share paid by our churches.   When combined with several initiatives to curtail spending in Home Ministries, the combined affect of our actions should reduce annualized spending by about half-million-dollars in the coming year, and even more in years thereafter.

 

Pension Plans

At our April meeting, time was spent discussing the status of our pension plans.  Obviously, the recent recession has taken a toll on the pension funds’ investments in the stock market.  From an actuarial perspective, our pension fund was very strong a year ago.  But the deep market losses of the past year have cut into the excess funding for our pension plan.  The fund remains sound. And we will, of course, fulfill our commitments under the Defined Benefit program. 

 

But we’re wondering if – going forward – it would be better to replace our defined benefit pension plan with a 401(k) plan.  Actually, it would technically be a 403(b), which is the same thing for non-profit organizations.  A 403(b) would allow church employees to pay into their own retirement fund, tax-free, in addition to the money that would be contributed by the church every year.  They would not have a guaranteed payment when they retire, but they would have control over the money in their retirement fund, and it would be larger or smaller than under the current plan, depending upon how they invested it, and how much they contributed in addition to their churches’ contributions. 

 

We seek your input on this, and welcome your thoughts.  Please send them to Willadean Duncan, our Director of Human Resources at willadeand@fmcna.org. She’ll compile your comments and pass them on to the board as we consider this important matter for the long-term financial health of our pastors and missionaries.

 

Protecting the Church with the Right  Insurance and Policies

The board took action to have our C.F.O. remind churches to list their Annual Conference and the F.M.C.N.A. as “additional insureds” on their liability insurance policies.  This should not add any cost to your insurance, and will protect your Conference and the whole church, should someone sue a local church and also name the Conference and F.M.C.N.A. in a law suit.  Please be sure your church policy includes this important verbiage.

 

We adopted a formal Sexual Harassment Policy and have sent it to all Superintendents, asking them to consult laws in their own states before posting, but then including the policy in the Manual of each Conference’s M.E.G. board.

 

General Conference, 2011

We spent time discussing a proposal from the Board of Bishops to make our next General Conference more a focus on strategic ministries and less a business meeting focused on changing verbiage in the Book of Discipline.  The Board of Bishops will bring a formal recommendation at our fall meeting.  Meanwhile, if you’d like a copy of their proposal, just contact your Bishop.  They – and we – seek your input on this and other matters. 

 

 

Thank you…

for the sacrificial work we know you do to grow Christ’s kingdom!  If you’re receiving this letter, you are one of the leaders of our church.  It’s our desire to keep you fully informed of actions taken by the church on a national level.  But more than that, it’s our desire that you know how deeply we value the work done at the front lines of ministry.  The first and foremost role of the Free Methodist denomination is to support the local church in making disciples, and to facilitate the growth of God’s kingdom, one soul at a time. 

 

Thank you for fighting the good fight and running the race to win the prize to which God has called us!