Jackie Bruchi
A Report From The Field From A Delegate To The Upper South Carolina Convention

The Diocese of Upper South Carolina has buckled under to repeated, passionate appeals from Bishop Dorsey Henderson to increase the giving to the national Episcopal Church to the full quota.

The current (2007) budget for the national Church is $272,974 and the diocese is 100% current in payments! The 2008 contribution to the national Church is budgeted to be $412,396. This is an increase of $139,422--51%.

Since the total increase in the budget, known as the "Statement of Mission," is only $75,935, the additional $63,487 will come from cuts in diocese spending (notably from budgeted support of mission churches). It should be added that the gain from selling the property and assets of a failed church-start are earmarked for any future church-starts. No such plans were mentioned in the convention.

The 2008 contribution to the national Church is 14.5% of the total budget. Church members can figure that this percent of what they send to the diocese will pass through to the national church. If I figure right, 2.6% of an individual's local church giving goes through to the national Church.

The Delegates to the annual convention met previously in five regional Convocations to make recommendations on the budget (Statement of Mission). There, they ranked the national Church 4th from the bottom in their "High" votes (not counting votes on individual mission churches) and second from the bottom in the "Low" votes (also not counting votes on individual mission churches). It was fifth from the bottom by total items. The Diocese's summary had the same result of fifth from the bottom out of 75 items. Certainly the support for the national church pledge in the convocation meetings was quite low -- but unfortunately the committee responsible for creating the diocesan budget ignored convocation input on a number of budget matters, including the national church pledge.

The only analysis I can suggest is that people voting in convention with brightly colored yes and no (high-visibility pink) cards under the eye of their clergy caved in to the Bishop's plea to let him take the full quota into his national meetings. The bishop was well aware of the problems that parishioners have with the national church pledge; he approached the microphone himself in a rare plea, to tell the delegates that he would not be well-respected by the national church if the full pledge were not made.

The question now is whether the rank and file members will catch this increase and respond with their checkbooks.


Looks as if some parishioners in Upper South Carolina may wish to check out the Affirmation of Faithful Stewardship.

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Posted October 30, 2007 at 5:13 am
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