Nashville, TN – The General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) reports that eighteen annual conferences in U.S. jurisdictions and ten central conference episcopal areas paid 100 percent of the general church apportionments for 2019.
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The annual conferences are: Alaska Missionary, Baltimore-Washington, California-Nevada, East Ohio, Greater New Jersey, Illinois Great Rivers, Iowa, New England, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma Indian Missionary, Oregon-Idaho, Pacific Northwest, Red Bird Missionary, Susquehanna, Tennessee, Upper New York, and West Virginia.
The central conference Episcopal areas are: Central and Southern Europe, Central Congo, Davao, East Congo, Eastern Angola, Eurasia, Germany, Liberia, Mozambique, and Nordic-Baltic. In 2018, eight Central Conference Episcopal areas paid 100% and twenty-six jurisdictional conferences paid 100%.
“In February of 2019, we widely shared that if there was no improvement in giving from what we were experiencing, by the end of February 2019, the collection rate would be approximately 70% and many ministries of the connectional Church would be adversely affected,” said Moses Kumar, General Secretary of GCFA. “We are grateful to God and celebrate with the conferences and Episcopal areas that have paid 100% of the general Church apportionments and bringing the collection rate to 84.8% for 2019. The collection rate was 90.02% for 2018. Because of their faithfulness, ministry throughout the world continues. It was no small task to reach these milestones and I am certain the beneficiaries of this giving – our colleges and universities, our missionaries, our ministries to local churches – will benefit greatly from this fruitful giving. Thank you.”
The GCFA Data Services Department has posted the most recent church membership statistics on the Service’s website, www.umdata.org. Information on membership and worship attendance by annual conference and other criteria can be found on the site. Most notably while membership trends continue slightly downward for the United States, membership in central conferences has increased. In the US, membership growth has increased for Hispanic and multi-racial/blended congregations. Part of the U.S. membership decline can be attributed to an aging population.
GCFA also released the tentative 2021 general Church apportionment schedule to annual conference treasurers on January 31. Acknowledging that decisions made by the General Conference may affect the currently proposed budget and the apportionments to annual conferences, GCFA projects a 15.79% reduction.