David Donnan

Chris Ritter is a gift to the Wesleyan/Methodist movement. His articles and time as a delegate have greatly served the Kingdom of God. He is a bright, intelligent, and spiritual leader. Personally, he has been very generous towards me with direct messages on social media over the years and even a recent phone call to discuss Global Methodism.

This is why it pains me to challenge a recent article he wrote. Although I take solace in challenging the idea, not the person.

Chris has an excellent blog called People Need Jesus. I highly recommend it. He recently wrote an article titled The Way to San Jose: Funding the Movement. This article discussed requiring clergy to move their tithe (or at least part of it) from the local church to the denomination. 

Funding ministry will be a vital component of the future of Methodism. Dictating for preachers to move their funds from the local church is a dangerous idea with potential to cause a mass exodus from the growing Global Methodist Church (GMC). 

Here are three reasons why this idea should go no further.

#1 Governing additional aspects of local church affairs runs against the spirit of the GMC.

We all have some level of trauma we have brought into our new denomination from our previous. Everyone is cautious about administrative overreach. As I have gone out to share with churches about the future of Methodism, I frequently remind them: the days of the Holy Spirit blowing from top down only are over. To paraphrase John 3:8, “the Spirit blows where it wants to.” 

Pastors should have the freedom to send their tithe where they feel led by God to send it. Churches and pastors should enjoy more autonomy on an issue like this, not less. We should also be weary of creating policies where there is no will or need for one.

#2 This will cause small churches to leave the GMC.

All churches have the ability to leave the GMC. This has been one of the strong selling points for churches joining. The threat of a large back door should make us all consider the reality of each decision. If a church decides to leave, we should thank them and celebrate them on their new journey. However, we do not want to create issues to make churches feel they need to leave.

In many small churches I have served I have been one of the top givers. Our family has consistently tithed ten percent at each church. 

Do we think any church would sacrifice one of their top ten givers to join any denomination? If not, do we think this will make them want to stay in any denomination?

#3 More funds are raised by vision not mandates.

Finally, the way for the GMC, each annual conference, and local church to grow funds for ministry is by demonstrating the value being added to the Kingdom. I have been blessed to serve in North America where many churches are blessed financially. My observations have been that individuals are far more generous when there is a vision for how the church will use their resources faithfully.

I applaud the South Georgia Conference of the Global Methodist Church leadership, especially President Pro Tem Rev. Jay Hanson. Our conference has set the required connectional giving at the annual conference level at zero (Chris does point this out in his article). This is a radical departure from the years of receiving letters notifying us how behind we are on apportionments. The days of district superintendents calling churches who already met their mandated giving to give even more to make up for other churches who are behind.

Time will tell if this radical experiment of faith will last. So far, we have been blessed by churches giving to the dynamic mission and ministry blowing fresh wind and fresh fire in our conference.

Conclusion

In fairness to Chris, he does share some objections to his idea. Again, I am grateful for his work but hope we move away from this idea of forcing clergy to take their tithe from the local church.