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Mission Board Reacts to Ailing Economy

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In a move aimed at buttressing the mission of the church against the negative influences of a declining stock market, the General Board of Ministries today announced measures to reduce expenditures during these difficult economic times.

Those measures, including reductions in spending for office operations, materials and services; curtailment of staff travel, cutbacks in program expenses and a 20 percent reduction in executive, professional and support staff, were announced by General Secretary Randolph Nugent.

The austerity measures are expected to reduce the Board's annual spending by more than $6-million.

In a Monday afternoon meeting with the entire staff, Nugent expressed regret over program and staff reductions and explained that the economic challenges facing the Board require that such steps be taken.

Pointing out that the need is increasing even as funds available to fill the need are decreasing, Dr. Nugent said, "Unfortunately, we are victims of the same forces that are wreaking economic havoc on so many corporations and their employees, here in the United Statates and around the world."

The decline of the stock market has resulted in a loss of $23-million for the Board. While some market experts had forecast an upward trend after a short period of recession, experts now say the Sept. 11 disaster likely will result in a longer period of recession than had been anticipated.

Two years ago, when the stock market was at an all-time high, the Board dedicated millions of dollars in profits from investments to new mission initiatives. Now that the market is in serious and possibly sustained decline, the investment income that would have paid for those programs has diminished significantly or disappeared altogether.

As an example of the Board's ongoing financial obligations for new mission initiatives even in the face of declining income, Nugent discussed the "10-10-10" mission initiative. The program enables annual conferences to become involved in the selection of missionaries through new Conference Committees on Mission Personnel. The committees are charged with the task of identifying 10 people within their conferences with the gifts, graces, and call for mission service, identifying 10 mission placement sites within the conferences, and identifying 10 new covenant churches within the conferences.

Although the program has become very popular and has enabled hundreds of people to fulfill their call to mission, identification of the new covenant churches necessary to help support the missionaries has lagged. The Board now spends some $3.5 million per year on salaries and salary related costs for 10-10-10 missionaries and $140,000 per year for health and other benefits.

The Board, which supports 2,300 mission personnel serving in 71 countries, also had $8-million cut from its budget for this quadrennium by General Conference 2000.

Nugent said he was especially troubled to have to announce austerity measures at a time when people are still suffering the aftereffects of the terrorist attacks.

"The survivors of the attack have been hit in their wallets as well as in their psyches. Who would have ever thought that the stock market would be shut down for two days? But it was, and we have to deal with that. I would wish that we could respond to these economic pressures without being forced to cut even one of our valued staff members or even one of our vital mission programs, but we have found that we simply cannot."

October 8, 2001

General Board of Global Ministries
United Methodist Church
475 Riverside Drive - New York, New York 10115
1-800-UMC-GBGM