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[Back to index of December articles] Examining the diocesan budget By the Rev. Karla Woggon A friend once had the unenviable assignment of preaching a stewardship sermon on a Sunday when the Gospel reading was on the baptism of Christ. Searching for a textual crevice on which he could make a toehold, he came across the work of an interpreter who noted that at his baptism Jesus did not become something new; rather he realized what he always was - the son of God. There began his public life. Perhaps, at first blush, this does not seem the sort of insight that would lead people to reach for their checkbooks. But you can't make sensible stewardship commitments unless you have a sense of who you are - as an individual, and as a community - and what you are called to do. The recently completed review of Bishop John Chane's episcopate - dubbed the Three Years Out report - indicates there is strong support for many of the bishop's initiatives, as well as a craving for additional resources and training. Members of the diocese also expressed a lively interest in calling a second bishop - assisting or suffragan - to share Bishop Chane's burgeoning workload. Yet congregational support for the diocesan budget has remained flat for the last few years, despite the significant improvement and expansion of the services and programs offered by the diocesan staff. (For a closer look at the Three Years Out report, see the stories here.) We don't pretend to know how to reconcile an increased appetite for services with stagnant congregational giving. But perhaps there is additional wisdom in the Gospel on which our friend found himself preaching. The evangelist says there were witnesses at Jesus' baptism, people who presumably saw the sky open, the dove descending and heard the voice: "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." We do not expect this to happen at the vestry meeting when your parish decides whether to meet the minimum diocesan asking of 10 per cent of your normal operating revenues. (However, we are offering the canon to the ordinary to plead the diocesan case.) But we do expect you to wrestle faithfully with the same questions that must have plagued those along the Jordan that day. What is God doing here? What is my response? Those questions are as relevant when analyzing a budget as reading a page of Scripture. In considering your congregation's commitment to the diocese, we hope you will ask yourself whether diocesan ministry is a credible means of advancing the reign of God, whether it is worth the commitment that is being requested. We think it is. And while we are still working on the budget proposal that will be offered at the Diocesan Convention, the 2006 budget is likely to look much like its predecessor, meaning that we will spend almost all of our money on three functions: administration ($480,000), support of the national church ($670,000) and staff salaries and benefits ($2,581,000). These categories account for just over $4 million of our $4.51 million budget. Administration is perhaps the most difficult of these functions to bring alive. People imagine that churches are unfettered by earthly concerns. When they donate to a church, they like to believe that their gift is advancing the Gospel, or aiding the poor. This is why no one ever leaves a bequest to pay your parish's postage in perpetuity. Yet it is postage and Internet access that carry the message of Christ. It is the maintenance and utilities lines of parish and diocesan budgets that allow us to give hospitality to the poor and the stranger. It is that property insurance policy tucked away in a desk drawer or file cabinet that allows us to take ourselves seriously as stewards. God, as somebody other has said, is in the details. Even the seemingly trivial ones. Our diocese is part of the Episcopal Church, and through the church, a member of the Anglican Communion. In 2006, we propose to contribute $670,700 to the larger church's $51.2 million budget. Our church this year contributed roughly 30 percent of the £1.1m budget that sustained the Anglican Communion office. Some of this money is spent on exactly the same unglamorous administrative expenditures we make as a diocese. But much of it supports ministries like the office of the Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies, through which the church is coordinating a vigorous parish-based response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita; the work of Episcopal dioceses in Central America; the efforts of the Office of Government Relations, which makes our voice heard on Capitol Hill; and Episcopal initiatives in the fields of social justice, ecumenism and interfaith dialog. Visit the Episcopal Church's Web page (episcopalchurch.org) and explore the "A to Z directory" if you'd like a fuller sense of what our contributions to the church support, but be warned that the listings are six pages long. Our largest expenditure, as in most parishes and diocese, is on personnel - the bishop and his staff. There isn't room in this article to lay out the full scope of what they undertake on our behalf, and the fruits of their labors are not always obvious. If Amy Elliott of the communications department has redesigned your Web site, there it is, looking back at you from your computer. If Robert Tomlinson, the property manager, has introduced you to a sound, affordable contractor, the savings is sitting there in your checking account. But some work - with candidates for ordination, with search committees, with troubled congregations - is done in confidence, and other work, especially campus ministry, can go unnoticed by parishes not directly involved. Church House has attempted to trim expenses in this area by eliminating three positions. But participants in the Three Years Out review evinced little interest in deep staff cuts. They praised Paul Canady, our deputy on youth, affirmed the need for full time positions in Academics Ministries and in Deployment, and requested additional resources and training in the fields of congregational development and stewardship. Even departments whose work was not examined in detail (Communications, Information and Technology Services and Property Management) received favorable unsolicited reviews. Long term savings in this area are even less likely if the bishop responds to requests to call an assistant or a suffragan. Because our vision for what the diocese could be has developed more quickly than our ability to pay for it, we have been augmenting congregational giving with an infusion of more than $1 million each year from the earnings of the Soper Memorial trust. To balance the 2006 budget, we need parishes to increase their giving by 5 percent. To free up the Soper earnings for new initiatives, we need each parish to contribute approximately 11 percent of its normal operating income to the diocese. This will be an ongoing challenge for most of our parishes, including my own. But if we continue to claim that we want - even need - things that we are unwilling to pay for, we are not keeping faith with our shared vision of what the Diocese of Washington can be. So let us accept this challenge together, as beloved daughters and sons, and make our diocese one in which God is well pleased. The Rev. Karla Woggon, rector of St. Andrew's, College Park, is moderator of the Diocesan Council. [Back to index of December articles]
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