Churches have until December 31 to submit final Ministry Share remittances for 2024, and any Ministry Shares received in the new year will be applied to 2025.

JAMES DEATON
Content Editor

At the heart of The United Methodist Church is a connectional ministry that grants us the opportunity to reach people for Jesus Christ all around the world in a way we could not do alone. And this mission and ministry could not happen without the generous hearts of churches giving to uplift it all financially through Ministry Shares.

The Michigan Conference’s Treasury Office kindly requests that local churches submit their final Ministry Share remittances earmarked for 2024 before Christmas so that staff members have sufficient time to process payments.

Payments must be received by the Treasury Office by December 31, 2024, to ensure there is time to issue closing income statements and for the conference to turn in final apportionments to the general church. Any payments received after that date will go toward 2025 Ministry Shares. In short, remittances are attributed to the year they are received.

Churches are to mail a check made payable to “Michigan Conference” to the following address, which is the Michigan Conference’s Ministry Shares Lockbox:

Conference Ministry Shares
P.O. Box 72472
Cleveland, OH 44192-0002

Rooted in our polity, connectional support begins at the local church level as United Methodist churches give a portion of their offerings each year to the Michigan Conference. Seventy-five percent of that money stays here in Michigan, with 25% passed on to the general church. Review this handbook to learn about Ministry Shares and how they’re distributed.

Here are four examples of Ministry Shares supporting ministry through our annual conference:

• • Ministry Shares help fund events like Advocacy Day (read about the impact), where United Methodists put their faith into action in Lansing to support state legislation for the greater good.
  • Ministry Shares go to support racial-ethnic church plants such as Semilla Centro, which ministers to the Hispanic community living in the Paw Paw area (read about the impact).
  • Ministry Shares went toward a $5,000 grant to help purchase two vans for EngageMI Ministry Partner Red Bird Mission in southeastern Kentucky (read about the impact). Several Michigan United Methodist churches made a plan to make this happen.
  • Ministry Shares sent our Michigan Conference delegation to the historic 2020/2024 General Conference in Charlotte, NC, where significant decisions were made that will shape the denomination’s future (read about the impact here and here).

Rev. Don Gotham, the newly elected president of the Michigan Conference Council on Finance and Administration, wants to remind church leaders of their responsibility to make sure their congregations are working to submit their Ministry Shares by the end of the year.

He also acknowledges the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic put on church attendance and giving and how some congregations have been unable to rally back. Regarding the impact of disaffiliation, he notes that it’s not as simple an answer as one would think. Some churches that disaffiliated were previously very faithful in paying Ministry Shares, while others that have remained United Methodist are still paying at very low rates.

This trend is concerning, but Gotham emphasizes the importance of local church leadership in turning around the financial situation of churches, citing his own experiences where he worked with churches he has pastored to find creative solutions so they could pay their Ministry Shares.

“In two of my previous appointments,” notes Gotham, “when I arrived, they were not paying at 100%, so I worked with leaders to come up with a strategy by which we could make that happen. And they dug a little deeper and made it a priority. It’s a matter of leadership making a culture shift within their congregation, emphasizing the greater impact we can have together.”

According to Chief Financial Officer Angie Anger, the total pay-in rate for Ministry Shares across the Michigan Conference as of October 31, 2024, is 55%. Her office has collected $5.1 million toward the $9.3 million annual budget for 2024 approved by members of the Michigan Annual Conference. As a matter of comparison, Anger notes that at the end of October last year, they had received $5.6 million, which is half a million ahead of this year’s collection.

This pay-in rate is based on 562 United Methodist congregations that pay Ministry Shares to the Michigan Conference. Satellite churches, mission churches, and new church starts are exempt from paying Ministry Shares. There are 21 such congregations in the Michigan Conference.

Anger encourages congregations to consider the repercussions of not paying their Ministry Shares. “It doesn’t just affect us,” she explains, “because it affects our ability to meet our annual conference obligations to the national church. So, there’s a big ripple effect.”

She also notes, “We are looking at managing our budget as tightly as we can. We continue to get increased requests for conference programming and support, but we won’t be able to meet those ministry requests if Ministry Shares don’t come in as needed.”

The Council on Finance and Administration, in collaboration with the Conference Leadership Council and the bishop, is preparing the 2026 budget, which will be presented to lay and clergy members in advance of the 2026 Michigan Annual Conference. Last year, the 2025 budget was reduced by 8.4% from the previous year to $8.5 million.

Last Updated on December 10, 2024