Money . . . It's a gas . . .

 so says the British band Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd is correct. Money fuels the work of the global United Methodist Church.

I want to share a segment of a lesson about UMC polity that pertains to the UMC's collection of money. 

The lesson is from the online laity course Life Together in the United Methodist Connection provided by Southwestern College, a United Methodist-affiliated university in Kansas.

"The United Methodist Church denominational budget is established at General Conference to cover the next four years, or 'quadrennium,' the normal period between General Conferences. 

This budget supports the seven 'general funds,' which are the World Service Fund, the Ministerial Education Fund, the Black College Fund, the Africa University Fund, the Episcopal Fund, the General Administration Fund and the Interdenominational Cooperation Fund.  

. . .

Your congregation’s apportionments, sometimes called mission shares, are its share of the annual conference’s share of the total of general church apportionments and its own annual conference apportionments.

The budget is apportioned, or divided, to U.S. annual conferences according to this formula: 'AC apportionment equals its total local church net expenditures times GC’s base rate'.

Net expenditures means what the AC’s churches spend, in total, after capital expenses, apportionments and benevolent giving." 

. . . 

So, the base rate passed at General Conference is the figure intended – and hoped! – to yield the total needed to fund the budget – and be something the AC’s and their churches can and will give."

Not every UMC congregation can give as much as the General Conference wants each congregation to give.

Is that a problem that the global UMC should worry about?

To answer that question, consider a particular incident recorded in the New Testament.

During that incident, Jesus instructed his disciples to provide a meal to 5,000 men.

The disciples initially responded to the instruction with worry. They worried about the resources that they did not have.

Then one of them pointed out the resources that they did have: 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread.

In the hands of mere sinners, those resources would not have been enough to feed 5,000 men.

However, those resources were placed in the hands of God-Incarnate.

Once the resources were in the hands of the Master, he made them enough to accomplish what he wanted accomplished.

I believe that, when we place the UMC's financial resources in the hands of the Master, he will do for the UMC what he did for those 5,000 men.

Sure, the UMC should strive to acquire financial resources without loading people down "with burdens they can hardly carry" (Luke 11:46).

However, to worry about "what financial resources that the UMC doesn't have" strikes me as contradicting what Jesus teaches in Matthew 6:25-34.

Yes, I could be mistaken about this issue. Still, I see no benefit to my congregation, my district and my annual conference if I were to worry about it.