Associated Baptist Press - 3/3/2008

Associated Baptist Press

March 3, 2008 (8-24)

IN THIS ISSUE:

Follow the money: Church budgets reveal priorities, but which ones?
Follow the money: Cash receipts present challenges for churches
Grassley targets ministries’ alleged abuse of tax laws
Circumcision: Cutting out the sign of the covenant?
Signs of stability in Kenya mean mission trips resume

Follow the money: Church budgets reveal priorities, but which ones?
By Ken Camp

DALLAS (ABP) -- Most observers of congregational life agree: A person can tell a lot about a church by looking at its budget. But exactly which conclusions can be drawn about a church’s priorities remains an open question.

“It’s a question I’ve raised with students in my classes for years,” said Bill Tillman, who teaches Christian ethics at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary. “The whole matter of economic and financial stewardship is such a vital part of the practice of the Christian life, whether for an individual, a family or a congregation.”

A church’s budget reflects its priorities. How much a church spends on ministries inside its walls and how much it devotes to ministries beyond itself offers one measure of those priorities, but Tillman warns against rushing to judgment.

“What happens always has to be held in tension and viewed in context,” he said. “For instance, we can’t say a church never should build a new facility. A new building may be what is needed in a particular community.”

At the same time, a church should ask whether its financial decisions are shaped more by biblical teachings or by cultural values, he stressed.

“The larger culture says we should spend money to make things comfortable for us,” Tillman said.

Churches should ask what lessons are being taught to families as they look at the congregation’s budget, he said. And church leaders should not shy away from talking about money.

“That conversation is difficult,” Tillman acknowledged. “One of my basic assumptions is that the world of money is one of the last points where conversion and redemption happen.”

Each church not only needs to keep in mind the legitimate needs of its own members but also extend its vision to include God’s work in the world at large, he said.

“It all should be qualified by the question of whether what we are doing is kingdom work,” Tillman said.

Members of Cross Lanes Baptist Church, near Charleston, W. Va., decided five years ago the best way they could do “kingdom work” is by devoting a larger percentage of undesignated offerings to mission work.

When Seth Polk arrived as pastor, the church gave 7 percent of undesignated receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program unified budget and 3 percent to its local association. Polk challenged the church to increase its mission-giving incrementally each year.

Now, Cross Lanes gives one-fourth of its undesignated receipts to missions -- 11 percent to the Cooperative Program, 4 percent to associational missions and 10 percent to other mission causes.

Those causes range from local benevolent ministries and church-starting initiatives to global initiatives like Children’s Emergency Relief International’s work in Transnistria and Moldova. Children’s Emergency Relief International is the global arm of Baptist Child and Family Services.

“We believe that as a church becomes more outwardly focused, God will bless that church at home,” Polk said.

While the church increased the percentage of offerings it devotes to missions and increased giving to seasonal missions offerings and world-hunger relief, it also entered a $3.5 million building campaign.

Cross Lanes, which leads the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists in total missions giving, has doubled in worship attendance and undesignated giving over the last five years.

“We want to focus on what really matters to God,” Polk said.

A clear focus and sense of purpose help a church make wise decisions when it develops its budget -- and make adjustments when receipts don’t match the budget, said Roger Hall, a retired chief financial officer and treasurer for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“A church needs to know its purpose, its goals and what it wants to accomplish. The budget is a plan of action to get there,” said Hall, who serves part-time as business administrator at First Baptist Church in Waxahachie, Texas.

No one-size-fits-all rules apply for all churches in terms of establishing percentages for different areas of the budget. Just adding a few of the often-cited maximum percentages for various categories -- 50 percent for personnel, 35 percent for debt service and 25 percent for administration -- makes the numbers already exceed 100 percent, he said.

“Take that approach, and ministry is often what gets crowded out,” he noted. And if ministry and missions are the professed focus of the church, the problem becomes apparent.

Trouble develops when a church fails to define its purpose, deviates from its purpose or neglects to follow proper procedures in making financial decisions, he said.

A church’s budget or finance committee should begin the budgeting process by reviewing historical records for past receipts and expenditures, he suggested. Then, the committee should look at other factors such as anticipated growth or decline as it considers what may be realistic giving goals for the upcoming year.

Next, Hall recommended, the committee that is working on the budget should announce its schedule of budget preparation to the church, solicit budget requests from staff and committee chairs, and set a budget hearing meeting to allow people who are making requests to present their rationale and prioritize their requests.

“The budget should not be a product of just one committee. It should not be the product of just the staff or pastor’s recommendations. It needs ownership by the entire congregation,” Hall said.

That sense of ownership grows out of communication each step of the way, not just from an annual vote in a church business meeting. And the congregation’s “buy-in” of the budget has both ethical and practical implications, he noted.

“When the budget is understood and owned by the congregation, members have a sense of rightness about it,” he said. “And if they feel like this is a good plan and they are confident in the processes, they are more apt to support it with their tithes and offerings.”

-30-

-- This is the first in a three-part series about church finances.

Follow the money: Cash receipts present challenges for churches
By Ken Camp


DALLAS (ABP) -- When it comes to church finances, donations in cash form present one of the greatest challenges for churches, experts say.

Roger Hall, a part-time business administrator for First Baptist Church in Waxahachie, Texas, said the biggest risk involves cash before it hits the books.

When handling cash receipts, churches should remember that there is safety in numbers, Hall said. Two or more people should monitor offerings when they are taken from the church’s sanctuary to the church office, two or more should count the cash, and two or more should take locked moneybags to the bank for deposit, he said.

“Have the counting committee members bonded as money handlers,” said Hall, the former chief financial officer and treasurer for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Hall also recommended a division of labor in legal and financial matters. Legal officers of the church like trustees should sign legal documents on behalf of the congregation. The treasurer should provide financial reports at church business meetings, work with the financial secretary on financial matters, and oversee independent audits.

The financial secretary’s handling of money should be limited, Hall said. Ideally, the job has only a few specific responsibilities: maintain accounting records; prepare checks for signatures from authorized individuals; prepare financial statements; maintain individual contribution records; handle payroll and reports; and oversee petty cash.

When it comes to cash disbursements, Hall offered several other recommendations:

-- Use only church-approved bank accounts.

-- Have all checks signed by two approved parties, and designate back-up signers for when the principal signers are unavailable.

-- Use only pre-numbered checks.

-- Do not sign blank checks or make checks payable to “cash.”

-- Have approved invoices or documents available to review at the time checks are signed.

-- Reconcile bank accounts monthly. That task should be performed by a person other than the individual who prepares the checks.

-- Make sure checks are made out to approved accounts from which authorized funds are available.

Ultimately, Hall said, churches should keep in mind a clear sense of purpose: “to see that resources are handled properly, ensure accountability, and keep the church family informed.”

-30-

-- This story is the second of a three-part series on church finances.

Grassley targets ministries’ alleged abuse of tax laws
By Robert Marus

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Sen. Chuck Grassley insists he’s not trying to impose his Baptist theology on Pentecostal and Charismatic ministries; he simply wants them to obey the tax laws.

The Iowa Republican has drawn fire for using his position as ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee to investigate six ministries -- most of them embracing so-called “prosperity gospel” theology -- for their financial habits.

The ministries had already drawn scrutiny from former followers and media outlets for allegedly inappropriate spending habits. In an echo of the televangelist scandals of the late 1980s, the charges include using ministry funds to purchase private jets, multi-million dollar homes and a $23,000 marble-topped chest.

Grassley’s office sent letters to the ministries Nov. 6 asking them for information on their receipts, expenditures and holdings.

“The allegations involve governing boards that aren’t independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls Royces,” he said at the time. “I don’t want to conclude that there’s a problem, but I have an obligation to donors and the taxpayers to find out more. People who donated should have their money spent as intended and in adherence with the tax code.”

Grassley set a Dec. 6 deadline for response. While all of the ministries produced statements saying they complied with all tax laws, only the St. Louis-area Joyce Meyer Ministries provided the information Grassley sought.

Benny Hinn Ministries provided information Feb. 25, but Grassley's office said it would take time to look through the information and determine if it satisfied the senator's request.

At a Feb. 1 press conference following his appearance at a Baptist meeting in Atlanta, Grassley said his office planned to send a second round of letters to the ministries that were not cooperating, asking again for the information and threatening further action. However, the senator said at the time, “it would be a while before I would think about a subpoena.”

But leaders of several of the targeted organizations have vowed to fight Grassley, with some even going so far as to say they’d go to jail rather than answer a congressional subpoena.

“You can go get a subpoena, and I won’t give it to you,” said Texas-based evangelist Kenneth Copeland at a January pastors’ conference. “It’s not yours, it’s God’s and you’re not going to get it, and that’s something I’ll go to prison over. So, just get over it. ... And if there’s a death penalty that applies, well, just go for it.”

Copeland’s remarks were taped and posted on the video-sharing site YouTube, as well as reported by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.

Copeland and other targeted evangelists have said the investigation is violating their religious freedom. While most nonprofits organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code have to file information about receipts and expenditures with the Internal Revenue Service, churches do not.

Religious organizations under investigation might be able to claim a First Amendment violation based on a theory of excessive entanglement in church affairs or discrimination based on religion -- if they can show they were targeted on the basis of their religious beliefs, said Holly Hollman, general counsel with the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

“Of course, the stated purpose of the investigation is congressional oversight for the tax laws that govern nonprofit entities. The First Amendment certainly does not provide a blanket exemption from the tax laws that govern nonprofits, including many religious entities,” she added.

Grassley stressed he is not targeting churches per se but simply investigating whether they comply with laws that apply to them.

“Here’s the bottom line: The tax laws that apply to nonprofits, there’s no difference between those tax laws as a nonprofit or ABC church as a nonprofit,” he said at the Atlanta news conference, adding that the only difference between the Red Cross and a church is that churches don’t have to report in the same way to the IRS.

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who is close to Copeland, has also criticized the investigation. In an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, the former Baptist pastor said it was “a little chilling” to him.

“Is Congress going to start going after nonprofit organizations?” he asked. “And if so, are they going to do all nonprofits? Are they going to start looking at [liberal group] MoveOn.org?”

But Grassley has repeatedly investigated secular nonprofits, including the Nature Conservancy and the Red Cross. At the press conference, he said he has almost always gotten cooperation from nonprofits whose finances he’s investigated.

“Except for Jack Abramoff and his nonprofits -- and he’s in prison now -- every time I asked nonprofits for information, I got it,” he said, referring to the disgraced former GOP lobbyist.

A former religious adviser to President Bush has said Pentecostals and charismatics view the investigation as an assault by more mainstream evangelicals like Grassley -- potentially driving a wedge between Republicans and part of their conservative Christian base.

Doug Wead, in a Feb. 16 Des Moines Register story, said, “the Grassley probe, by the time it is full-blown and the media does its job of attacking these ministries, will have Pentecostals feeling demeaned and helpless and dirty and targeted.”

Wead, a former board member of one of the targeted ministries, said the investigation would cause Pentecostals to feel that the media had been “used by a Baptist to settle a score.” In a blog entry, he accused Grassley and other mainstream evangelicals of elitism in pursuing the investigation.

Grassley, for his part, has repeatedly denied a theological agenda in the investigation.

“I’m not interested in what they’re preaching; they can call their gospel anything they want to,” he said in Atlanta. “This nonprofit investigation is nothing about Pentecostalism. … It’s about obeying the tax laws and being a trustee of the money of the people that contribute.”

He’s gotten some backing from at least one prominent charismatic source. Lee Grady, editor of the flagship magazine for charismatic and Pentecostal Christians in the United States, used his February column to call on such ministries to be transparent.

“Perhaps the Lord is offended that our beloved gospel of prosperity has created a cult of selfishness,” he wrote in Charisma magazine. “If so, our best response is to open our account ledgers and welcome correction.”

-30-

-- This story is the third of a three-part series on church finances.

Circumcision: Cutting out the sign of the covenant?
By Hannah Elliott

NEW YORK (ABP) -- The foundational symbol of God’s ancient covenant with his people is getting a lot less common in the United States, but medical and theological debates still rage about the propriety of circumcision.

Recent legal battles over whether parents can mandate circumcision for their children and new medical findings regarding the relative merits and risks of the practice have given parents reason to pause when it comes to deciding the fate of their son’s most sensitive organ. The debate, although originating in the religious realm, now deals mainly with social mores and the latest scientific consensus.

At the height of circumcision’s popularity in the mid-20th century, 90 percent of American males were circumcised. But the rate in the United States has declined steadily since the 1970s, according to the National Hospital Discharge Survey and other health organizations. In 2005, roughly 80 percent of all U.S. males were circumcised. That percentage is likely to decrease in the future, as recent annual statistics show that only 56 percent of male babies born in America are being circumcised.

Some Baptists who once understood the procedure to be an American standard rooted in biblical tradition are now taking a second look at it.

Catherine Bell did just that when she decided not to circumcise her son Nicolas, now 4. She had remained undecided about the procedure prior to her delivery, but at the hospital, when she happened to hear some recently cut babies crying, she opted out.

“My reasoning was, I just didn’t see the point,” said Bell, who attends First Baptist Church in Paragould, Ark. “I know there’s a very small risk of things going wrong, but why do it if you don’t have to?”

She’s not alone. According to Jennifer Lusk, a registered nurse in the pediatric urology department at Houston’s Texas Children’s Hospital, ever-increasing numbers of expectant mothers are questioning the practice.

“It used to be that people would come in and say, ‘We want this done!’ Now it’s like, ‘We’ve done a lot of reading, the older kids are circumcised and my husband is circumcised, but … I’m not sure if we have to do this,’” Lusk said. “More people are figuring out that they don’t have to. They’re starting to ask questions about it.”

In some areas, it’s a slow change. Bell said Nicolas is a minority in their small city -- as far as she knows, he is the only boy with an intact foreskin in the two pre-schools he’s attended. And family members, she said, “laid it on thick” when they heard Bell and her husband, Jerry, decided not to have their son snipped.

Many of her friends are curious about her decision to forego the operation, she said, adding that ignorance is the main factor in the public’s reticence to accept it as “normal.”

“People think it’s unusual because of a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about why it’s even done,” she said. “People just do it because it’s what everybody else does.”

Everybody here, that is. Only 30 percent of males worldwide are circumcised, according to the World Health Organization. The procedure is most prevalent in Muslim countries, Israel, the United States, the Philippines and South Korea. Various tribes in Africa also use the practice, sometimes as a counterpart to female circumcision.

Though not mentioned in the Quran, the practice is discussed in the secondary collection of Islamic holy writings known as the Hadith, and Muslim scholars still debate whether it is mandatory or merely recommended.

And while most Christians associate circumcision with Abraham’s Genesis-based covenant with God, it was prevalent in the ancient world well before then, according to Jim Nogalski, a professor of Old Testament at Baylor University.

“Circumcision in the Middle East was a fairly common practice,” he said. “There are varying versions of where it came from and who did it first. Prisoners are often depicted naked [in ancient art], so you get a certain sense that there were circumcised people.”

Egyptians slit the foreskin and let it hang, and the Hebrews removed it entirely, Nogalski said. In each case of circumcision in ancient tribes, the modification was designed to ward off some form of evil, to act as a fertility rite of marriage or to mark a certain covenant.

After the Greeks conquered the known world, however, trends changed. The Greeks greatly admired the human form, had no problem with public nudity and considered circumcision to be mutilation of the body. The taboo against circumcision became so great that Jews were not allowed to participate in the Greek world’s (clothes-free) gymnasiums, and some underwent reconstructive surgery or attached copper weights to the remnants of the foreskin in an effort to stretch it back to its original size.

Among the earliest Christians, circumcision became a topic of heated debate. Paul and a faction of the ancient church known as the Judaizers debated the relevance of the procedure in light of the New Covenant. Some thought that in order to be Christian, a man had to be Jewish, which meant being circumcised, Nogalski said. Others thought no one should be circumcised against his will.

A third group, described mostly in the books of Luke and Acts, believed that Jews, but not Gentiles, who became Christians should be circumcised. A fourth group, most notably in Ephesians, believed a proper reading of Scripture showed that literal circumcision was no longer expected for anyone, Nogalski said.

Like their ancient counterparts, modern Jews attach significant symbolism to the circumcision ceremony, called a brit milah or bris. For Jews worldwide, it is one of the fundamental ways to identify with their faith.

A mohel is a Jewish leader specially trained to conduct the circumcision ceremony. New Jersey rabbi Mark Cooper, a Jerusalem-trained mohel, said circumcision celebrates the vitality of the Jewish tradition and expresses hope and confidence in the future of the faith.

“The ceremony is a covenant ceremony, and it serves the purpose of formally welcoming the child into the people of Israel with God,” said Cooper, who is a fifth-generation mohel.

The ceremony also serves the purpose of celebrating parenthood and committing to raise the child in the Jewish faith, said Cooper, who performs several circumcisions a month. It is not unlike a baby-dedication service for Baptists or an infant baptism for other Christians.

But while matters of faith and tradition dictate circumcision for Jewish males, social norms and the medical community have largely dictated its prevalence for non-Jewish Americans.

Experts in sexually transmitted infections called for universal circumcision as early as 1914, but the practice among Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the United States gained momentum in the 1930s from obstetricians and gynecologists who touted the medical advantages of the operation.

Most medical books around that time began to prescribe circumcision to relieve conditions ranging from epilepsy to chronic masturbation. And many thought circumcision led to improved personal hygiene.

What’s more, in the 1950s, American insurance and welfare programs began paying for the procedure, which removed any financial burden from having it done, noted Robert Darby, an Australian medical historian who maintains the site www.historyofcircumcision.com.

The U.S. military was another important influence, according to Darby. During World War I, the military circumcised adult soldiers and sailors in order to make them less susceptible to diseases. Then, he said, when the fathers returned home, they approved the practice for their sons.

Indeed, several current medical studies seem to echo circumcision proponents who say it helps prevent urinary-tract infections, penile cancer and HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

In 1989, a circumcision task force from the American Academy of Pediatrics justified the practice in part by citing circumcised males’ lower incidence of penile cancer. And in 2006, the National Institutes of Health released a report saying circumcised adult men may be half as likely to contract the AIDS virus through heterosexual intercourse as their uncircumcised counterparts. Other clinical trials in the 1980s cited a reduced risk as high as 60 percent.

Women also are protected by male circumcision, according to the November 2007 issue of BioEssays. Australian medical professor Brian Morris said that for women, circumcision of the male partner provides more than five times’ greater protection from cervical cancer and chlamydia, which can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and ectopic pregnancy.

However, a number of circumcision opponents have become increasingly vocal against the practice, which they consider unnecessary at best and mutilation at worst.

There are several anti-circumcision organizations, including one called Jews Against Circumcision. Circumcision opponents say the procedure causes extreme pain, decreases sensitivity during sex, and produces long-term psychological and sexual trauma. They also say parents have no right to make a lifelong decision for their young son, especially when the procedure risks complications like profuse bleeding and infection.

Others wonder about the economic side of the practice -- doctors push it, they say, because they get paid for performing a relatively uncomplicated procedure. And discarded foreskins are often sold for use in private bioresearch labs, the pharmaceutical industry and even beauty products.

Lusk, the Texas Children’s Hospital nurse, agreed that there is no medical reason to perform a circumcision.

“It’s an option right when the baby is born -- it’s done only if the parents want it done,” she said.

Darby said the argument that circumcision prevents diseases -- such as penile cancer -- that can be spurred by poor penile hygiene is disingenuous. “No unbiased physician would recommend an uncalled-for, risky surgical interference for preventing an exceedingly rare and trivial disorder, for which ordinary cleanliness suffices. …. One may just as well advise the excision of earlaps, for they may possibly get sore.”

But he also mustered a moral argument. “Circumcision is based upon the erroneous principle that boys … are so badly fashioned by Creative Power that they must be reformed by the surgeon,” Darby wrote.

He added that circumcising boys to lessen the risk of sexually transmitted infections could have the unintended consequence of encouraging promiscuity in circumcised young men. “The plea that this unnatural practice will lessen the risk of infection to the sensualist in promiscuous intercourse is not one that our honorable [medical]profession will support. Parents, therefore, should be warned that this ugly mutilation of their children involves serious danger, both to their physical and moral health.”

American medical institutions have taken more of a neutral stance on the issue. In 1997, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reclassified neonatal circumcision from a “routine” to an “elective” procedure.

Since then, 16 states have stopped including circumcisions in Medicaid plans, with more considering the option.

Texas Children’s Hospital offers the procedure as an option for parents, unless there are conflicting medical issues that require it. Typically, children under 10 pounds and one month old undergo an injection of local anesthetic and are given a sugar-soaked pacifier to suck on during the procedure, Lusk said. Others receive general anesthesia and get the operation done in a clinic.

The wounds (having been wrapped in gauze and petroleum jelly) usually heal within one month, she said.

Still, as a new mother, Bell couldn’t bear to think of her son undergoing the cut -- and she may be ahead of her time.

“It’s weird for me now to see boys who are circumcised,” she said. “Why cut on something you don’t need to cut on?”

-30-

Signs of stability in Kenya mean mission trips resume
By Analiz González


NAIROBI, Kenya (ABP) -- The signing of a peace agreement in Kenya -- and reports of stabilization throughout the area -- have led Buckner International to announce it will resume sending volunteer mission groups to Kenya this summer.

“This is a result of our U.S. missions staff listening closely to our staff in Kenya,” said Ken Hall, president of the Texas-based Baptist charity. “It’s an answer to prayer that Kenyans have recognized the need for peace and that our teams will be able to be the hands of Christ to a country that needs healing.”

The decision opens the opportunity for local-church missions teams previously scheduled to send volunteers to Kenya through Buckner to resume their trips. It will primarily affect summer trips planned by four churches: Valley Ranch Baptist Church in Coppell, Texas; First Baptist Church of Amarillo, Texas; Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, and Memorial Baptist Church in Columbia, Mo.

“We’ve been in constant contact over the last month with our Kenya staff, and things are much more stable now,” said Randy Daniels, vice president of global initiatives at Buckner. “A peace accord was signed … and all Kenya is celebrating. They anticipate stability, continued growth. The climate has dramatically changed over the last few weeks.”

Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, mediated a power-sharing agreement between rival political factions in Kenya after riots broke out following a disputed presidential election. President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga agreed to the peace accord Feb. 28.

Buckner’s reinstatement of the trips will be an encouragement to the Kenyan children the organization serves as well as to its staff, Daniels said.

“Not going over there would be akin to not seeing your family for a year,” he said. “When Kenyans see us in their country, it reassures our staff that they have our support. We are with them, walking beside them. We won’t abandon them. I mean, we weren’t going to put people at risk, and they understood that in Kenya, but they will be celebrating our presence now.”

-30-

-- Analiz González is a staff writer for Buckner International.