Millennium Development Goals
A proposal for St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church
2106 E. Thompson Rd., Indianapolis, Ind.
July 18, 2006 (and
as amended)
The MDG were passed by member nations of the
United Nations compact, including the United States, and adopted by the 74th
General Convention of the Episcopal Church (2006), and the Diocesan Convention
of the Diocese of Indianapolis in 2005. Seventy-one of the Church’s 110
dioceses have signed to follow the pledge.
All
parishes are asked to participate in their budgeting processes to designate .7
percent. The money need not be new money or be passed through or passed on to
the Diocese or the national church organization; the Diocese of Indianapolis
has identified money already being spent in the category of support for world
relief. In the case of individuals, parishes, dioceses, institutions and
national governments, new (additional) money need not be given, but present
monies should be directed specifically toward the MDGs.
The Goals:
1. Eradicate poverty and
hunger (this means extreme
poverty, typified by the plight of people — about 22,000 daily in the world —
who go for one day without a single meal), by providing food for their daily
meals. St. Timothy’s can help by
immediately raising parish and parishioner funds for the start-up of our
Gleaners Food Bank satellite distribution point — to purchase food. The
goal should be $500 in the remainder of this fiscal year.
2. Achieve universal primary
education. Indiana’s
Constitution provides for free and universal education to all children through
high school. In Indiana, we lament that graduation rates and literacy are a
disgrace, but in Brazil, site of our companion Diocese of Brasilia, for
instance, more than 17 million people are illiterate (about 13 percent).
Several parishes in our Diocese support after school tutoring programs in
Brasilian parishes (less than $250 per child per year, to augment the daily
requirement of only 4 hours schooling per day). Elsewhere in the world,
education not only is unbudgeted, it is not required. St. Timothy’s can help by giving $250 annually to the after school
tutoring program in the Diocese of Brasilia to help one child for one academic
year. Additionally, St. Timothy’s parish can help by designating $100 in
scholarship funds to St. Richard’s Epsicopal Day School in Indianapolis per
year; St. Richard’s students come from all economic strata, including the
inner-city portion of Marion County, with scholarship help for a majority of
students. The goal should be $350 for the remainder of this fiscal year.
3. Promote gender equality and
empower women. In the
United States, women follow men in many critical areas of research medicine,
medical service delivery, society, employment and education. In the rest of the
world, women are increasingly the target of disgraceful violence, factional
religious wars and unjust laws (including forced sterilization, birth limit,
rape and sexual mutilation).
St.
Timothy’s can help by specifically raising funds from many sources (including
the Diocese, Episcopal clergy-friends, and other parishes) to fund a battery of
free health screenings to invite women to its annual Old Time Jamboree and
Health Fair, with a significant tithe of vendor fee collections to fund this
initiative and provide matching funds from “other” sources. The goal should be
$500 this year.
4. Reduce child mortality.
St.
Timothy’s can help by actively raising funds from parishioners to support a
variety of state-supported programs, including non-profit foster parent and
adoptive family organizations. The goal should be $240 a year.
5. Improve maternal health.
St.
Timothy’s can help intentionally by purchasing vouchers for Vitamin B shots and
other pre-natal care medications at local health clinics, designated for
pregnant women in ZIP codes contiguous to our parish. The goal in 2007 should
be $240.
6. Combat HIV and AIDS,
malaria and other diseases.
St. Timothy’s should designate a
financial gift to help ease the diptheria outbreak in our companion Diocese of
Bor in The Sudan of Africa. The goal should be $100.
7. Ensure environmental
sustainability.
St. Timothy’s can help by designating a
tithe of .7 percent from the sale of any excess church land as a gift to the
Indiana Heritage Trust, a non-profit state-sponsored plan to set aside land for
natural resource protection, recreation and cultural heritage. So far nearly
40,000 acres has been preserved statewide, but more than 100,000 acres has been
identified for such protection.
8. Create a global partnership
for development with a focus on debt, aid and relief.
St.
Timothy’s can help by educating parishioners and the community about these
issues, first by purchasing education materials available in the non-profit and
academic community.
Proposal:
1.) St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church pledges .7 percent of its annual budget to
the eight Millennium Development Goals and asks its parish households to give
likewise. 2.) Additionally, the parish leadership establishes the last Sunday
after Pentecost and other days as “days of fasting, prayer and giving toward global
reconciliation and the Millennium Development Goals,” as directed by the
Episcopal Church’s 74th General Convention. Gifts can be designated
for specific proposals, or given through regular Good Sam, ERD or UTO
envelopes. The target date for participation is by July 7, 2007.
Action:
The budget committee should identify a .7 percent goal in its 2007 budget
planning to direct fundraising and parish gifts from established funds for the
Millennium Development Goals.
Plan:
1.) Raise funds from individuals to support the Millennium Development Goals in
the above areas; intentionally support the goals with a budget section entitled
“Global Reconciliation/Millennium Development Goals.” 2.) Identify UTO, Good
Sam and ERD receipts and budget for them in the new budget section. 3.) Achieve
.7 percent of parish resources to give toward the goals and actively ask
parishioners to give .7 percent of their income directly toward the goals or
directly to the parish for UTO, Good Sam and ERD collections. 4.) Prepare study
guides, homilies and pamphlets/mailings to promote the goals and ask for
intentional giving.
It
should be stressed that there is no provision in any of this to require
additional funds and that in many cases, individuals, parishes and dioceses
find that they already are giving .7 percent in the category of support to
others.
Starting
this process should begin with 1.) an education plan for the entire parish,
perhaps by seeking a Diocesan staff person or clergy person to facilitate a
parish session. Deacon involvement could be key to adding energy. 2.)
Additionally, the Vestry should form a sub-committee of the budget committee to
examine parish resources and advise the budget committee on how to plan for
intentional giving and re-alignment of the budget priorities. 3.) This all can
begin with adoption of this or a similar document and a pledge to follow the
Millennium Development Goals.
Offering budget was $45,916.68
and the actual receipt was $44,115.81.
The
source was pledges, plate offerings, holiday offerings, initial offerings and
payment from prior year’s pledge.
.7
percent equals $321.416 of the budgeted receipts.
Projected annual cost of the above proposals (Gleaners Food Bank, after school tutoring in Brasilia and St. Richard’s Episcopal Day School, health fair tests, reduce child mortality, well mother, disease prevention) is $1,930, or about 4 percent of our budget.
How can we afford to give to others when we are,
ourselves, members of an aided parish? St. Timothy’s is
approximately 6 years through a 10-year aid program with the Diocese, currently
receiving $1,416.67 per month.
Some have reflected on this as collection on our insurance policy — we were a financially strong parish for many years, and paid excess funds, so now we’re just collecting our due. At the same time, we’ve been reeling from declining membership, lack of a fulltime rector and perceived disinterest from the Diocese.
Some people don’t want to give money to the
national church, because they disagree with its priorities, politics or
policies. Can we designate money that we raise and give away?
Our monthly liability to the Diocese is $1,136.67. It’s an amount we can’t not
pay and it’s not just a “wash” in which we deduct our obligation to the Diocese
from the Diocesan monthly aid check.
The
Diocese of Indianapolis has its own obligation to the national church, but has
pledged to support the MDGs, setting aside .7 percent of its budget.
We do designate money that we raise and give away already, for the UTO
and the Episcopal Fund for Human Need, given regularly through collection
envelopes. Last year, St. Timothy’s was the only parish in the Diocese to
receive a grant from the national UTO fund, in support of our food pantry
($10,000). The Epsicopal Fund for Human Need (now called Episcopal Relief and
Development) supports freshwater projects throughout the world and disaster and
disease relief programs, such as helping in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast
region.
In
our parish lore, our budget/accounting software has a glitch that will not
allow us to delete inactive funds, so regularly our budget reflects “0” amounts
in items that we don’t fund or spend from. So while we show lines for the
Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief, EFHN and Conner House, those lines
are phantoms.
We aren’t intentionally budgeting for a rector. How
can we give for relief of the world’s problems?
Perhaps we feel hopeless. Perhaps we’re waiting on leadership from the Diocese,
or a solution from the heavens. It’s hard to take responsibility for operating
the parish; it means a lot of sacrifices from a lot of people, giving with love
and a hope that it will somehow help.
Meanwhile,
we’re still members of the worldwide Anglican Communion, Episcopalians in the
Diocese of Indianapolis. Both our helplessness and hopelessness and our
identity as Episcopalians are true statements of who we are. But we do have
help and hope from our Lord, Jesus Christ, whose church and world we are
responsible for.
Budgeting with intention for the hiring of a rector
(sometime) and designating .7 percent of our resources for the Millennium
Development Goals will both strengthen our faith and challenge it. Both / and,
not either / or.
We are getting stronger week by week.
Our weekly worship together is our attempt to gather strength to serve.
The move from two services to one has
strengthened our time together by helping us see each other’s needs as we pray
and take Communion together.
Several infant Baptisms this year have
brought together family members from near and far, sometimes giving us the
joyful presence of 70-75 people for divine worship. Somehow, new soldiers are
joining in the battle for good, and God’s Kingdom is being won prayer by
prayer.
We sometimes weary of having so many
different priests’ faces (about 20 in the past nine years) in front of us and
we long for stability, but perhaps the rotating cast of characters serving the
pulpit position is God’s response to our need.
Let’s take some strength in our Church’s
motto, Jehova jireh — God will
provide, and go out to serve the world.