I have faithfully supported the church over many years and continue to do so. Recently I have seen that our pastor has had another church added to his already heavy load, and have heard that his car mileage reimbursement has been lowered, among other things.
I am wondering if these cuts are because headquarters is spending a higher percentage of my tithes and offerings in Pasadena instead of here in the local churches where it is needed?
No, the opposite is the case: A greater percentage of your tithes and offerings is being spent directly and indirectly on the local ministers and churches than before. The reason for the heavier workload and other cuts in local expenses is that, as shown above, our income has dropped almost 44 percent from last year. Even though headquarters has cut its expenses far more than it has cut field expenses, the lowered income means it is impossible to shield the local churches from some cuts.
The accompanying pie charts on page 15 make this plain. Shown here are the actual expenses by category for the years of 1986 (10 years ago) and 1995 (last year) and the so-far actual and projected expenses for 1996 (this year).
Although names of various church functions and affiliated operations have changed over the years, they have been given their current labels for clarity. From the chart it is obvious that (1) a greater percentage of money goes to the support of the congregations than a decade ago, and (2) that more is going (percentage wise) to the local churches this year than last.
The only way this has been possible with the falling income of recent years has been to cut headquarters expenses at a greater rate than field expenses.
Notice also a few more things. In 1996 the church will spend essentially zero on Ambassador Foundation, due largely to the discontinuance of the headquarters concert series by Mr. Tkach Sr. It was discontinued precisely because it took valuable money away from the field congregations.
Also, you will see a great drop in Media Operations (which until PTM was formed this year constituted the media areas of the church). Not only has the percentage being spent in Pasadena on media dropped considerably, it is our goal to eventually help make PTM more and more self supporting by selling its products. This will allow more monies to go for local needs.
In addition, when the headquarters facility sells, we expect our facility expenses to drop to only about 1 to 2 percent per year, which will in turn increase the percentage for field churches. In fact, this is one of the primary reasons our facility is being sold: to reduce overhead so that less money is spent on headquarters facilities that could be spent on field church expenses.
Another thing should become clear here. Two of the largest non-local church expense categories are Ambassador University (AU) and PTM, but even they are each only a small percentage of the income.
Even more importantly, both AU and the PT have a long tradition of serving the church. AU has provided, for example, most of the field ministers for the last 50 years.
The media (now PTM) have been, until recently with our new emphasis on local evangelism, the most important method of preaching the gospel. Now and for the foreseeable future, our media entity, PTM, will provide the collective mass media outreach that has always been an important part of our church mission.
We are proud of the magazine and all our media products, and by using a small part of the income to support the media ministry, we transcend the limits of our own local areas to preach the gospel.
In summary, the church is now spending a greater percentage than in recent church history on local church operations, and is doing so because of the importance of the local churches, members and ministry. Current plans call for increasing that percentage even more.
Recent cuts in ministers' expenses, although regrettable, have been made after larger cuts in headquarters expenses were made. Nonetheless such cuts were necessary because of the income loss of millions of dollars in recent years. Even that which doesn't go directly to the local churches goes mostly to important church projects such as media or the university.
In order to ensure strong local support, your continued and faithful contributions are necessary and appreciated.
Other questions will be answered in the future in this section. Some are: How the church is organized. How church assets are listed on the books. The nature of church bank accounts and how money is deposited and accounted for. Be sure to read this section of The Worldwide News each month.
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