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Kentucky Tornado Relief

As you know (and many experienced) an E4 tornado hit western Kentucky last Friday night.

On Sunday, we gathered people through Zoom who were working on relief efforts (if you missed it, we apologize. We quickly announced this through our Pastor's Facebook group). This included Superintendent Ben Tolly from Gateway who heads up Men's Ministry International.

On Tuesday, Superintendent Ben and Pastor Roger Ryan from Fountain Square in Bowling Green KY and Pastor Scott Clark from Eagle Ridge Camp connected at the Campground and in Bowling Green to assess the damage there.

MMI donated chain saws, tarps and a generator to New South for relief efforts.

Other churches too have responded with efforts. I am including Wilmore FMC's response at the end of this Newsletter as a good example of best practices response for other churches. A team from Wilmore arrived at Eagle Ridge later this week.

The Red Cross contacted Eagle Ridge and we have a MOU (memorandum of understanding) for their workers to be housed at Eagle Ridge as needed. This may not be needed but we are happy to partner with them.

There are multiple stages in relief efforts, some that take months and even years. This week has been about "Search and Rescue" and "Immediate Need".

The next phases will be about "Response" and "Recovery" - helping people to restore their lives. This is the effort that can take a long time.

In response, New South, Wabash and MMI are partnering to receive funds and distribute help for teams and churches connected with us that are helping.

You or your churches can give through check to:

New South Conference

PO Box 91, Wilmore, KY 40390

Marked - Disaster relief

Or through the Wabash website:

Or through the MMI website:

Men's Ministry International

Any funds given to MMI from now until Christmas and all online undesignated donations will be given to this effort.

If your church is responding with relief efforts, please let us know and we may be able to help financially and with personnel.

If you have a desire to help further, please connect with Pastor Roger Ryan.

Thanks for your efforts!

A REMINDER

Beginning in January, we are going to have bi-weekly Kingdom focused Prayer times for Wabash and New South Conferences.

Our meetings will be held the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 9:38 EST. 9:38 represents Matthew 9:38 where Jesus instructs us to Pray for workers in the harvest field.

Our first Thy Kingdom Come Prayer gathering will be on January 5th at 9:38 AM EST

Here is the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85794472088

Superintendent's Notes

The heart of the church is the Gospel of Jesus! The good news of the life, teaching, person and ongoing rescue mission of Jesus.

I love these words from Colossians 1:3-6:

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—  the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

It is so easy to make the church about other things than the gospel. Good things, but not the gospel.

Things like:

-the Sunday morning service OR

-Good music OR

-Seeing our friends and family OR

-The business of the church OR

-Having a job OR

-Tradition OR

-Innovation

ALL good things. But not the gospel!

Perhaps a means to the gospel... but not the gospel.

The pull is strong. The danger is real.

In another related passage, the Apostle Paul wrote:

If I speak in the tongues of people or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1st Corinthians 13:1-3)

This LOVE is the result of focusing on the Gospel!

Let's keep our focus!

God bless

Superintendent John R. Lane

From the last Newsletter in case you missed it:

There are two assessments each church is assessed as a part of the Free Methodist Church USA.

The first is EPP - Equal Participation Plan. This is a 3.2% assessment for all of our churches which goes to support the FMCUSA - Communications, Bishops, Finance, HR etc...

The second is Apportionment - Each FM Conference (around 20 right now) has their own formula for receiving funds to support the Conference ministries - Superintendent, Office, Business, MEG, MAC etc...

For New South, the percentage is 4.8% - making the total assessed for both at 8%.

For Wabash, the percentage is (was) 8% - making the total assessed for both at 11.2%.

I say "was" for Wabash because the Wabash Board of Administration just lowered the assessment to 6.8% - making the total assessment for 2022 10%.

This 10% is where most of our Conferences are in their combined assessment.

There is always a fine balance between assessing the amount needed to fund the Conference and Denominational ministries needed to help the local church and also helping the local church by not over assessing them.

As a side note, this is one of the most complicated issues as we seek to work together as Conferences - Wabash and New South, the difference in apportionment.

But here is why this all matters at this point: In late fall, the Free Methodist USA Board of Administration directed a change in the assessment of our EPP.

Normally, EPP was calculated on the income a church received 2 years ago. This helped for planning on the denominational end.

Until this fall, each Conference was simply given the number to pass along to our churches.

But this year with Covid, they felt that each Conference needed to be responsible for bringing the assessment as up to date as is possible so that we are not being assessed on income levels from 2 years ago.

So... over the past few weeks, Patti in New South and Jody in Wabash have been crunching the income numbers from all of our churches (about 20 in New South and about 60 in Wabash).

And this week, both BOA's met to determine how we are going to move ahead and we are now communicating these amounts to the FMCUSA headquarters and to you.

I recognize that most of you have already created your budgets for 2022, but there will be some important changes from our end. Sorry about the timing.

Here is what you need to do next:

For New South pastors - you and your treasurers should have received an email yesterday with your EPP for 2022. Please pass these numbers onto your finance team and plug them into your budgets. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to connect with Patti.

For Wabash Pastors - it's a little more complicated. Please watch this video that I prepared to explain the system changes we are implementing:

Wabash EPP and APPORTIONMENT changes for 2022

You will be receiving the assessed amounts for EPP and for Apportionment in this next week.

As always, thanks for your patience and your prayers as we work together to accomplish the mission of Christ!

God bless

Superintendent John

More Business: End of the year donations for 2021

The cutoff dates for receiving donations for 2021 are described below.

For Individual donors, to be included as a 2021 gift the check must be dated in 2021 and postmarked no later than December 31, 2021. Online gifts must be made no later than December 31, 2021.

For Churches: checks that qualify as 2021 missions giving must be dated in 2021 and postmarked no later than January 7, 2022. Online gifts must be made no later than December 31, 2021.



The annual giving statements for donors should be processed and sent by January 31, 2022, for 2021 gifts, if you choose to issue statements.