June 8, 2009

Editor: Brian Bakeman, 1501 NW 24^th St, Oklahoma City OK 73106

Phone: (405) 530-2067; Email: bbakeman@okumc.org; Website: www.okumc.org

 

 

 

 

 

Next month the UMACBA will be holding their annual meeting in Long Beach, California. This is an outstanding venue to learn about all of the latest facets of church business administration.

 

Even if you can’t make it to Long Beach, membership in UMACBA as well as the National Association of Church Business Administration provides a wealth of important information about running the local church. I encourage you to check out their web site at www.umacba.org.

 

 

Once again, the Conference Ministry Center will observe summer hours starting June 1 through September 3. Our office hours are from 8:00 until 5:00 Monday through Thursday.

 

 

August is a great month to take advantage of several workshops being presented in the areas of Stewardship and Finance. I strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of at least one of these.

 

Centenary United Methodist Church in Lawton is hosting a workshop on Saturday, August 22 from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Dr. Clif Christopher, author of “Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate” will be the speaker. The cost of the workshop is $25. Call Centenary UMC for more information at 580.355.5660.

 

The Oklahoma United Methodist Foundation is hosting Stewardship Focus Day at Chapel Hill United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City on Friday, August 28 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. The featured speaker is Rev. David Bell. I have heard Rev. Bell numerous times and you will find this a very informative workshop. The early bird registration, through July 15^th is $25 and registration after that is $50. Call Loyce at the Foundation Office for more information at 1.800.259.6863.

 

Again this summer I will be on the road to help local churches in the area of financial administration in the local church. This year I will be focusing on the new statistical tables and end-of-year reports and how they affect your apportionments. In addition we will continue our journey at looking at controls and communications.

 

The workshops will begin at 10:00 am and finish by 3:00 pm. There is no cost and lunch will be included. This is a great way to be able to ask questions and a great way for me to get to know all of you around the state.

 

We will have workshops in the following 4 cities this year:

 

August 1 - McAlester

August 8 - Claremore

August 22 - Woodward

August 29 - Oklahoma City

 

Contact Jan Polson in the Treasurer’s Office at jpolson@okumc.org or call her at 405.530.2064 for reservations.

 

 

Background checks are a critical element of our Conference’s Safe Sanctuaries and our Conference staff is here to help those churches that need it. The cost for a regular background check is $6.50 for volunteers and the Conference will do up to 10 background checks per quadrennium per church. More than that, you are requested to contact First Advantage directly at 214.360.9159.

 

For those churches doing background checks for potential employees and need a credit check as well, the cost is $15.00 and will not be counted toward the total above.

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Kathy Coit at 405.530.2059. If you have any questions about Safe Sanctuaries, contact Diana Northcutt at 405.530.2144.

 

 

Thank you for the response for the special offering at Annual Conference. Over $31,000 was collected for the offering which will be shared between the Seminary Debt Fund at the Foundation and for the church in Liberia.

 

Giving for apportionments again did well for the month of May totaling $1,152,265 or an increase of nearly 6% over this time last year. As I mentioned at Conference, we still have a way to go to make up for the drop in giving for the month of March.

 

By Rick Carlin

 

Since this is the time of year that Vacation Bible Schools get started, I wanted to relate some statistics and quotes regarding child safety. These come from an article in the Church Law and Tax Report entitled “It Can’t Happen Here” by Marian V. Liautaud.

 

48% of the churches surveyed train children and youth workers how to protect children from sexual abuse. Background checks are done in 65% of churches prior to hiring an employee but only 54% are performed on adult volunteers and 35% on volunteers younger than 18 years old. The main reason cited for not doing a background check was “All of us know each other, so nothing bad would happen at our church.”

 

Only half of the churches surveyed say they have a written policy for preventing child sexual abuse. Your church should have written policies and procedures and your church should be prepared to enforce them. Policies are what you do – not what you say you will do.

 

Seven out of ten churches say they enforce stringent supervision policies such as:

Ø Adequate number of adults supervising children

Ø Making sure all play areas are visible

Ø Having a system in place to control the use of facility keys

What about the other three churches?

 

These statistics are informative but all it takes is one church not following the Conference guidelines or one person not adhering to church policy for a child to be vulnerable to a predator. PACT has numerous resources for your church to create and implement safety policies and procedures on their website www.umpact.org. The Rev. Joy Melton, the author of Safe Sanctuaries is also the Chief Resource Officer of PACT. It may take some time and effort to put it all in place but the children in your church are worth it.

 

If I can be of any assistance please call me at 1-800-460-5678.

 

 

In closing, I would like to say thank you to everyone who has helped so much these past three years. It has been a fascinating three years and I look forward to the challenges that this next year brings for all of us. The local church is the heart beat of the church and I pray for all of you that your ministry reaches out to the untold multitudes across the state that need Christ in their lives. The ministry of administration is a partner in that endeavor. Thank you!