Robinson — How Tithe Is Used in a NAD Conference

0:00 thank you Elder Bryant good to be here if I may I want to start with just giving a praise to God um I appreciate your report uh Elder Bryant because not too many denominations can expend resources like were spent there to reach to help a small Church grow the way we do Church allows us to do that and I just praise God for that I praise God for how he's led me personally and allowed me to work and Minister and serve in the church for nearly 41 years and as I look at the future coming for the church particularly in North America but worldwide we are going to face issues we've never faced before

0:58 ever and those issues defy human wisdom I'm just grateful that we have a God that will give us that wisdom and so I say thank you this morning and I want to start my report with that thank you Lord um let me call this up here all right so there's a lot of questions relative to the use of tithe now the church in North America has a lot of income sources but tithe is certainly the primary and I want to share some assumptions about this presentation today that keep in mind as we as we go forward there is a continuing effort between the general conference and the North American Division to Achieve

2:08 Financial parity with other world divisions many of you have sat on this committee for several years and remember several reports regarding that process and that is an ongoing process there are still things to be resolved and I won't go into the details of what those things are but there are several things that are are being discussed relative to the North American Division kind of becoming its own division we're getting out from under the the the skirts of in Mama's house and being our own Division and this is part of that process so we're in continuing conversation about that this

2:47 presentation remember if you are in a union or a division or other entity this presentation is coming from a conference perspective okay a conference perspective um tithe we know this this is not anything we don't know tithe is the most significant financial driver in the Seventh Day Adventist Church okay tithe is what drives us financially and I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that Grandma and Grandpa Jones are the bread and butter of the Seventh Day Adventist Church now but what I mean by that it's a bit of a euphemism for kind of average people that support the church this church is

3:29 so so blessed to have many individuals who give millions of dollars to the church every year we are so blessed to have those people and I don't mean to diminish that for a second I could name you names and you know the names you can think of the names of those individuals and those families and we're grateful but the fact is Grandma Grandpa Jones average people getting a pension sitting around the table every month and saying we got our $2,000 and we're going to write that $200 check to the Seventh Day Adventist Church don't lose sight of those people that's the bread and

4:14 butter tithing is a theological mandate everybody okay with that tithing is a theological mandate from God that is absolute however the distribution of tithe in the sth Day Adventist Church is not that's what we choose to do collectively we simply choose to do it this way we pass tithe on we we Define the conference as the storehouse and so on and so forth that's our own choice okay just keep that distinction in mind the Financial structure of the church only works because we agree to make it work that's it there's no nobody's holding a gun to anybody's head there's

5:12 no real consequence if somebody decides well we don't want to do it that we're going to do it this way I mean there are some internal consequences somewhat but we do what we do in this church because we agree to do it together all right so those are some of the assumptions I want to have you keep in mind um current tith flow 2023 this is what current tithe fold looks like 13 a half% to the NAD and GC it will be 133% in 24 that will complete a an agreement that was made a few years ago to reduce the tithe flow to the general conference okay that completes it at 133% in 2024 2023 it's

6:02 13.5% 9% to unions 11.4% to the Frozen defined benefit retirement plan and approximately it's a little bit less but approximately 1% to special assistance that special assistance is a fund designed to help conferences that are less financially able everybody clear all right so keep those things in mind now I'm going to share you may laugh at some of this but as workers as employees of the Seventh Day Adventist Church you will know you will recognize this and even if you are not an employee you may recognize it in your own organization all right so here's some

6:46 here's some truisms in the Seventh Day Adventist Church the farther away you are from the problem the more you know all right have it have have any of you experienced that I a conference pre leaders conference presidents and presidents of Institutions know all about this one all right okay no matter where you are in the organizational structure you receive criticism from the next lower level from where you are you criticize the next level higher than you are and if you move from one level to the other you are absolved of your former criticism and you commence criticizing

7:35 the next higher organization all right those of you who are employees in the sth day adamist Church recognize this reality all right okay so with those things in mind let's talk about how we communicate the use of tithe all right okay so anybody that has been a conference Treasurer or anybody that has received reports from conference treasurers has seen this next slide this next slide happens in every conference in the North American Division I did it for 15 20 years whatever it was as a conference employee so this is what drives the tith views conversation every conference has shown

8:35 this slide all right so conference heaps about 65% I'll I'll give some approximations here um GC NAD 14 a. half% and this is 22 numbers 2022 numbers okay not 2023 because we're we not quite finished with that so 202 two numbers 14% to GC NAD Union 9% um retirement 11.4% and about 1% is a little less for special assistance and the conference retains 64.8% everybody clear this is what every conference presents every single conf now it varies slightly depending on the conference but this is essentially what what you show all right so the remaining Port thank you thank

9:34 you Judy the remaining portion of 35.2% goes and let me be Frank this is how I described it as a conference treasur the remaining 35.2% goes into the black hole all right so let's be honest that's what that's how it's described and I don't I don't begrudge that I've worked at every level of the church so I understand it I did it I said it that way but but that presentation is number one the basis of the conversation it's accurate but it's incomplete okay it's what what was shown there is not a lie that's exactly what happens but it's incomplete all right so it does not

10:36 consider the funds returned to the local conference by unions by division by GC via appropriations of various kinds and then on top of that funds expended by those higher levels of the organization directly on behalf of conferences okay so those those things are not considered in that original slide shown by conference treasurers again accurate but not complete all right these Appropriations and expenditures occur because of the following principles that have been a part of the church structure for a very long long time our our financial structure in the church is built on

11:22 these two things aside I'm I'm assuming God is our leader Divine Providence his church that's assumed all right but based after that it's based on these two things the more financially able help the less financially able that's number one number two the ability to Target resources to large areas of need churchwide we are we we look for places that need help and we direct resources there now I'm not saying well let me say it this way every entity in the church needs more tithe all right I I'm not saying what is sent is going to meet the need as perceived by the leaders it may or may

12:13 not what I'm saying is we look for those places and we push resources to places of need all right all right this incomplete reporting picture and we've become accustomed to it is not a criticism I don't want to be misunderstood this is not a criticism of a conference Treasurer and what they're reporting I was a conference treasure for the bulk of my career most of my career was in a local conference so I bleed conference blood even as having moved on but it does reveal the fact that we have a very complex system and we need to find ways to communicate it in a in

13:00 in complete and transparent ways okay we just have to find ways to do that all right now what let's talk about what happens to that 35.2% that goes into the black hole let's talk about what happens all right um I want to emphasize if you look at the red red note comment there or the comment in red um the retained portion are approximations this is average we have 59 conferences and nine unions none of them are the same okay now they're close but none of them are the same they vary little bit depending on what happens in a union what happens in a conference so this is

13:49 a a generally summarized uh presentation all right so of that 35.2% what happens all right the GC NAD retains about 10% of the money they got and they appropriate directly cash they write checks about 4% of what they had okay we said it they kept they received 14% they keep about 10 they send about four back to the local field all right the union retains about 7% and sends about 2% remember I'm for those of you working in unions yours may be different um probably is a little different but this is from the conference perspective okay and I'll share that more specifically in a minute

14:43 all right so they so they keep seven send two retirement is retirement 11.4% that's what we send as conferences and then we have the special assistance that remains at just under 1% so that's generally summarized what happens to that 35% all right so let's revise that original conference slide and recognize some of the things that just happened to that 35.2% all right let's let's look at the appropriation the direct Appropriations let's add that to what the original slide said a conference retains of 65 64.8% if we add the appropriation back now a conference retains about

15:34 71% okay the GC and NAD and Union I combined them in this slide retain after Appropriations collectively about 177% of the original tithe dollar all right and then you have the retirement and special assistants remaining now let me comment on those two things I'll start with specialist every conference virtually not every conference virtually every conference pays into that fund a few conferences get money out of that fund but who benefits from that fund conferences all right so for purposes of this conversation conferences benefit from small from special assistance that every

16:29 dollar out of special assistance goes to a conference so we'll move that over to conference benefit all right now let's talk about retirement if we didn't have a centralized retirement fund and you will hear a lot about that fund on Monday Judy I think um if we didn't have a centralized process like we do every entity would have to do it itself right Am I Wrong everybody would have to care for their own retirees and they would have to deal with the regulations all of the laws and processes of withholding and sending money and changes that come they'd have to do all of that

17:23 everybody would have to do all of that or we wouldn't have it I don't think that's a great alternative personally especially in my position right now so I'm really glad that we do what we do but the bulk of those payments not everything but the bulk are conference employees right there's division there's GC there's unions there entities colleges there other things where people have to be paid retirement benefits I know that and if we got down into the weeds we could say Okay conferences account for 75% 80% of all the total that's a guess we could do that but for purpose

18:29 of this conversation just to make it easy to understand I'm attributing that benefit that 11.4% to conferences everybody clear you know you understand the difference it probably would change by 3% I I don't know what the number is but a small percentage of that 11.4 but for purposes of this conversation I'm attributing that to conferences so now when you redo the graph with all of that considered this really is what it looks like okay that's after all the upand back flow after all of the things attributed to who gets what benefit and who pays what benefit the conference

19:14 ends up on average with about 83% of the tithe dollar and The Wider organization collectively keeps about 177% is everybody clear on that does that make sense to everybody okay all right I don't I don't this is I want to be very transparent and I know this is not the exact number but it's very close it's very close to real to being real and we have to do it on an average basis I Can't Go For You Know 59 conferences and nine unions it would be too cumbersome but

19:48 [Music]

19:50 to uh to to to validate the process I'll share with you some slides in a moment but here is where the complication and confusion happens first of all if you've been around the conversation you know that there's no not a lot of unity regarding the flow of tith okay there's a lot of opinions about that um we've been involved in some of that um how much money can we squeeze out of the General Conference or the division or the union to help the local conference that's that's been a conversation for decades all right all right some feel based on some some may many feel that based on

20:40 incomplete information I would I would uh postulate that the higher organization must send more funds to the local conference or even the local church some feel there's no need for certain levels of the organization and that we can save the funding for local church and or local conferences if we did away with Those portions of the organization um there are different opinions on certain expenditures um why should we send money up just to get money back what what's the purpose of all of that um answering these observations seems to be where most of this complication and the and

21:24 the and the complexity of TI use happens all right let me give you let me give you some examples of why this is not real simple all right pastors and teachers conventions we just had a division wide teachers convention this past August all right I can tell you after PL I mean while I was still treasur uh planning for that event and the expenditures for that event I can tell you I can promise you the North American Division spent millions of dollars on that event but let me ask you the very simple question who benefited from that did the North American Division office did this

22:13 office benefit from that event probably a little bit but who benefited local teachers right local conferences who were able to expose their employees their teachers to this amazing event a year ago the same happened for ministers who benefits from that pastors of course so it's not as quite as simple as saying division stop spending money because we want to get the benefit at the local conference and I don't say that in a in a in a way that suggests conferences are greedy not at all conferences are are boots on the ground that's where the that's where the business happens mostly so I don't blame

23:13 a conference for saying man we got we need help I did it I understand it but it's not quite that simple because you could say yeah division stop spending that money and you wouldn't have pastors teachers conventions and your local field isn't able it doesn't have the doesn't have the lifting power to put on something like that on a national level so that's just one qu uh public affairs and religious liberty is another question you know Joe Smith in Tennessee lost his job because he's observing the Sabbath religious liberty departments across the division bring resources to Bear to

24:05 manage that now does it help you maybe maybe not does it help a member in your field yeah they also stand ready to deal with much bigger issues legislative issues in Congress and other places where our religious Liberties are attacked resources are brought to bear to manage that all right and and it's much more complicated than I'm exp I'm expressing it but that's it's not cut and dried do we just take money away from that and say well we're not going to do that anymore I I don't think so this meeting for instance now this is mandated by Constitution we have to do this this is

24:54 our year-end meeting well that's not exactly right we we don't have a constituency anyway I won't get into those weeds it's policy yes so we do this and it helps the division yes but this is a way we communicate with our local field this is a way you as members and as more local employees have a opportunity to communicate with division leadership and say man we hope for this that and the other thing can we address some of those things this is a forum where that happens who benefits from that you know it's not really easy to Define that's all I'm saying it's it's not as easy to

25:38 say let's just take money away and not do that anymore there's there's unintended consequences to those kinds of things all right let's move on um there is ambiguity you know I could get way in the weeds here and put everybody to sleep for the next three days about all the complex here um it is complex and is somewhat ambiguous um but what I what I want to do now is share some slides that validate I guess I could say what I've been saying what I did is I took four conferences four real conferences actual conferences and I applied the principles I just described to those

26:27 conferences and you'll see in that particular conference what it looks like in that conference applying the things I just talked about now I'm not naming the conferences all right they're categories categorized in large medium small and Regional for purposes of this conversation large is 35 million or more in tith medium is between 35 and 15 and small small is less than 15 everybody clear so when you see the category you'll understand what that means all right in a large size conference that's a very real conference I applied this information all right here's large conference now for those of

27:18 you mathematicians you add up the percents around the circle it's going to come out to more than 100% now the reason for that is I isolated the appropriation received by this conference in addition to the 100% I just wanted to to highlight it and you can see that there 3.94% in this conference's case its original tithe dollar based on its original tithe dollar collected in that conference it received almost four% of Appropriations back to itself from The Wider organization once it sent the money up everybody clear all right then this conference sent another 23% to the three higher

28:08 organizations 11.4% to retirement and in this particular case because of certain figuring and numbers 75% of its original tithe dollar to special assistance so when you apply the principles I just talked about here's what this particular conference looks like at the end it retained 80% a little over 80% of the tithe dollar it still had to pay special assistance because it paid in but didn't receive money out back it's big enough it's not a conference in need so this is an expenditure to this conference and then to the wider organization just slightly over 19% okay

28:54 this is a very this is a real conference real numbers I I I applied this to that conference all right so that's what it looks like close to the average 8317 that we shared earlier all right mediumsized conference same process um you can see what they sent there looks very similar their their appropriation in this conference's case again conferences vary little by little in this case uh this conference received CE A Little Less Than 3 and a half% of its original tith Dollar in direct Appropriations and then you can see that the other expenditures so when you apply

29:37 the principles I talked about this is what a mediumsized conference looks like very close to a large-sized conference okay almost identical um about 8020 okay again this conference uh the special assistance is an expenditure they paid in but they didn't get any back because they're financially able all right let's look at a small siiz conference this is a dramatic difference all right again they pay the same things that everybody pays but their appropriation back from The Wider organization is almost 177% of their original tithe dollar okay and you'll notice in this

30:27 particular case they did not pay special assistance because they didn't hit the tithe threshold over which conferences are required to pay all right but in the appropriation that they received back included special assistance funds so they didn't pay in but they Reed benefit because of how because why back to the original standards upon which the financial system sits the strong help the less able that's the principle of the Seventh Day Adventist Church this is an example of that and so you can see this conference receives at the end of the conversation about 94% of its original tith dollar and

31:29 sends back a net of only about six now there are conferences I didn't include that here and I'll show you one more conference a Regional Conference um there are conferences that actually get more than 100% back that exists in the North American Division all right Regional Conference same process you can see the appropriation there of 13 and a half a little more than that and then the outcome being very similar to a small conference in this case a little less than 90% and sending away about 10% right now let me just a quick caveat the regional uh conferences are on a

32:16 different retirement plan than the rest of North America that was considered in this particular slide their payment to their retirement plan was considered as a conference benefit it's a little different than the North American Division plan but it was contemplated in this slide all right so it's about a 9010 in this particular case Okay so those are four examples given the uh the criteria that we've talked about in terms of how tithe Flows In Real conferences in real conferences all right now I want to share what happens to that 177% all right the money remember the

33:12 conferences retain on average about 83% of the original tithe dollar if you do the calculations that we just did and then we send about 17 or about 177% of that is retained at The Wider levels of the organization all right so how is that money spent those that 17% how is that spent I made a list it is not comprehensive the list of things that happens with that 17% is much larger than this list but these are some significant portions publishing publishing Ministry is benefited by several levels of that of The Wider organization spending money on that missionary processing and deployment how

34:09 many of you think that the sth Day Adventist Church in North America should spend money on sending missionaries around the world that's what the sth day Adventist Church does we built our organization on the the assumption that we are going to fulfill the Great Commission that is to to send the gospel to preach the gospel where around the world so that's a foundational principle of what we do so the North American Division and the general conference actively have departments that send missionaries around the world short and long term now that that's not cheap expenditures are made to help

35:03 people with language living benefits housing coming back when the time is right um the the legal processes to move an American citizen it's not always an American citizen but in this case I'll use that as an example from here to a foreign country that H there's legal stuff that has to happen and expertise that has to be brought to bear that's all of that has to happen for us to participate in the Great Commission and so we do that at the general conference and at the North American Division Legal Services how many of you administrators have ever called any legal person at

35:53 ogc I spent half my life on the phone with those people the church needs legal help let's just leave it at that we need legal help and in this environment we need legal help more than any other time we have expertise that is paid for out of those dollars that makes those people directly available to us at no additional charge as a conference Treasurer I called carnik Duke met and Tom Wetmore and Todd McFarland regularly I never got one bill from them religious liberty I mentioned that a little earlier advocacy in the religious liberty spaces in the halls of Congress and the legal halls around the

36:47 country helping individuals who are discriminated against because of their Sabbath belief the church our church my church brings those resources to bear for people praise God praise God for a church like that plan giving Services how to dispose in the best possible way remembering God's Church in that process plan giving risk management Insurance that's a source that's a sore spot for many I know but imagine if every single church and school had to do that themselves just imagine that for a second we have a whole department the general conference creates that for our

37:37 benefit material resources any of you involved in youth Sabbath School stewardship Advan Learning Community Education departments spend their resources and their time developing resources for those things Direct Services add Advent Source Advent community services and Adra Christian record Services Adventist chaplaincy Ministries and many so many more these are things that the church can do because we do it together accounting well this is where I live lived um yeah I got a little little time that's true that's true um ASI that's the accounting system for the church

38:33 over 90% of our our entities conference and above use that in the North American Division APS payroll Advent giving how many have used Advent giving to return your tithes and offerings that is a magnificent tool just redone just redone we spent two two and a half million on updating that that's huge half of our tithe comes through that do through that uh through that vehicle half of the division tithe you know how much that is it's over $700 million that's tithes and offerings half of our tithe is about $650 million all right say what's that 2 5 million per day I'm told

39:29 through that through that application I mean I'll leave it at that membership e Adventist managing membership in in our local community local churches data services speaking of Milton we built in this building a data center to help house data safely in our own private Cloud so that any church entity has the ability to to make use of that if they choose at low or no cost curriculum development huge ladies and gentlemen this is one I like to linger on a little bit 7th adven Church in North America runs one of the largest school systems in the world we minister to Arnie I'm not sure

40:24 where you are thank you I think based on my numbers you told me we minister to about 76,000 children and students every day using about 9,000 a little more than that teachers okay that's huge huge Evangelistic tool we spend massive amounts of resources building curriculums for our schools a curriculum an Adventist can I get in amen an Adventist curriculum in these days if we didn't do that why would we even have an education system financial and Trust accounting auditing we want to be transparent we're audited every year two generally accepted accounting principle standards

41:30 buy CPAs all right these are not just random people these are people qualified people that do these audits revolving fund borrowing Seminary and pastoral training I'm not going to spend a lot more time here University support media Outreach Ministries all of this all of these and many more I could list a whole probably two more slides or three of things that happen with that 177% all right that's just a taste a taste of what happens with that 17% all right what if let's say we decided H we don't want unions division in GC anymore let's just say that for the sake of

42:17 argument in 202 carefully say it say it very carefully I oh I will I I you know I I don't I can I can speak plainly here you know I I I I won't have to go back and and get called into Elder Bryant's office after this but no but but no it's right I mean I we hear this conversation and so let me let me say it plainly let me say it plainly let's say we decided to get rid of the Union Division and GC Financial wise financially so in 2022 our our total tithe in the division was $1.23 billion do all right 177% of that is about $210 million so let's just let's just take

43:10 that money and let's divide it amongst the conferences and remove those higher portions of the organization for the sake of argument all right what would that look like there's a million ways you could split it up here's a couple of ways you could give every conference a prata portion of those dollars that means let's look at the tie they contribute to the whole make a percentage of of that and give them the same percentage of the 210 million you could do that way that means larger conferences get more and smaller conferences would get less that's really what that means or in in example number

43:52 two you could just divide it by 59 and give everybody same amount that's about $35 million if you divide it by 59 all right so if you did that every conference would have to pay for or choose not to pay for the services just listed and those not listed because that's not comprehensive on their own with their share of the additional $35 million in that scenario I believe many conferences could not pay for no I that's wrong conferences could not pay for the services that I just listed with $ three and A5 million you could not do it it would it would be multiples of

44:49 $3.5 million cost wise to duplicate that now conference let me call let me let me call out the conference I'm about to move to the Florida conference yeah I wasn't Dakota I'm sorry I I I love you Dakota I really do but I'm moving to Florida um okay I will be careful the Florida conference collects in excess of $60 million of tithe annually three and a half more million is that meaningful yeah but it's not as meaningful as in Dakota in Dakota that's life-changing money right so it's all over the spectrum that way you just call out your own conference and and and and apply $3 and

45:52 A5 million to it but I don't care where you are and half million do is not going to pay for those Services all right I think we Services would disappear conferences probably would close certainly churches and schools would close if we oriented oursel that way all right so concluding now yes our financial structure is complicated I don't think we've done a very good job at communicating how money is used and flows through the church we haven't and we need to our members deserve it our giving members deserve it Grandma and Grandpa Jones deserve it and young adults thank you

46:57 but I ask these questions just for you to think about in terms of discussing the flow of tithe who benefits from Appropriations given to the media Ministries or for organizing conventions who benefits who benefits from the cost of for accreditation and curriculum development for our schools who benefits from the ability to borrow from a revolving fund who benefits from a department deploying missionaries around the world or organizing union-wide training events who benefits who benefits from the costs paid for our auditing and legal services and the funding of our Seminary who

47:38 benefits who benefits from compensating pastors and teachers than paying for their retirement costs who benefits all these things need to happen they all do and more and we need to continue to have discussions about how it is done and who does them and how much it costs to do them all of us must continue to find ways to be more efficient with and more mindful of where our tithe dollars go we must transparently communicate to our members in as in as complete and understandable a way as possible we must strive to maximize the benefits derived from each level of the organization and strive to

48:29 understand that our system has been created by what I call Divine genius we must all continue to find ways every way possible to care for the funds we've been entrusted with and to be accountable to each other for how every level of the organization spends its funds every level needs to be accountable to every other level of how we do that so conclusion we need to be slower to assume the worst or criticize what is not understood and don't have complete information about we need to be mindful of transparency transparently communicating as complete a financial picture as

49:13 possible we need to be faster to collaborate communicate and dialogue to achieve the best outcomes for the entire church and its Mission thank you Mr chair chairman