Like any denomination, the United Methodist Church has a denominational hierarchy supported by â??apportionmentsâ? skimmed from the offering plates of local congregations.
According to a report last year by a member of our denominationâ??s Connectional Table (CT), the UMC spends four times as many dollars per member on our denomination-wide bureaucracy as the Presbyterian Church (USA), â??the Protestant denomination with the second largest Protestant bureaucracy in our nation.â? That CT member, Pastor Andy Langford, described a situation of more regional and local United Methodist ministries â??being squeezed between the rock of high general church apportionments and the declining income of local congregations.â?
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