finance

Delegates prepare to do their legislative work during the 2024 United Methodist General Conference in Charlotte, N.C., in Charlotte, NC. The board of the General Council on Finance and Administration approved a request for $1.5 million to pay for a whole software system to track legislation at General Conference. The current system has been in use for nearly 40 years. Photo by Larry McCormack, UM News.

Big update planned for General Conference tech

The United Methodist Church’s finance agency board approved a $1.5 million grant for the first major upgrade of General Conference’s legislative tracker in decades.

General Church

A procession of United Methodist bishops leads opening worship at the 2024 United Methodist General Conference on April 23, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. The board of The United Methodist Church’s finance agency voted to give bishops a 3% retroactive salary increase. The move comes after bishops in December asked to forgo a raise in 2025 amid tight budgets denomination-wide. File photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.

Bishops given 3% retroactive pay hike

The board of The United Methodist Church’s finance agency voted to give bishops a salary increase that starts at the beginning of this year.

General Church

The Rev. Johnsie Whitfield Cogman helps collect the offering during opening worship service of the 2012 United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Fla. Overall giving to denomination-wide ministries was down in 2024, compared to 2023. But the denomination’s financial leaders are hopeful that the significantly smaller budget approved at last year’s General Conference in Charlotte, N.C., will be much more in line with the denomination’s giving capacity. File photo by Paul Jeffrey, UM News.

Giving dips in 2024 ahead of smaller budget

Collections for United Methodist general-church ministries dropped in 2024, but financial leaders expect the denomination’s much smaller budget will better align with giving going forward.

Church History

Ashley Boggan, top executive of the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History, gifts Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church, with a John Wesley bobblehead on Sept. 6, 2023, while in Italy for the European Methodist Historical Conference. Seated from left are the Rev. Matthew Laferty, director of the Methodist Ecumenical Office Rome; Boggan, Ulrike Schuler with the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry, and Lara Herrmann, a student and Schuler’s granddaughter. File photo courtesy of Vatican Media.

Archives and History sets big plans

Ambitious plans are brewing at the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History, in a time when budgets in The United Methodist Church are being cut. Top executive Ashley Boggan talks about those plans and raising the money to pay for them.

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