Funny How it Works

Today I received our church's Apportionment Statement from our District.

If you're not in the UMC, you might not know that this is how the denomination funds its hierarchy (including our districts and conferences) and missions; through the churches each having an apportioned amount that we are responsible to give.

The only reason I mentioned this being "funny" was that we had our charge conference two weeks ago. At this charge conference, we are responsible to set our budget for the following year. Actually, the way things go these days with "cluster" charge conferences, we are responsible to have the budget affirmed by our Administrative Board beforehand. Before which the Finance Committee has to meet to work out the numbers, which it then brings to the Administrative Board to ratify.

And a large portion of our budget is the Apportionment.

Which must be in the mix before we can make an accurate budget.

Which was supposed to have been prepared and finalized two weeks ago.

Two weeks before we get the statement telling us how much our Apportionment will be.

Funny.