Methodists have always believed the world is our parish. All humankind are our neighbors. And Methodists have always realized that attending to the physical needs of people is a part of our mission. To do our part in meeting those needs we need to work together in our local congregations and in district, conference, jurisdictional, and worldwide cooperation. To accomplish that worldwide mission each church agrees to pay a portion of their tithes and offerings toward "apportionments" that finance those larger missions beyong=d the local church.
One of my favorites of Methodists large-scale effort is our United Methodist Committee on Relief. Since our "apportionments" pay for the administration of this worldwide program, when disasters occur donations made toward those relief efforts go ONLY to the relief effort and not to advertising or general administration or executives' salaries.
I am very happy to know that I can depend on our United Methodist Church to be on the spot in disasters with relief. I hope in the smaller church that results from the current season of "disaffiliations" that effort will not be greatly weakened.
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