Methodism has been financially good to me
My life has been marked by relative material prosperity afforded by Wespath. Having grown up the child of two United Methodist pastors, and having done more than eleven years of ministry in the UMC before shifting to the GMC, Wespath has been an ever-present institution in my life.
Reasons for United Methodist clergy financial health
So far as clergy go in the American landscape, United Methodist pastors fare much better than average. This is, in large part, because of minimum income standards set by each annual conference. If a local church is unwilling or unable to pay what an annual conference says is the bare minimum, that that church will not generally receive a pastor.
As the historian John Wigger chronicles in his biography on Francis Asbury, American Saint, many local Methodist churches in America have always been reluctant to pay pastors very well. What power a denomination wields can and should be used to advocate for those who serve at the grassroots level.
Another body responsible for the relative prosperity of United Methodist clergy is Wespath (formerly called the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits), the official financial entity of the denomination. For decades, this body has been entrusted to administer the health insurance and retirement funds of UM clergy. It also cooperates with foundations established in United Methodist annual conferences, which administer the endowment and investment funds of local churches, also sometimes issuing grants and loans. Wespath’s versatility allows for conference foundations to offer a wide variety of services to local churches that other churches outside of the UMC rarely have awareness of or access to.
Pros and Cons of Wespath
There are some things I have really liked about Wespath’s investment model over the years. I remember reading an article a decade ago about how they were facilitating micro loans in developing parts of the world. These sorts of loans do amazing work to lift people out of poverty. I have been so proud to have some of my money go to making such developments possible.
Ever since I learned to put energy into financial wellbeing for my churches, I have been a big fan of Wespath. I took joy in checking my iPhone app to see the performance of my invested monies regularly (the app was recently discontinued, to my chagrin). When I moved to a church that was privately invested for its endowment, I convinced the board to transfer the fund to my conference foundation’s management. My wife and I even opened endowment funds for ourselves and each of our children through Wespath, which regularly give returns to our churches. More than most Methodists, the Rickmans have been supporters of Wespath.
Even so, I have been increasingly frustrated with Wespath in recent years for reasons that follow. The first is transparency and accessibility. While both of my churches have significant amounts of money invested with them through our Foundation, the reporting on those funds is limited to monthly reports, which are lacking in the amount of information they provide.
There is no way to log in to a website on which we can see more particulars of our investment portfolio or day-to-day changes in our accounts. Most people on our church boards are privately invested in various firms that have much more in-depth and responsive reporting. We have never heard (and we have asked) a good reason as to why Wespath’s reporting has needed to be so opaque and limited. Moreover, when a church’s endowment and investment funds are supposedly invested in the exact same portfolio, but their gains and losses do not track proportionally with one another, it is hard to understand. Don’t get me wrong; they are still making us money. However, the way they have shown (or not shown) their math was too much work for us to understand. This began to cause some real concern about our relationship with this firm.
Wespath’s record is, in a few ways, quite impressive, as it has been constrained from the beginning by ethical standards established by the General Conference. While being expected to generate income, Wespath is also restricted from investing in such ways that go against the social principles of the UMC. That means they are not at all invested in tobacco and firearms, among a few other sectors tied to vice. This limits investment options, obviously. Yet Wespath still generates very competitive returns.
This investment strategy also fits neatly into a modern phenomenon called ESG (Environmental Social Governance). It is a strategy utilized by large investment firms like Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard to effect social change around the world outside of the democratic process. Using the funds of investors, they pressure businesses to affect a number of environmental, social, and governmental policies. These practices almost universally conform to socially progressive goals. Many, including myself, have grown increasingly concerned that Wespath is largely adopting an ESG strategy matched, not so much with the UMC’s Social Principles (which for the time being are fairly balanced but will probably be significantly shifted far left with new Social Principles being presented this year), but with the worldly leftist ESG ethos. So even though they are invested in fossil fuels, they use the influence gained by my dollars to actually insist on policies that all but require transition to “renewable” energy sources in the future.
Many, including the Chief Investment Officer of Wespath, Dave Zellner, believe ESG concerns to be overblown and paranoid, an outgrowth of a culture war gone wonky. I privately corresponded with Zellner in 2022. Following our conversation, he published an article advocating for a continued ESG investment strategy. I did not anticipate that some random guy from Oklahoma without any economics pedigree would be able to persuade someone with Zellner’s knowledge and background. I did hope that he would be able to persuade me that my concerns were not warranted. He did not persuade me.
Rather, it seems to me that Wespath, chaired by Bishop Robert Schnase (liberal UMC bishop), is content to do what the UMC in general has done for decades: take the hard earned money of religious conservatives to use against them socially and culturally. As this year’s General Conference approaches, it is likely that the BDS (Boycott Divest Sanction) sympathies will prevail among the body. If they do, it is likely that Wespath dollars will be completely removed from any businesses with ties to Israel.
I cannot forget how fraught it was to try to decouple the General Board of Church and Society from abortion advocacy, and how they simply refused to begin advocating for the persecuted church abroad. While Wespath is not GBCS, they are part of the same unresponsive behemoth. If they had publicly advertised new investment portfolios that stood outside of these activist investments, I think things would be different for them now.
Navigating “the biggest schism since the Civil War”
As it became increasingly apparent to all that a split was coming for The United Methodist Church, Wespath leadership was wise to position itself to serve, not just the UMC, but any bodies claiming to be Methodist/Wesleyan. When the split finally came, a seamless transition to Wespath retirement and health insurance was effected for the nascent Global Methodist Church. They have also continued to work with churches and clergy who have stayed unaffiliated. I honestly thought they were going to successfully retain the GMC churches and grow their offerings to other Wesleyan branches. I was wrong.
Many Wespath foundations in various annual conferences attempted to show their eagerness to work with the GMC churches by welcoming GMC leadership onto board positions. In Oklahoma, such an effort was stymied by the bishop of the Oklahoma Annual Conference himself, who arranged to stack the board with UMC loyalists and succeeded. I am unsure how many other conferences dealt with a similar phenomenon. I am aware of at least two annual conferences in which foundations fought very hard to hold onto endowment funds of disaffiliating churches, even refusing and filing suit in one case, in order to retain funds.
Instances like these, coupled with high insurance premiums, put a bad taste in the mouths of those who are watching. Whether or not Wespath leadership had any direct influence in the conduct of these foundations, and whether they could make significant decisions impacting the cost of health insurance, unfortunately does not matter much. In order to earn and keep the trust of GMC leadership, Wespath needed to vocally and strongly make space for a more evangelical and conservative presence in their organization. They did not do that, and that neglect has now cost them.
Abandoning Wespath; Embracing GuideStone
On Monday, January 8, the Global Methodist leadership announced that they would be officially divesting from the Wespath and partnering instead with GuideStone Funds. GuideStone is a very similar institution to Wespath, fulfilling virtually all of the same functions as Wespath, but it is decidedly much more conservative in nature. Rather than being concerned with global warming and weapons, they signal more concern about abortion and gender reassignment, among other culture war issues that more clearly intersect with biblical interests.
As a conservative believer, I do not have to be concerned about leadership using my assets against people like me in our current cultural milieu. I do not have to read every press release from Wespath to try to read between the lines to see if they are honoring my side of the cultural conversation. It would seem that I can trust GuideStone as a sort of analogue to Strive Asset Management, which stands outside of the newer models of investing and chooses instead to serve the actual interests of its clients. Whereas Strive’s management strategy is decidedly libertarian, GuideStone’s is decidedly conservative/evangelical Christian. It is not so much that I and others in the GMC want to have a libertarian investment strategy. Rather, we want a similar investment strategy to Wespath’s, but which is oriented by more conservative values.
I have not yet been able to do much comparative analysis between portfolio performance between Wespath and GuideStone. I have been assured that GuideStone’s performance is commensurate with that of Wespath. If so, that is great. Wespath has generated good returns for me and my churches. I have also been assured that they will offer management for personal and local church endowment funds, as well as other kinds of investments. From a recently-published GMC FAQ, it would seem that annuities cannot be transferred, but I am not sure that has any significant financial implications.
I look forward to learning more about this in the near future. GuideStone is currently creating the protocols necessary to circulate to Global Methodist churches for asset transfers. Many of the particulars will be known soon. I have also put in a request to interview Jeff Pospisil, the Chief Financial Officer of the Global Methodist Church, who has been one of the main minds to make this decision.
Trusting in Christ; Hopeful for GuideStone and the GMC
In the meantime, I find myself being hopeful that GuideStone can be the institution that I wanted Wespath to be. I hope they also participate in micro loans in the developing world. I hope this is not a decision that leads to more splintering, but to greater financial health and solidarity among Global Methodists in the future.
I have noted some language in the Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline of the Global Methodist Church indicating the intention to establish permanent funds aimed at the education of clergy. In particular,
“¶ 411. MINISTERIAL TRAINING FUND. A fund shall be maintained for ministerial education by the Transitional Leadership Council. Once certified, a candidate may request a loan to assist with educational requirements. A service commitment of five years duration after ordination is required of any clergy who receives such assistance, with twenty percent of the loan amount forgiven for each year of ministry within the Global Methodist Church.”
This language indicates to me the real possibility of the Global Methodist Church becoming the sort of financial institution that the UMC should have been. Whereas the UMC keeps endowed funds for the benefit of its superstructure (general agencies and annual conferences) in hidden and unreported (to pew sitters) places, the GMC could establish publicly reported funds for the benefit of clergy and local churches.
I am aware that many in the GMC want to keep the budget so thin that there is no possibility of any sort of accumulation of excess funds. Many are damaged by the rampant abuses of hoarding and financial obfuscation in the UMC. Even so, the answer is not to enforce a beggarly, impoverished organization. It is to insist that funds be reported transparently, that those responsible for them are answerable to constituencies, and that the directionality of such funds is to always be of benefit for the grassroots rather than enriching those at the top.
I cannot help but dream of a future in which the excess funds given by years of plenty will be invested in such a way as to offset the costs and liabilities of ministry at the local church level. We are currently trying to figure out what benefits the GMC might offer that would put them us in the position to be able to insist on high standards for doctrine and discipline. As it stands, it is unclear what benefits denominational affiliation could give to local churches who choose to affiliate. Well, if we were to be shrewd in our stewardship of the resources entrusted to us, then local churches could find themselves in the future thanking God that they chose to affiliate with such a body. In times of leanness for other churches, GMC churches could be able to thrive, even eventually able to significantly offset the cost of ministry in local churches.
I am aware that Jeff Pospisil, in his time as conference treasurer, was able to actually return money back to local churches. They just so happened to be one of the only conferences (he was at the Dakotas) to report other gains in those years. I am inclined to think that similar blessings could be replicated for the entire GMC.
Our new affiliation with GuideStone could be the start of something like that. I, for one, am hoping it is.
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