'All God's Servants' (clockwise from top): The Rev. Irene Kabete, Zimbabwe; The Rev. Joseph Sunday, Liberia; The Rev. Benjamin Medillo, Philippines; The Rev. Alena Prochazkova, Czech Republic; Minerva J. Kekeh, Liberia

Making Retirement Good for All God’s Servants

By: Neill Caldwell
  

The Rev. Irene Kabete from Zimbabwe has experienced how the lack of a decent pension plan affects a pastor.

“My father was a pastor for almost 30 years, and the only thing he got from the church was a farewell party,” said Kabete, a former pastor at Inner City United Methodist Church in Harare, Zimbabwe, who is now a seminary student at Drew University.

The monthly pension for her father, who died last summer, was $100 Zimbabwean – 50 cents in the United States.

“As a family we had to take care of our parents so that they did not become destitute,” Kabete said. “I have always asked myself, ‘What will I leave for my children in terms of material possessions?’ because the only thing I got from my father was the knowledge of God. It’s so scary for the younger generation to positively respond to God’s call, knowing that at the end of the tunnel there is no hope, only stress and depression.”

Kabete thinks the Central Conference Pension Initiative, established by the 2004 General Conference, will help heal wounds suffered by God’s servants in places like Africa and Asia by honoring their service and providing a “spring of living hope.”

“It is very humiliating to give all your life to the ministry and at the end, when you can no longer support yourself, the church just throws you to the streets to live a beggar’s life,” she said.

The Rev. Manuel António Moniz has dedicated 53 of his 78 years to Christ’s ministry as a pastor, superintendent and administrator, reported Bishop Gaspar João Domingos of the Western Angola Annual Conference. His pension is equivalent to $20 a month U.S., a fraction of the minimum needed to obtain basic services in a nation that has endured 30 years of civil war. Moniz lives with his children and grandchildren.

Poverty follows service

“This situation is demoralizing and humiliating to the eyes of his family, and is discouraging to many young people who might enter the pastoral ministry,” said Domingos. He cited a “calamity” resulting from economic injustices, inflation and poverty that has taken away from church workers “the right to receive a pension to survive, obliging them to regret the long years of rendered services to the church.”

“Outside the U.S., support for clergy and their families in retirement is inconsistent, unreliable and, in many countries, unavailable,” said Gail Whitson-Schmidt, senior advisor to the general secretary of the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits. “Many clergy who spend their lives in ministry are facing retirement in poverty.”

Domingos is thankful for work being done in response to two General Conferences’ actions to correct the inequities. He offers “a vote of gratefulness to all the annual conferences in the USA for the enthusiasm with which they have supported this initiative.”

In March, a fact-finding team traveled to Liberia to interview pastors and surviving spouses who have experienced a lack of pension support. Among those asking questions were Barbara Boigegrain, general secretary of the pension board, and the Rev. Larry Hollon, general secretary of United Methodist Communications.

“Liberian pastors get equivalent to $55 every four months,” Boigegrain said. “But when you realize that it costs $35 to buy a bag of rice there, then they can buy 1.6 bags of rice every four months. That’s not a livable wage.”

Boigegrain said the trip was very successful, both in terms of gathering information and of providing hope for establishing a program in Liberia.

“Liberians are an industrious, proud people who are trying to put their country together after a 13-year civil war. Liberia has quite a history and pattern of giving. In Liberia the situation is better than most. We have more to work with there.”

She contrasted Liberia with Russia, where state support of the Orthodox Church has resulted in a lack of understanding of the need for individual giving to the church.

“The answer is not for us to step in and do it for them,” Boigegrain added. “Our own (United) Methodist pension plan (in the United States) grew from small offerings at Christmas and Easter. The concept is to move central conference churches in that direction. The problem is that in almost every country, they’re having trouble building a sustainable economy.”

Annual conferences contribute

Delegates from the Board of Pension and Health Benefits visiting Liberia (from left): Sarah Johnson, Barbara Boigegrain, Caroline Njuki (Board of Global Ministries) and James Donelson

Currently the only source for either interim or permanent funding is the United Methodist Publishing House – and U.S. annual conferences that have elected to send their annual Publishing House contributions to the Central Conference Pensions Initiative. Thirty-seven annual conferences already have contributed more than $700,000. Some will consider such action during the 2005 annual conference season.

“We need all the conferences to continue to make those contributions as we all pull together to provide some retirement provisions for our brothers and sisters in ministry outside the United States,” Bishop Ben Chamness said. Chamness chairs the Pensions Initiative committee.

“The burdens and sacrifices faced by church workers across Africa are foreign to many of us in the U.S.,” said Neil Alexander, Publishing House chief executive. “When pastors have to walk for two weeks to attend their annual conference sessions, and spend all the money they are paid for a year just to make that one journey, we are dumbfounded. It is by the grace of God and the deep sense of calling and service of these dedicated church workers that their ministry is possible at all.”

One focus of the pensions initiative committee is development of a campaign to raise $20 million to help fund central conference clergy pensions. The 2004 General Conference approved the fund raising.

A second focus is developing model programs to be used in selected central conferences. The recent trips to Liberia, Russia and Mozambique are groundwork for developing the programs. “Each economy and each culture is different,” Chamness said. “Pension programs will need to be tailored to fit each annual conference.”

Complex problem, many solutions

“General Conference has charged (the pensions) agency to work to help correct this problem,” Boigegrain said. “There’s a huge need, but it’s also something that is do-able. It’s a big, complex problem that requires a variety of different answers and solutions.”

The 2000 General Conference began to address pension inequities when it formed the Task Force on Global Pensions as a cooperative effort of the General Board of Global Ministries, the Publishing House, the pension board, the General Council on Finance and Administration and UMCom.

“It’s important to establish a pension system for pastors in the central conferences,” said Bishop Joe Pennel, who chaired the task force until his retirement last year. Citing African pastors with monthly pensions equal to $7, he said, “The system has not been fair and loving to these pastors.”

The 2004 General Conference changed the name of the task force to the Committee on Central Conference Pensions Initiative. The committee will meet May 6-7 in Arlington, Va.

Whitson-Schmidt said the committee recognizes the need for a long-term strategy to develop “country-specific ways to overcome this reality.”

A 20-year timetable includes an initial feasibility study, a 12-year operational plan and site visits. “A dedicated trust ensures that U.S. and central conference pension funds are kept separate, and U.S. conferences, churches and clergy will not be required to contribute to central conference pensions,” she said.

General Conference 2004 also authorized the Board of Global Ministries to make emergency grants for pension support to those central conference retired clergy and surviving spouses identified as having extreme need. This emergency support will continue until the long-term pension support plan envisioned by the Central Conference Pensions Initiative is in place.

“We seek to provide a fair and equitable pension program apart from our apportionments,” Pennel said.

An issue of fairness

Chamness believes pension support for retired pastors in the central conferences is a fairness issue. The Council of Bishops has been supportive of the effort from the beginning, he said.

“If our clergy in the United States are provided an income following their many years of sacrificial labor, then the clergy of the United Methodist Church in other parts of the world deserve to be provided an income commensurate with a comfortable living in their economy,” he said. Noting that even some active clergy in central conferences are not paid regularly, he said, “When the ministers get to retirement, they have absolutely no income. You can imagine how they live. They either have family members who will take them into their homes, or they live in squalor, hunger and degradation.

“The average person on the pew in our churches would want more dignity and greater justice to be shown to these heralds of Christ,” Chamness added. “We have an opportunity to correct that injustice and to show compassion and support for the retired clergy of our central conferences.”

Boigegrain agreed that correcting the inequities involves issues of justice and stewardship.

“It’s a very inequitable situation right now,” she said. “In the U.S. there is such a solid system in place for supporting clergy. We have equitable salaries, we have benefits and insurance and a strong pension plan. In the central conferences you have equally educated and competent clergy who are relegated to a life of despair.

“To retire there is frightening,” Boigegrain added. “One pastor said, ‘For years I preached about living in heaven, and now I’m living in hell.’ Itineracy forces them away from their hometowns and families and, upon retirement, they have to find some place to live. They become dependent. We can do better.”

Neill Caldwell
is a freelance writer based in High Point, N.C.