Stewardship, Connection, and the Holy Ordering of the Church’s Common Life
By Rev. Dr. Luan-Vu “Lui” Tran, Ph.D.
The Conference Council on Finance and Administration (“CCFA”) should never be understood merely as a technical budget office or ecclesiastical accounting department. In United Methodist theology and polity, the ordering of money is inseparable from the ordering of mission. The annual conference exists “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by equipping its local churches for ministry and by providing a connection for ministry beyond the local church; all to the glory of God” (¶ 601). The ministry of all Christians is lived in “mutual interdependence” (¶ 131), and United Methodist connectionalism is described as a “vital web of interactive relationships” (¶ 132). In that theological framework, the collection, budgeting, distribution, auditing, and protection of money are not spiritually neutral acts. They are part of how the Church orders its common life for the sake of mission.
That is why the Book of Discipline 2020/2024 (“Discipline”) gives the CCFA such a central place in the life of the annual conference. In each annual conference there must be a Conference Council on Finance and Administration, or another structure that performs its functions and preserves its connectional relationships. The purpose of the CCFA is “to develop, maintain, and administer a comprehensive and coordinated plan of fiscal and administrative policies, procedures, and management services for the annual conference” (¶ 612.1). This language is strikingly broad. It shows that the CCFA is not limited to balancing books or drafting a yearly budget. It exists to sustain the annual conference’s fiscal order as an expression of disciplined, connectional stewardship.
Properly understood, then, the CCFA is one of the annual conference’s principal instruments for embodying covenant in institutional form. It helps ensure that gifts entrusted by congregations are handled transparently, that common funds serve common mission, that clergy support is administered equitably, and that the conference’s administrative life reflects the Church’s theological convictions. Its task is fiduciary, but it is also ecclesial. It manages funds, but it also protects trust. It administers systems, but it does so in service to grace.
1. A mandated body within a flexible annual-conference structure
The Discipline gives annual conferences substantial latitude to structure ministries and administrative processes in ways suited to their context. Yet that flexibility is not absolute. Paragraph 611 makes clear that there must be a Conference Council on Finance and Administration, or another structure that performs the same functions and maintains the same connectional relationships. Form may vary; disciplinary substance may not.
The Judicial Council has repeatedly enforced this distinction. In Judicial Council Decision (“JCD”) 878, citing JCD 590, the Judicial Council stated that an annual conference cannot delegate authority given to it by the Constitution and the Discipline, and specifically explained that the functions of the CCFA cannot be delegated to a conference ministry team or another disciplinary board. Decision 922 reinforced the same principle, holding that the responsibilities set out in ¶¶ 611 and 612 are “core functions and responsibilities” of the CCFA and that delegating them to another team is improper.
This means that an annual conference may innovate in structure, but it may not dissolve the disciplinary integrity of financial accountability. If another structure is used, the conflict-of-interest rules, nomination safeguards, treasury oversight, and fiscal responsibilities required by ¶ 612 must still be preserved. The Discipline expressly says so.
2. Purpose: comprehensive fiscal and administrative stewardship
Paragraph 612.1 defines the purpose of the CCFA as developing, maintaining, and administering “a comprehensive and coordinated plan” of fiscal and administrative policy and services for the annual conference. That description is broader than simple budgeting. It includes policy development, procedural order, management services, and coordination across the conference. The CCFA is therefore the conference’s principal steward of fiscal coherence.
Theologically, that breadth makes sense. Methodist connectionalism is not an accidental administrative framework. It is part of the Church’s way of bearing one another’s burdens, sharing mission, and expressing mutual accountability. Because connectionalism is a “vital web of interactive relationships,” fiscal administration cannot be isolated from ecclesiology. Money in an annual conference is connectional money. It is gathered from congregations, held in trust for the Church’s common life, and distributed for clergy support, administration, benevolence, and ministry beyond the local church. The CCFA stands at the center of that stewardship system.
3. Membership, exclusions, and conflict-of-interest protections
The Discipline builds independence and accountability into the structure of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration. The annual conference elects its members, and the recommended size is between five and twenty-one, with at least one more layperson than clergy among the voting members. The Discipline also recommends representation from churches with fewer than two hundred members. These provisions reflect Methodist commitments to balanced representation, lay participation, and inclusiveness.
The exclusions are equally important. No member or employee of any conference agency, and no employee, trustee, or director of any agency or institution participating in conference budget funds, may be a voting member of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration. The point is plain: those who seek or receive conference funding should not control the body that recommends and oversees that funding. The Conference Treasurer/Director of Administrative Services, the bishop, a designated district superintendent, and the director of connectional ministries may sit ex officio, but generally without vote.
Paragraph 612.4 adds a direct conflict-of-interest rule. No member may vote on or participate in deliberations on significant matters affecting that member’s or immediate family’s business, income, or employment. That provision is not merely prudent administration. It is ecclesial ethics in institutional form. The CCFA is meant to exercise stewardship without self-dealing, favoritism, or financial capture.
4. Amenable directly to the annual conference
The CCFA is not a sovereign body within the annual conference. Paragraph 612.6 states that it is amenable and reports directly to the annual conference. This is a crucial constitutional principle. The CCFA has real authority in preparation, supervision, and administration, but that authority is derivative rather than original. It recommends; it does not replace the annual conference’s final corporate action.
The Judicial Council has consistently underscored that boundary. Decision 521 held that although the conference council on ministries has a role in the benevolences process, the responsibility for determining the amounts to be recommended to the annual conference belongs to the Conference Council on Finance and Administration. Decision 539 further held that an annual conference may not delegate to another agency authority to change the allocations of benevolence funds adopted by the conference. Memorandum 560 then made the corollary explicit: the CCFA cannot rescind an action of the full annual conference, because only the annual conference can rescind its own action.
5. Core responsibilities under ¶ 613
Paragraph 613 is the operational center of the section. It assigns a remarkably broad set of responsibilities to the Conference Council on Finance and Administration. The CCFA recommends budgets, reviews capital funding requests, recommends apportionment formulas, interprets the conference budget, develops investment policies, advises on emerging missional needs, reviews disbursements at least quarterly, recommends borrowing limits, supervises the Conference Treasurer/Director of Administrative Services, may help establish a central treasury, recommends employment and compensation policies for conference staff unless otherwise assigned, promotes standard financial reporting, supports training in church business administration, and reviews proposed conference-related foundations and similar entities.
Especially important is ¶ 613.4, which requires the CCFA to cooperate in preparing interpretive material to help pastors, district superintendents, and local churches understand and support the budget and other causes, including “the theology and discipline of financial giving.” The Discipline here makes explicit what Methodist theology implies: finance is not only arithmetic but catechesis. The Church must teach why connectional giving matters, how stewardship serves mission, and why common funding is part of covenantal discipleship.
Paragraph 613.5 also requires the CCFA to develop investment policies consistent with preservation of capital, socially responsible investment, and the Social Principles. Such policies must be printed in the conference journal at least once in each quadrennium. The CCFA is therefore not only a budgeting body but also an ethical steward of invested resources.
Paragraphs 613.18 and 613.19 assign specific compliance duties. The CCFA must ensure that apportioned conference funds are not expended for alcoholic beverages, and it must ensure that conference funds are not used in ways prohibited by the Discipline under ¶ 613.19. In the 2020/2024 text, that includes the responsibility to ensure that United Methodist funds are not used to reject or openly discriminate against LGBTQIA+ persons, and the CCFA is expressly given the right to stop such expenditures.
The Judicial Council has recognized that this is a real disciplinary responsibility of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration. In JCD 1253, the Judicial Council held that the conclusion of the Annual CCFA that the disciplinary stipulation had been satisfied was sufficient to determine compliance with church law. In JCD 1264, the Judicial Council reaffirmed the broader principle that church law places in the hands of the CCFA the task of determining proper implementation of such funding restrictions.
6. Budgets under ¶ 614
Paragraph 614 requires the CCFA to recommend to the annual conference “budgets of anticipated income and proposed expenditures” for all funds to be apportioned. That phrasing is legally significant. A conference budget is not properly constituted if it presents only spending plans without anticipated income, or only income expectations without proposed expenditures.
Decision 744 directly confirms this point. The Judicial Council held that the East Ohio Conference budget proposal did not meet disciplinary requirements when it failed to include both anticipated income and proposed expenditures. That holding remains a leading statement on what a lawful conference budget must contain.
A. Clergy support budgets
Paragraph 614.1 requires the CCFA to estimate and recommend the funds needed for clergy support, including support for district superintendents, the Episcopal Fund apportionment, the conference share of episcopal housing, pension and benefit obligations after consultation with the board of pensions, equitable compensation, and other clergy-support programs such as sustention or moving expenses.
The phrase in ¶ 614.1(d) stating that pension and benefit amounts “need not be derived solely from apportionments” is important. Decision 1132 confirms that when an annual conference decides to provide certain benefits and to bill local churches for them, the allocation method may lawfully be structured through conference action and delegated implementation. The point is not that all benefit schemes are identical, but that the Discipline allows flexibility in how such obligations are funded, provided the conference acts lawfully.
B. Administration budget
Paragraph 614.2 requires the CCFA to recommend the amounts needed for annual conference administrative expenses, including its own expenses, the treasurer’s office, and other administrative obligations properly apportioned. This budget is distinct from clergy support and from benevolence/program causes. The Discipline deliberately separates these categories so that the conference can see what it is funding and why.
C. Conference benevolences budget
Paragraph 614.3 carefully differentiates the responsibilities of the CCFA and the conference council on ministries. The CCFA establishes the total benevolences amount to be recommended and the total amount to be distributed among conference program agencies. The conference council on ministries studies the requests of program agencies and recommends allocations within that total. The CCFA then presents the benevolences budget recommendations to the annual conference.
Decision 521 is the classic exposition of this structure. It held that while agreement between the two bodies is desirable, the CCFA has the final responsibility for determining the amount to be recommended to the annual conference for allocation to each program agency. Decision 539 complements that holding by forbidding delegation of power to alter benevolence allocations already adopted by the annual conference. See JCD 539.
Paragraph 614.3(d) also allows the annual conference, on recommendation of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration, to combine World Service and Conference Benevolences, but only “without reduction” for the quadrennium. The Discipline therefore permits combination for administrative simplicity, but not diminution of the church’s connectional obligations.
D. Other apportioned causes and special appeals
Paragraph 614.4 requires the CCFA to include in its budget recommendations specific amounts for other duly authorized connectional funds. Paragraph 614.5 requires CCFA review and conference approval for special conference-wide appeals, except in extreme emergency under the disciplinary procedure. These provisions protect local churches from overlapping, uncoordinated, or unauthorized financial solicitations.
7. Apportionments under ¶ 615
Paragraph 615 gives the CCFA responsibility to recommend the formula or method by which approved conference and general church obligations are apportioned to districts, churches, or charges. The annual conference decides whether apportionments are made first to districts only or directly to churches and charges. If apportionments are made to the districts only, the distribution to the churches or charges of each district is made by the district board of stewards, unless the annual conference orders the district superintendents to make the entire distribution.
The key legal principle here is that method may vary, but obligation may not. Decision 1172 held that when the CCFA receives the amount apportioned to the annual conference for general church funds, it must budget and apportion the full amount without reduction. The annual conference may determine the method of notifying churches and charges, but that method must be fair and equally accessible to all. Decision 1054 likewise emphasized that the full obligation must be apportioned and that the CCFA occupies the required disciplinary role in that process.
This is one of the most consistent themes in United Methodist financial law. The annual conference has flexibility in administration, communication, and structure. It does not have authority to convert connectional obligations into optional commitments by reducing or bypassing what the Discipline requires.
8. Depositories, audits, and bonding
Paragraph 616 authorizes the CCFA to designate the depository or depositories for conference funds. Paragraph 617 requires the CCFA to have the Conference Treasurer’s accounts audited by a certified public accountant within 150 days after the close of the fiscal year, to review audited reports from conference agencies and institutions receiving conference funds or authorized appeals, and to require appropriate district-level financial reporting. Paragraph 617 also permits the creation of an audit review committee, at least half of whose members should be outside the CCFA and selected for relevant expertise.
Paragraph 618 then requires the CCFA to provide fidelity bonding for the Conference Treasurer and other staff under its supervision, authorizes it to require bonding for other treasurers whose offices do not fall under the Conference Treasurer, permits it to require directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, and requires annual reporting on compliance.
These provisions should be read alongside ¶ 2511, which provides that all persons holding conference funds must be bonded and that their accounts must be audited at least annually by a recognized public or certified public accountant. It further states that any report containing a financial statement that the Discipline requires to be audited cannot be approved until that audit is completed and the statement shown correct. Together, these provisions make clear that the CCFA is a guardian of fiduciary trust, not merely a planner of revenue and expenditure.
9. The Conference Treasurer/Director of Administrative Services under ¶ 619
Paragraph 619 establishes the Conference Treasurer/Director of Administrative Services as the executive fiscal officer of the conference. The annual conference elects this officer on nomination of the CCFA. The officer serves for the quadrennium, is directly amenable to the CCFA, and may be removed by the CCFA for cause after consultation with the bishop.
As Conference Treasurer, this officer receives and disburses remittances from local churches for all duly authorized general, jurisdictional, annual conference, and district causes. Local church treasurers must remit monthly all such funds. If World Service and Conference Benevolences are combined, the Conference Treasurer must divide receipts according to the percentage ratio established by the annual conference and remit the World Service share monthly to the General Council on Finance and Administration. The Conference Treasurer must also credit or remit conference benevolence shares according to their rightful proportion or an approved payment schedule.
The Judicial Council has treated these duties as mandatory. Memorandum 591 held that the amounts contributed in each local church for each budgeted fund must be remitted to the conference and applied by the conference to that fund. Decision 332, while permitting a limited-service charge on conference benevolence receipts under certain older disciplinary circumstances, expressly prohibited any such charge from being applied to World Service or from altering the ratio established for World Service in a combined budget. Both decisions protect the integrity of donor designation and connectional remittance.
As Director of Administrative Services, the same officer may also manage payroll, office systems, personnel services, administrative coordination, and property-related functions as assigned. The Discipline thus recognizes that fiscal stewardship and administrative coordination are often closely related in conference life.
10. Related provisions that complete the picture
The work of the CCFA does not stand alone. It is integrated with other annual-conference provisions. Paragraph 606 governs records and journals. Paragraph 624.7, read together with ¶ 614.1(e), establishes that the CCFA, in consultation with the Commission on Equitable Compensation, shall recommend to the conference the amount required to support the schedule of minimum base compensation and base compensation supplements. Paragraph 625 permits the conference to establish a sustentation fund on recommendation of the CCFA. Paragraph 638.25, read together with ¶ 614.1(d), assigns to the board of pensions responsibility for determining the amounts needed for pension and benefit programs, while the CCFA, after consultation, reports the required amounts to the annual conference. Paragraph 717 governs socially responsible investment.
These cross-references matter because they show that the CCFA is not an isolated financial silo. It is the coordinating point for a broad network of administrative, fiduciary, ethical, and missional obligations within the annual conference.
11. The governing constitutional principle
When ¶¶ 611-619 are read together with the Judicial Council decisions, a consistent constitutional principle emerges. The CCFA is the annual conference’s chief fiscal steward, but it is not the annual conference’s sovereign. It possesses primary authority in preparation, coordination, oversight, compliance, and administration. It does not possess authority to nullify conference action, delegate away its own core responsibilities, reduce mandatory connectional obligations, or redirect budgeted funds contrary to disciplinary requirements.
This balance is profoundly Methodist. Expertise is joined to accountability. Administrative continuity is joined to conference authority. Fiscal supervision is joined to connectional covenant. The CCFA does not exist to dominate the annual conference, but to help the annual conference act lawfully, transparently, and faithfully in the stewardship of the Church’s common resources.
Conclusion: a fiduciary body with an ecclesial and theological vocation
The CCFA is therefore far more than an administrative necessity. It is one of the annual conference’s principal means of giving institutional form to connectional discipleship. Under ¶¶ 611-619, the CCFA prepares budgets, recommends apportionments, oversees treasury functions, requires audits and bonding, coordinates fiscal and administrative policies, and supervises the work of the Conference Treasurer/Director of Administrative Services. Yet the deeper significance of those responsibilities lies in what they serve: the ordered, accountable, and missional life of the Church.
Theologically, the CCFA represents the conviction that grace must take institutional form. The Church does not witness only through preaching, sacraments, and mission projects. It also witnesses through truthful accounting, responsible investment, equitable clergy support, disciplined stewardship, and faithful handling of money entrusted for holy purposes. That is why the Discipline links the work of the CCFA not only to budgets and apportionments, but also to the “theology and discipline of financial giving,” to socially responsible investment, and to the Church’s broader connectional covenant.
In this sense, the CCFA serves the annual conference’s vocation under ¶ 601. It helps local churches participate in ministry beyond themselves. It enables congregations to act not as isolated entities but as part of a living connection, bearing one another’s burdens and sharing one another’s mission. It gives practical expression to the Methodist conviction that the Church’s common life must be ordered in ways worthy of the gospel it proclaims.
So, the CCFA should be understood not simply as a finance committee, but as a steward of trust, covenant, and holy order. At its best, it is a ministry of institutional faithfulness: ensuring that the Church’s temporal goods are governed in a manner consistent with its spiritual calling, and that its resources remain aligned with the mission of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.