South Pacific Division CFO Francois Keet emphasised the SPD’s strong commitment to utilising tithe for frontline mission initiatives at last week’s Division Executive Committee year-end meetings.
“We are number one [of all divisions] in use of tithe for mission globally, and we are also number one in institutional income. This gives us extra responsibility,” he said during the presentation of the CFO report on November 11.
Mr Keet highlighted the General Conference’s Mission Refocus initiative, which has inspired the SPD’s strategy. He noted that the SPD has allocated the majority of its 2024 surplus to boost the SPD’s Mission Refocus balance from $A1.2 million to nearly $8 million.
The SPD has partnered with the Australian Union Conference (AUC) and the Southeastern Asia Union Mission to provide the majority of funds for the construction of the Western Thailand Region Training Facilities—a centre of influence for training young men and women to teach basic theology and evangelism along with English. The SPD has also supplemented the AUC funding for Dr Mark Vodell, who is currently serving at Asia-Pacific International University in Bangkok, furthering the Church’s educational mission in the region.
Reflecting on the financial data for 2023, Mr Keet shared that there has been growth in tithes across all SPD unions, exceeding budget expectations. However, he expressed concerns about the plateauing of growth in 2024.
“We did have large once-off tithes in 2022 and 2023 and not so much in 2024, but there are clear indicators that the current inflationary pressures on households and less disposable income and savings is having an impact on tithing. Offerings, however, appear to be unaffected,” he said.
“The interesting thing about this trend is that if we look at the graphs of the North American Division and the Inter-European Division they would almost be identical, suggesting that the more developed economies are experiencing the same pressures.”
A more concerning statistic was the disparity between membership growth and tithe growth. “We had real growth of only 0.47 per cent in tithe, but our membership grew by 45.4 per cent,” he said. “We basically have the same level of revenue but so many more members to support. This growth will place extreme pressure on our church structures, and over the next few years the territories where most of this growth is occurring may struggle financially. If tithing does not keep up with growth, it will be difficult to nurture the new members and it might significantly impact retention rates.”
Over the past nine years, the top three priority areas for strategic funding were discipleship ($16.4 million), media ($16.3 million) and health ($14.2 million). With the start of the new quinquennium in 2025, funding priorities will be aligned with the Division’s new strategic plan. In recent years, the priority has shifted from smaller projects to large Division or Union-wide initiatives that have greater impact.
