BY EDWIN A. SCHWISOW

he economy was great. Several members had just jetted off on vacations in foreign lands and mission projects. And when they got home, they still had enough in the bank to give extra-generous donations to church projects in December.

That was 1999--the place: Sandy, Oregon, population 5,000, church membership 360. And to a good share of the members, the time seemed right to replace their aging church.

They'd been raising money since 1996 and had nearly enough in hand for a generous down payment on five acres of prime land. All they needed was time--time to sell the old church and time to build the new one. Funding would be no problem.

Shrapnel From the Sky
Then came September 11, 2001. Like shrapnel from the sky, the small-aviation industry (upon which several active Sandy members depended financially) took a kamikaze nosedive into the bank accounts of some of the church's main revenue sources.

Then unemployment struck, raising joblessness in the county to one of the highest in the nation. Some members in their 60s simply retired; others moved away; some went months without jobs, while others retrained. Everyone tightened belts.

Who would now step forward to fund the church building project? Whispers in the hallways accused building supporters of hasty overcommitment. Where would the needed $700,000 come from--even after the sale of the old building? When? How?

By fall of 2003 the economic news was only getting worse, with word from the Oregon Conference that it had "temporarily" run out of funds to subsidize their building.

And the usual "December windfall" in giving at the Sandy church failed to materialize as expected. Then, just a few weeks ago, on March 22, members learned that for the first time in memory, the church's traditionally brimming Worthy Student Fund was overdrawn--a fund that usually gets hearty replenishment at the end of each calendar year.

Sandy Times
Hard times in the Sandy church, whose members have weathered one of the sharpest economic downturns of any state or province in the North American Division, dramatizes the plight of all post-September 11 church and conference budgets, according to Juan Prestol, North American Division treasurer.

While Sandy members in 2003 returned tithe at a rate consistent with that of previous years, they had more difficulty meeting the demands of their Worthy Student Fund, their local church budget, and fulfillment of their building-fund pledges.

The same seems to be true across the North American Division, says Prestol, who notes that the increase in tithe from 2002 to 2003 was comparatively small--about 2.7 percent, compared with a national inflation factor of 1.9 percent.

"Yes, our tithe income is still above the rate of inflation, and this is a very positive sign," he says. "But I must add that tithe giving in North America is traditionally the strongest of all our giving indicators. In some divisions, giving for missions is the last to fall in hard times; here in North America, our Sabbath school offerings have been falling for some time, even during times of economic prosperity. But tithes have continued to come in at a consistent rate.

"The increase in 2003, however, was considerably less than we've been used to in this division, for at least the past 10 years. So seeing tithe increases across the division of less than 3 percent is cause for some concern, as we try to fund the outreaches of our church."

In other words, the comparatively low increase in tithe giving in 2003 is not a true indicator of the overall financial situation. The tithe figures are simply a measurement of the best-supported fund in North America. As suggested by the experience of Sandy church members, other funds are taking deeper hits than tithe.

Tom Evans, treasurer of the Mid-America Union, with headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska, acknowledges that budgeting for 2004 has been the "toughest year" in his 10 years of service in that union office.

Particularly disconcerting has been Mid-America's loss of $434,000 of tithe in 2003, compared with 2002's tithe receipts--representing a rare slide in the union's most dependable economic indicator.

"It's the worst since 1993, when we had tremendous floods in the Iowa-Missouri Conference," Evans says. "We actually would have had a tithe gain in 2003, except that we had a tithe windfall in 2002 [a nearly 4 percent increase] that we weren't able to match in 2003," he says.

His sentiments are reflected in the Alaska Conference in the North Pacific Union, which last year saw tithe receipts grow by a scant one quarter of 1 percent--after climbing by double-digit percentage figures during the first six months of the year.

What is a tithe windfall? Evans defines it as an "extraordinarily large, one-time tithing of profits, usually from unusually large capital gains or sale of highly valuable property."

For the past two years the Washington Conference in the North Pacific Union has received consecutive windfall benefits, boosting that conference well above the national average, in terms of tithe gain.

But the windfalls (most of which tend to appear near the end of the year) were fewer and farther between in the division.

"We simply did not see the traditional, year-end swell in giving we usually see in December," says Gary Dodge, North Pacific Union Conference undertreasurer. "And when we don't see that strong year-end giving in tithe funds, the feeling is that other funds may have suffered even more."

Waning Windfall
For many years, detractors have predicted that the unusual generosity of Seventh-day Adventists would someday begin to ebb. Does the less-than-expected tithe increase in 2003 and depletion of some other funds mark the beginning of a long-term cutback in giving?

Prestol and his colleagues in the conferences and unions have far more sanguine explanations for what they believe is a natural cycle, pointing even now to indications that 2004 shows signs of being a far better economic year.

What 2003 teaches the church, in Evans's view, is that it's far more prudent to be fiscally conservative in budgeting--not just in hard times, but all the time. Because most conferences in his union have been fiscally conservative, even during boom years, the lack of a windfall in 2003 has required no major adjustments in pastoral service to the churches.

The mystery of the waning windfall, in terms of the absence of a sharp upturn in year-end giving, is actually no mystery at all, Evans says. It simply reflects the fact that in 2003, fewer members realized strong returns from investments. While some conferences and churches saw small gains in December, the windfalls were, by and large, absent.

Prestol, in fact, characterizes 2003's income figures as fair, on a continuum of poor, fair, good, very good, or excellent. Alaska's treasurer, Harold Dixon III, sees things as fair to good.

"From 1984 to 1988, we actually had four consecutive years of tithe downturns, and we survived up here in the North," says Dixon. "I think what we're doing now is comparing 2003 to an unusually brisk economy of high earnings and low inflation in the 1990s. It's precisely because of those good years that 2003 looks weaker--we're now in a slowed-down economy. Fishing and logging up here have taken some hits. But we are not planning to cut back our workforce or take other extraordinary measures. In fact, we're adding teachers. And, even though our tithe increase was small this year, we are receiving more income from trusts that benefit our conference. Last year $150,000 came in from one trust alone. And that has been very, very helpful.

"Now, we're in the designated Year of Evangelism, and we certainly haven't chosen 2004 to cut back on evangelistic funds. We've actually been able to add funding there this year."

Evans believes that conservative budgeting is paying broad dividends, especially in places such as the Mid-America Union and Alaska Conference.

"There have been times when some conferences have overcommitted staff during good years, and then have felt it necessary to make big cuts when economic times got tough. By staffing conservatively to begin with, we are generally avoiding these kinds of swings that bring hardship on everyone involved," says Evans.

Changing Demographics
During the last four months of 2003 and the first four months of 2004, six 65-plus-year-old members of the Sandy Adventist Church passed away--a phenomenon by no means confined to areas such as Oregon, with especially hard-hit economies. The passage of the "greatest generation" of Adventism is happening throughout the North American Division.

And pews vacated by members of this generation that tasted the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s are being occupied more and more by immigrant converts, many from Hispanic nations.

Prestol, himself of Hispanic descent, welcomes the addition of converts from abroad. "These new members, especially those of the first generation of immigrants, are very faithful in attendance, giving, and upholding church teachings, and we welcome them," says Prestol. "They do not initially always have high incomes. But their industry pays off, and in time they accumulate significant earning power.

While the percentage of all Adventist members living in North America will probably continue to shrink as a result of massive evangelistic growth in developing nations, he says the division's role as a financial supporter of the world field is not expected to change.

"Much of the world church is very dependent on our faithfulness in tithes and offerings here in North America. I only wish we were as faithful in giving mission offerings as we are in tithing.

"Though we had a gain in tithe last year in North America, we saw a 3.9 percent decline in mission giving. Today, at a time of great receptivity to the gospel in many parts of the world, we continue to see diminishing mission offerings from North America. We need to do a better job, as a church, sharing the vision of the importance of those mission offerings in the world field."

The Future
Despite economic hard times, members of the Sandy church are moving forward with their church building, and in April they opened the area's first branch Sabbath school for Spanish-speaking members. Six attended the first Sabbath, 10 the second, and organizers expect the group to soon pass 25. Meanwhile, the Worthy Student Fund has received a generous infusion of funds, bringing it out of the red.

But conscious of their financially precarious situation, Sandy members are taking extraordinary care to save money. Sunday work bees at the new church site are generally well attended, saving the members several thousands of dollars in labor expenses each week. Members of the new Hispanic group are refurbishing an old, turn-of-the-century farmhouse near the new church site for their branch Sabbath school meeting place, saving the local congregation additional expense.

The move toward fiscal conservatism, thrift, and maximizing limited dollars now seems to be the watchword from Alaska to Florida, from California to the Atlantic seaboard.

Far from retrenching, churches, conferences, and unions are upping evangelistic budgets this year and taking advantage of still-low mortgage rates to expand or build houses of worship.

North America seems intent on building on a conservative foundation of carefully managed expansion in a time of austerity. Many believe it's an excellent reality check for a church that has enjoyed more than 10 years of windfall income and surpluses.

And in time they believe the legacy of windfalls will return in force to Adventist tithe giving, erasing the effects, and even the memory, of the mysterious December of 2003.

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Edwin A. Schwisow is president of LifeScripts, a publishing firm that produces and markets inspirational and biographical nonfiction. He and his wife, Cherie, live near Mount Hood, in northwestern Oregon.