The budget. Gay clergy. Pastoral reassignments. Since Sunday, delegates to the South Carolina Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church have been receiving reports and recommendations, but postponing action, on these issues and more.

This, the fourth and final day of the session, is the day when delegates will be called to act upon those issues.

For only the third time in 33 years, the 1,100 United Methodist delegates from throughout the state are holding their annual session in Orangeburg.

Most events are being held at Claflin University, a private, four-year liberal arts institution affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The primary venue is Tullis Arena of the Jonas T. Kennedy Center.

The delegates' morning will begin with breakfast at 6:30 a.m. in Corson Hall, a communion service at 7:15 a.m. in the W.V. Middleton Fine Arts Center and a Bible study at 8:30 a.m. in Tullis Arena, led by Bishop Rhymes H. Moncure Jr.

Those events will help prepare the delegates for the business session that is set to begin at 9:15 a.m.

Resolutions are expected to be introduced that, if approved, would put the South Carolina United Methodist Church on record as:

-- Stating that "self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in the United Methodist Church."

-- Favoring an increase in the cigarette tax to reduce tobacco use among youths and raise revenue for health care for tobacco-related illnesses.

-- Encouraging the denomination's General Board of Church and Society to end its boycott of Mt. Olive Pickle Co. and Taco Bell, a division of Yum Brands Inc.

-- Withdrawing its financial support for the Black College Fund, because its "very title ... gives the appearance of being discriminatory and non-inclusive in its nature."

-- Calling upon "the governor of the state of South Carolina and the members of the General Assembly to restore immediately full funding of the Education Finance Act ... "

-- Favoring the merger of the South Carolina Conference Board of Education of the Southeastern Jurisdiction of The Methodist Church into The South Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church. Both are South Carolina nonprofit religious corporations.

-- Designating the site of Mount Bethel Academy a United Methodist historic site.

Other resolutions call for dissolving four congregations and abandoning a fifth.

Delegates also will consider the proposed $13,715,288 budget for fiscal 2005. That's a 3.9 percent increase from the $13,204,293 spending plan for 2004.

The Committee on Finance and Administration's proposed new budget would increase money for "equitable compensation" by 50 percent, from $200,000 to $300,000.

The Episcopal Fund would see a 16 percent increase, from $419,696 to $487,376, while money for World Service would rise by 7 percent, from $1,759,136 to $1,882,141.

Changes of less than 7 percent are recommended in all other categories of spending.

Delegates will be given information today regarding charge line changes. In the Orangeburg District, six congregations that previously had their own pastors will begin sharing a pastor:

-- Franklin UMC in Denmark and Orange Grove UMC in Bamberg.

-- Bethel Park UMC in Denmark and Main Street UMC in Bamberg.

-- Wagener UMC in Wagener and Swansea UMC in Swansea.

There will be a lunch break between noon and 2 p.m. The United Methodist Men will have a luncheon in Ministers' Hall, with the Rev. G. Ross Freeman as speaker. Cost is $10. Others are invited to have lunch in Corson Hall.

The annual meeting will conclude with Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey's announcement of appointments of pastors to United Methodist congregations across the state, followed by a service of covenant renewal.

T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552.

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