The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Anaheim, California last week, overwhelmingly adopted a budget for the next three years that allots 0.7 percent of the Church’s non-government revenue to international-development programs that support the Millennium Development Goals.

This 0.7 percent line item, which originated in the last three-year budget adopted at the 2006 General Convention, was created both to bolster the Church’s own overseas development work and to serve as a model of best practice that Episcopalians can cite in their advocacy for similar commitments from the United States government.

Due to the difficult economic crisis, the draft budget received by bishops and deputies prior to the Convention had recommended the elimination of the 0.7 percent line item amidst sweeping across-the-board cuts. Both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops overwhelmingly passed resolutions asking that the line item be restored in response to an outpouring of support for it in open budget hearings held last week.

Bishop Robert O’Neill of Colorado, who serves as Chairman of Episcopal Relief and Development and led the supporters of the resolution in the House of Bishops, said the 0.7 percent commitment “has been the proverbial mustard seed planted in a way that has challenged individual parishes and dioceses across our church to think and act globally. It’s become a way of framing our mission collectively in a way that makes sense to and captured the hearts of our young people across the church.

“That $3 million raised out of $1 million [committed in the past triennium] has tangibly revealed our explicit and sacrificial commitment to the global healing and reconciliation and restoration that is the essence of our participation in God’s mission.”

Bishop James Mathes of San Diego said the increase “is really about leadership. What we’re trying to do here as The Episcopal Church is to say that the Millennium Development Goals is a way that we lead as a church.”

-Alex Baumgarten, International Policy Analyst, Office of Government Relations, Episcopal Church