More than 100 members of St. Marys United Methodist Church gathered Sunday night to vote on how to deal with the unusually large donation from member Warren Bailey, a telephone company owner who died in July.
"The No. 1 issue that we were concerned about was to be sure our church understood there were real spiritual dangers involved in keeping this kind of money," the Rev. Derek McAleer, pastor of the church, said Monday. "It's clear from our conversations that folks understood that."
Originally, leaders of the 715-member church had considered initially distributing $12 million, which would have been "a double tithe," McAleer, said.
"We had proposed that we would do a $4 million capital funds endowment, but we decided, no, we don't need that kind of money laying around," he said. "It won't help us. We'll give that away instead."
Church members approved setting aside $2.8 million of the bequest for an endowment fund that will benefit the congregation. McAleer expects the church will gain $100,000 annually from investment proceeds from the fund, equivalent to the annual gift Bailey gave the church in recent years for building projects.
McAleer could not say who will benefit from the $16 million the church plans to distribute up front, but he expects the church will continue to help ministries it has in the past, such as Methodist homes for children and senior citizens and other organizations that help such causes as battered women, emotionally disturbed youth and people in need of housing.
