Our church sold our parsonage and started giving our pastor a housing allowance instead. Can we use the money from the sale of the parsonage to pay the housing allowance?

You can invest the money from the sale of the parsonage and use the earnings toward the housing allowance but you cannot use the actual sale proceeds as a housing allowance.  The Book of Discipline prohibits the use of sale proceeds from any church building or parsonage to be used for current budget or operating expenses (paragraph 2543).  Housing allowances are considered to be current expenses so sale proceeds cannot be used in this way.