Sept. 22, 2022 — The members of the Stewardship, Finance, & Administration (SFA) Ministry thank all church members and friends for your support. We thank all our church staff for carrying out the mission and wide array of activities in this church community. Please come to church this Sun., Sept. 25, with your commitment cards to be received and blessed at the Fall Festival Service. For more details on our financing, please read below.
SFA meets every month to review our church financials. Here is a summary of current financial highlights based on July Financials.
The GOOD NEWS, year to date our income has exceeded expenses, which is due to a few factors:
- Facilities Use from concerts has brought in more income than budgeted. This has been a great sign of how much our Sanctuary space is appreciated by musicians, and how much concert-goers enjoy being here.
- Your sustained giving continues to be steady. We are behind a little bit compared to last year, but this is not unusual for the summer months. Typically sustained giving catches up with the budget in the October to December months.
- Operating Expenses have remained below budget with savings in Personnel, Ministry Expense, and Church Plant.
The 2022 Budget anticipated a deficit of $105k, which was to be covered by the Council Contingency Fund that carries previous year’s surpluses if we have them. So far this year with income exceeding expenses, we have not used any Council Contingency. If the current trend continues we can avoid using it. This would also be very positive trend as we budget for 2023.
Here is how our broad categories of Income and Expense breakdown based on year-to-date financials:
Income Sources:
- Your Contributions 54%
- Facilities Use 36%
- Endowment Sources 10%
Expense Sources:
- Personnel 70%
- Ministries 4%
- Plant and Admin 20%
- Benevolences Budget 6%
This is our season of renewing sustained giving commitments for 2023. Sustaining giver cards were sent out in the mail last week. We know with inflation’s impact on our expense side, that we will need increases and additions to sustained giving. An increase in the Your Contributions category to 60% would add approximately $90k of income. This represents a 14% increase in commitments.