Hello Church Family,
I hope you’re having a good week! Christmas is right around the corner. It’s hard to believe it’s already here. I’m really excited about our 2018 Christmas Eve Candlelight Service this Sunday.
Instead of our traditional two service times we are going to multiply it to four. The four services will all be identical in style and substance so just pick a time that works best for you and your family.
We will have services at 9:00, 11:00, 4:00 & 6:00.
As usual, there will be a fun time for the kids, Christmas carols we all know and a brief meditation on the true meaning of Christmas. Afterwards, we light the Christ candle and spread His light throughout the room as a symbolic expression of how the light of Christ overcomes the darkness of our world. It should be a really great time of worship for the whole family. I hope you’ll join us. You can learn more about it here.
The staff will be celebrating our annual Christmas party tonight. That should be fun. The food is always good and the games are always fun. The staff are usually overly competitive but that’s okay. It makes things interesting. It’s a good way to unwind after a year of hard work and ministry.
The Sunday following Christmas Eve we will be voting on our 2018 budget. For those of you new to Broadview, this is a process that gets handled by our Finance Team. They help craft the original budget proposal. After that, we present it to the church for consideration.
After the Pastoral Team and Deacons have given their approval, it goes before the congregation for a vote. That vote will be December 31st in both morning worship services. If you’d like to take a look at the budget you can access it here. I’ve also written a budget proposal document that explains all of the changes and why they were made.
The finance team is recommending about $65,000 in cuts from our General Fund budget. You can read the proposal document for a full explanation as to why this is the case. Essentially, we were unable to meet last year’s required giving and therefore it would be unwise for us to project a budget that didn’t take that into account. That’s why this year’s budget is slightly less than 100% of our 2017 receipts.
Here’s a breakdown of the changes:
MISSION CAUSES: -$24,810
We decreased the giving to our state and national conventions from 6% to 5%. We decreased giving to our local association from 1% to a fixed amount of $5,000. We kept our giving to local missions at 3% (with giving to the ACBA included.)
MINISTRIES: -$3,900
We decreased spending in our ministry budgets by about $4,000. Men’s ministry, women’s ministry, young and senior adult ministry spending will all be funded out of “Family Ministries.” Thankfully, we can do just as much meaningful ministry without the larger budgets. Ministry is about people, not things! The only reflected increase is in our Music/Media Ministry budget. The reason is because our Tech/AV spending (under operational) is now included under Music/Media Ministry. This better reflects the nature of the spending for Tech/AV.
PERSONNEL: -$20,290
The decrease in personnel costs are due to cutting certain intern programs and ministry assistant positions. Some part-time staff have also willingly decreased the number of hours they work. While there was an increase in health insurance costs, for the most part, we were able to save money across the board under our personnel costs. If the giving to the general fund meets the 2018 requirements, staff may be able to receive additional compensation through merit-based bonuses.
EDUCATIONAL: -$8,000
The decreased use of quarterlies by small groups and cuts to VBS & MNFTM account for the decrease in educational expenses.
OPERATIONAL: -$7,500
The biggest reason for the decrease in our operational expenses is because the spending behind Tech/AV has been reallocated to Music/Media Ministry. There was an increase in our insurance costs but small decreases in utilities and maintenance costs. Under Maintenance we’ve also included funding for an outside annual review of our financials. This is standard operating procedure for churches of our size and income.
MAINTENANCE AND DEBT: -$0
The spending around debt retirement and funded depreciation has remained the same.
As you can tell from this brief breakdown, there have been cuts pretty much across the board. After year over year of increased giving, it was a difficult thing to do. That said, God has been gracious and we have a 2018 budget that will move us forward in our vision to multiply disciples, bless our city, plant churches and send missionaries.
If you’d like more information then you can read the budget and proposal letter for yourself. There will also be time for Q&A tonight at 5:30 in the Main Building Fellowship Hall.
That’s it for me! I hope to see all of you during one of our Christmas Eve Candlelight Services this weekend. If there’s anyway I can pray for you, please let me know.
Blessings!
Pastor Wes