FINANCE UPDATE, OCTOBER 2013

As we begin the school year and Fall is upon us, your Emmaus Road Church Stewardship Team is providing a giving and budget update to Road Crew to help us see our giving levels over the last several months, and to also provide an expense update.

Expenses: 
The update on expenses is pretty quick. Nearly every expense category has stayed on budget for the year, with no significant changes. We will update projections for 2014 expenses later this fall in preparation for an early November Road Crew meeting. Please refer to the June 2013 budget update, or even the annual budget summary from November 2012, to view church expenses (recall we were able to keep 2013 expenses generally in line with 2012 expenses).

Giving: 
As we discussed at our most recent council meeting earlier in September (see notes online), giving in July and August was very low. Some decrease is attributable to members being away on vacation; it has, however, left us with the need to catch up throughout September and October. If you have followed our giving trends via the Sunday bulletins and the eWeekly online, you may have noticed a good uptick in June giving, followed by a decrease over summer months. The charts and data we have published are one way we are trying to be transparent about our collective giving levels, and help remind everyone that money is a part of our shared ministry; we need it to sustain our work together. The chart below shows our giving trends over the last nine months as compared to average monthly expenses.

The Light Bulb Goal = $20k in the bank

If you were with us a couple Sundays ago, you may recall we mentioned a ‘Light-bulb’ goal.  As many of you know, the light bulb in one of our projectors is out.  For several months, we have been only using one projector during worship.  When will we replace it? As a Stewardship Team, we envisioned setting an attainable goal related to giving; as soon as we reach this goal, we will celebrate by purchasing the replacement bulb. Our goal: to replenish our bank account with more than two months’ worth of expenses, which is about $20k.  Early September giving was strong!  Please stay faithful in contributing to the financial support of our church; consider committing to regular giving if you do not regularly do so.

While we have stayed financially ‘above water’ this year, there have been times where our cash reserves dipped dramatically low, to less than a month’s worth of expenses.  This happened in late August/early September and also occurred in late April/early May.  We would like to get to a more healthy financial level where we as a Stewardship Team and as a church can get away from some of the detrimental month-to-month worries about finances that come with our current cash reserve levels. We would like to be a robust, giving congregation, able to bless others, in addition to sustaining our ministry partners and staff.

As mentioned, we will provide a more comprehensive budget update at November’s Road Crew meeting.  Have a good week!

Mike Elenbaas, Ryan Engel, Dave Anema – your Stewardship Team