Minister's Column – July 2017

I write just a few days after our Annual Meeting where we approved the Outdoor Sanctuary Project, made a bylaw change, approved a budget and voted in new officers. A lot accomplished in an hour and a half!
I wanted to clarify one thing about our finances. More than once at the meeting people said church finances are healthy. This is true both in the immediate and long term. Yet it is also true that in the next 2-3 years we will have some decisions to make.
Long-term financial health comes from both operating reserves and the legacy funds. While our policy is to have 3 months operating expenses in reserve, due to careful stewardship by the Finance Committee, we presently have nearly 5. The Legacy Fund has been well cared for and still has well over $200,000. Indeed, I have never served a church with such healthy reserves, so well-stewarded for the long term.
The immediate financial health is funded by 3-year “bridge pledges” made last year. These have allowed us to continue “staffing for growth.” The bridge pledges give us about another $40,000 for two more years (including 2017-2018). Coming to the end of that bridge, we arrive at the crossroads. The vast majority of the budget is made up of staff salaries, and we may well have some staffing decisions to make.
This year we had a very successful Celebration Sunday and pledge drive. We increased pledging by about 5 percent, which is to be applauded. You are a very generous congregation. Yet you can see that we’ll need to grow our resources significantly more in the next couple of years.
Often people think of growing in numbers of members, yet there are many ways to grow a church. We grow in spirit, in generosity, in commitment, in engagement, and in numbers. We are looking for growth in all these qualities.
We have many resources, yet there may be some hard choices ahead. I’m reminding you of this now, not to induce panic. We will not be falling off a cliff in two years. I just want to paint the fuller picture so that we are all holding it.
Ultimately the questions we need to ask are about the mis­sion of this church and how we sustain it for the future. If we continue to grow in depth and clarity of mission, we will be the church we are called to be. That’s the very best we can do.
In faith and in community,
Rev. Dana