Sometimes a quick wrap up of what the numbers people are trying to tell us and show us can be helpful. Mostly, here is how your non-number-oriented Pastor quickly summarizes our church’s financial life as reported at the halfway mark. This opinion is strictly mine.
Ready. Ok, we are doing all right! In some ways very good. Although the pledge drive last year set too low a goal, people have been consistent in making their pledges. That’s good. Also working in our economic favor has been two important temporary realities. The first reality being that not having a DRE for roughly the last year and half, or not having hired our MOED until this month, have keep our staffing expenses lower. Second, not having as many events on campus during the pandemic has lowered many of the expenses that occur when we are running at full steam. As a bonus, rental events on campus have returned to pre-pandemic levels, and likewise our expenses are just now beginning to climb.
Also working in our favor has been having both our significant PPE loans forgiven. Those grants, that allowed us and the pre-school to ride out the storm of limited pre-school attendance caused by the Corona Virus scar free. Although most of the economic news that defines our reality is good, there is a catch. A longer view indicates that we really do need to grow our membership back to pre-pandemic numbers, for the presently lower Sunday attendance and participation in our committee life not to creep in to catch up with us.
At the mid-year congregational meeting, two solid issues that were raised remained mostly unanswered. The first point was that there was presently no real accounting system that accounted for all our assets, for example, our land and piano’s existence. Secondly, the question of exactly how the PPE monies we collected were divided and accounted for. Two things are true about that, one that seems fuzzier than it should be, and our books and accounting system are more complex than one might assume. All of us close to watching the sausage get made have been very grateful for the way Craig has taken the mantle from Greg as our treasurer to simplify them.
