God calls us to full stewardship of our lives, offering all that we are and have in joyful recognition that these have been abundant gifts of God’s goodness. Please consider giving of your time, talents or treasure to help further the ministry of Portage Chapel Hill United Methodist Church in building disciples for Christ, for the transformation of the world!
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A Word From One of Our Members!
I wish you could have been with me last night! It isn’t often I get inspired by a meeting but I was invited to sit in on one last night at PCHUM with Wayne Barrett, Executive Director of the West Michigan Conference United Methodist Foundation and author of a number of books including The Financially Healthy Congregation. Wayne was a fountain of information about how churches in general are doing financially and, after looking at our statistics, how PCHUM is doing overall. His report indicated that for our size church, we are about average in our giving per active member, although I was a little surprised that that figure was only about $1800 per year. I need to think about that some more.
Wayne then said that our budget, however, reflected a really active, diverse, and growing church program that seemed to be serving the needs not only of the congregation but the local and world communities. It was exciting to hear from someone else that we were making inroads into the great commission that Jesus left us and that we seemed to be successfully working toward our church’s five year plan.
Upon further discussion, I learned that we in actuality were not keeping up with our budget and that a fairly significant shortfall is facing us now. We asked Wayne if our budget goals to support the church programs and infrastructure were unrealistic and should be cut back and he said he didn’t think we were trying to do too much but that we needed to find ways both immediately and in the long term to meet our growing needs. He had some great suggestions for us to consider that can help in the long term and another meeting will be held next week to seek more expert advise and address a number of issues that will impact our future.
But I was concerned with the immediate problem. How do we pay our bills this month? How do we end the ‘07-’08 fiscal year without a deficit that puts us in the “hole” beginning in July? How do we get through the summer when the cash flow is typically tight? Then I heard someone say “economic stimulus.” Of course! What greater way to stimulate our ministry and eliminate our shortfall than to make a significant extra gift out of the stimulus checks the government is sending out to us? In addition, with the price of gas serving to reduce my family’s summer vacation plans, I wondered if anyone else would be interested in joining me by using some of that “fun money” to reduce the stress of our church leadership as they work to keep PCHUM financially balanced?
I do wish you could have been with me last night. I saw a concerned, loyal, though clearly stressed, group of men and women sitting around a table trying to solve a very real problem for us, the PCHUM membership. I knew the short-term solution had to start with me. So, even though my “economic stimulus” hasn’t arrived yet, I plan to dig into my meager reserve and make a “second mile” gift to PCHUM this month. Will you join me? I know some can do a great deal more than I and some possibly not as much. But if we all get creative and stretch a little to do what we can out of the bounty that God has provided us, it will be enough. I learned a long time ago, you can’t out-give God.
Bob Spradling
6.5.08