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FINANCIAL UPDATE
Often, the summer months are considered a time of “slowing down” in some businesses and in some church organizations. While ministry seasons can certainly ebb and flow throughout the year, Faith Church, from an operational standpoint, stays busy with creating and executing plans that have no “off season.”
Even at this time the staff and church leadership are at work putting the final pieces together of the 2023/2024 church budget. Our budget creation is a monthslong process that includes planning, input, review, adjustments, more reviews and tweaks, and includes staff, deacons, pastors and ultimately the Consistory that approves the budget so it is ready for implementation on July 1.
BY: JOHN CLAUSING
Unique to this year is that while our normal budget creation process was taking place we launched our “Better Together” Building Campaign. This multi-year fundraising campaign is addressing much needed growing room at our Beecher, Cedar Lake and Highland locations. At this time, our Faith Family has pledged $6,912,737. We are thankful for the faithfulness of God’s people.
Finally, as part of our financial responsibilities, our teams have been hard at work navigating an economic landscape that includes much higher than normal inflation, cost of living increases and supply challenges. We are working to keep our budget responsible while addressing these realities.
While these challenges are real, we also see God at work in the financial aspects of our church. As of the writing of this update, our overall giving to our general budget is up approximately 8 percent from last year, and we are on pace to meet all of our projected expenses in our 2022/2023 budget. Our staff continues to be mindful of spending and is keeping expenses around 90% of the budget. An end-of-fiscal year update will be provided in the next edition of The Paper.
We trust and praise God for His continued provision for Faith Church!