Dear CCC Family and Friends,
We pray your Christmas was filled with the hope, peace, joy,
and love as we reflected on in our (Advent)ure series. We are very eager to
hear how God has blessed you through this Advent season. And more importantly,
what God is directing you to embark on as your advent-ure in 2015.
As a leadership team, we have been planning for 2015 for about
two months. There are MANY exciting opportunities for reaching out to our
community in 2015 in faithful response to God’s leading. These opportunities to
serve our Lord AND our community are part of why we reach out to you
today.
For the first time in recollection, your leadership team is reaching
out to you IN ADVANCE of the annual meeting to inform you about the spending
plan for 2015. The Trustees labored long and hard to create a spending plan
that is a reflection of our vision and mission and is also fiscally
responsible. Striking that balance was not without challenge… and sacrifice.
The Elders, providing spiritual guidance, and the Trustees, bringing
wise counsel from a fiscal perspective, formed a great team to formulate the
spending plan we present to you here.
A brief background will help frame the discussion to follow.
Offerings taken each Sunday are the ONLY source of income
from which the church operates. Staff and operating expenses are all paid
solely from Sunday morning offerings. The projected income for 2015 is based on
actual income for the 12 month period beginning December 2013 and ending
November 2014. That figure is $239,304, or $4602 per week.
Our goal for each year is to allocate about 50% of our
income for personnel, 20% on facilities, 10% on missions, and 20% on
programming. These percentages are based on research and analysis of data from
across the country to determine general guidelines for spending in a healthy
church. We continue to strive toward these goals, and though we are not there
yet, we have made considerable progress toward them over the last few years.
During the process of creating the spending plan for 2015,
we realized we had some line items that were not categorized correctly and
shifted some things around a bit. We will provide examples in the text below.
Let’s begin by examining the four categories at a level that is practical for
general discussion.
Personnel - ~50%
In 2014, we were blessed to hire Stuart McPherson as our
Director of Student Ministries in response to God’s calling. Provisions for
adding staff in our 2014 spending plan were non-existent, so the plan was to
compensate him using funds received in excess of projected income and other
reserved funds. God blessed our step of faith with Stuart’s tremendous talent
and enough funding to preserve reserved funds. Praise the Lord! In 2015, part
of the increase in Personnel expenses above the 2014 amount is because we are
including Stuart’s compensation in the spending plan.
When Pastor Lance was called to CCC, our ability to
compensate him fairly was lacking. At that time he was actually encouraged to
seek other opportunities of income. He was able to secure a teaching position
with Colorado Christian University (CCU). Increased time commitments imposed by
our growing church body and increased presence in our mission in the community
precipitated the decision to limit his involvement at CCU. In 2015, we are
setting Pastor Lance’s compensation to be in line with established guidelines based
on many factors including the size of our congregation, our rural setting, the
region of the country, and others. This compensation increase accounts for
another part of the overall increase in Personnel expenses in 2015.
There was a request this year to hire a part-time Director
of Children’s Ministry to administer the burgeoning Children's Ministry. As
much as we tried, we were not able to recommend that expenditure for 2015 based
on our projected income and other expenses.
For 2015, we overshot the 50% Personnel goal and are sitting
at 63.3%. As a consequence, other areas needed to be trimmed to less than our
target percentages.
Facilities - ~20%
The Facilities section of the budget is the “soup to nuts”
section of the spending plan relating to all operating expenses of the church
physical plant and the work done at CCC. Postage, maintenance and janitorial expense, utilities,
office supplies, etc. are all included in the Facilities section of the
spending plan.
One of the things we found in the Facilities section was a
Miscellaneous General Expenses line item that, when evaluated, clearly
contained expenses that should have been categorized in other sections of the
spending plan. By moving those expenses to other areas and trimming back
certain line items based on actual expenses versus planned expenses, and then
establishing guidelines for where expenses were to be billed in the future, we
were able to trim the Facilities section from 30.48% of income in 2014 to
20.89% for 2015.
Missions - ~10%
We feel that tithing is an important Spiritual discipline
along our Spiritual journey. It teaches trust and faith and rewards us with tangible
evidence of God’s providence in our lives, individually and as a local church
family. To that end, we are strongly committed to tithing part of our income to
local and world missions as an act of faith and as a practical example for us
all.
We subdivide our Missions category into Local and World. In
the World category we help support a number of missionaries around the globe.
Tim and Donna Wright and John and Elaine Mehn
all benefit from continued support from CCC. On a local level, we continue to
partner with Camp Id-Ra-Ha-Je, Mountain Area Pregnancy Center, and Mountain
Resource Center, supporting them both physically and financially as an outreach
to and for our community. The Care Ministry, originally started to care for the
CCC family in time of need, has more recently extended to become an outreach to
the local community. Most notable in this category is the Firewood Ministry
that this last year alone provided over 30 cords of wood, free of charge, to
local families in need. For that reason, Care Ministry has been moved from the
Programming area of the spending plan to the Missions section. Finally, we had
a fantastic VBS / Soccer Camp experience this last summer and look forward to
doing something similar again this coming summer as an outreach to the
community. To that end, we have added Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA),
who helped run the soccer camp, as a CCC supported mission in 2015. In all,
10.03% of projected income is allocated toward Missions in 2015.
Programming - ~20%
Programs originating within our church provide ministry opportunities
for Sunday mornings and throughout the week. Church Family Night, Compass
Groups, and Ignite, to name a few, are programs that help us grow closer as a
church family to God and one another. The Sunday morning worship experience
also falls into this section.
This area, without question, is where the Trustees spent
most of their time during the development of the 2015 spending plan. A burgeoning Children’s Ministry and an
ever-expanding Youth Ministry require funding to support them. Adult Ministries
such as Compass Groups and Family Night continue to attract people. Funding for
education materials, child care, and other expenses all have merit in
shepherding this part of the flock. Despite our best efforts, much of the
Programming section had to be reduced or eliminated to get anywhere close to
balancing projected expenses with projected income. We are NOT discouraged! We
believe God has called us to continue this ministry and we trust Him to supply
the need. The funding for Programming in 2015 is currently 4.06% of projected
income, far short of our 20% goal.
Summary
If you added up the percentages above (admit it, some of you
did) you would find they total over 100%. For a number of years, surpluses at
the end of the year were not carried forward as available funds for the
following year and have been accumulating in the general fund account. We plan
to use those funds to cover the difference between our projected income and
projected expenses. As always, we will be wise stewards of the blessing God
provides. Summarized in the table below are the percentages stated above as
well as their dollar figures for both 2014 and 2015.
|
Goal
|
2014
|
2015
|
|
%
|
%
|
$
|
%
|
$
|
Income Level
|
100.00
|
|
225,004
|
|
239,304
|
Personnel
|
50.00
|
51.75
|
116,434
|
63.30
|
151,476
|
Facilities
|
20.00
|
30.48
|
68,579
|
23.89
|
57,168
|
Missions
|
10.00
|
10.40
|
23,400
|
10.03
|
24,000
|
Programs
|
20.00
|
6.81
|
15,314
|
4.06
|
9,720
|
TOTAL, Expenses
|
100.00
|
99.43
|
223,727
|
101.28
|
242,364
|
A Call To Action
In preparation for our annual meeting in the first quarter
of 2015, we ask all of you to join us in prayer over the 2015 spending plan. We
would like to do more, especially in the Programming area, and have an idea to
make it a reality, but we need your help and commitment. The proposed spending
plan detailed above is what we will be asking you to approve at the 2015 annual
meeting. We call this the Bronze
Level in the table below. The “more” is summarized in the table below.
At the Silver Level, the funding we needed to cut
in the Adult, Youth and Children’s Ministries areas is
restored. For this to occur, we would need approximately $7,000 ($136/week) in additional
income. Once those funds are in place, we would authorize the Adult, Youth and
Children’s Ministry directors to spend those funds at their discretion. Note
that some of the additional income would go toward the Missions section of the
plan to maintain a minimum of 10% of income in that section.
At the Gold Level, the elders will recommend additional staff
positions and/or supplemental funding in other areas that align with our
mission and vision.
|
BRONZE
|
SILVER
|
GOLD
|
Total Income
|
239,304
|
239,304
|
239,304
|
Youth Ministry
|
|
~4,889
|
~4,889
|
Children’s Ministry
|
|
~1,178
|
~1,178
|
Adult Ministry
|
|
~1,000
|
~1,000
|
Additional Staff
|
|
|
??
|
Increased Programming
|
|
|
??
|
TOTAL
|
239,304 (4,602/wk)
|
246,376 (4,738/wk)
|
|
|
%
|
$
|
%
|
$
|
%
|
$
|
Personnel
|
63.30
|
151,476
|
61.48
|
151,476
|
|
|
Facilities
|
23.89
|
57,168
|
23.20
|
57,168
|
|
|
Missions
|
10.03
|
24,000
|
10.00
|
24,648
|
|
|
Programming
|
4.06
|
9,720
|
6.57
|
16,176
|
|
|
TOTAL
|
101.28
|
242,364
|
101.25
|
250,068
|
|
|
Thank you for your prayerful consideration of the spending
plan and the vision for 2015. We look forward to your participation in the
annual meeting and throughout the year as we carry out the plan God has laid
before us. It is with your help and support that we embark on advent-ure 2015
Soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone).
Blessings,
Conifer Community Church Elder Board
