Budget 2015

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