2021 Stewardship Campaign: Welcome to the Journey, Part 2
Dear Friends:
First Church has changed quite a bit since I first arrived here in 2008, but all institutions and people change with time; circumstances, both good and bad affect how we engage the world. Those changes in turn demand our spiritual work in discerning where God’s Spirit is directing our attention. When civil unions awakened our culture’s conscience, First Church took up the call and listened for the Spirit’s leading and over a decade ended up voting to be an Open and Affirming Church and allowing GLBTQ marriages in our sanctuary. For 150 years, First Church has changed to answer God’s call to spread Christ’s love to the wider Essex community.
The same is true for 2020. To spread Christ’s love in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the percentage of our budget shifted dramatically from 2019 to 2020. Mission spending, as a percentage of the total budget, went up from 11% in 2019 to 16 % in 2020 and that does not even include the physical food we distributed to food insecure folks in our community. We have also taken advantage of no one being in the building during the pandemic for Building and Grounds spending as a percentage of the budget went up from 30 % in 2019 to 37 % in 2020 and that does not even include the money spend on the facility from the capital campaign!
In addition, overall expenses have been below the budgeted amount and overall income has increased thanks to our members faithful giving throughout the year as well as the US Government’s PPP loan that totaled $ 62,135. If we continue along these lines, then what started out as a deficit budget in January has turned into a surplus budget in October. Good news for this year.
But next year is up for grabs. We do not expect another PPP loan and as our church begins to open up in safe and prescribed ways, normal expenses are projected to return. So, the key is maintaining or even increasing our income and the largest part of our income stream is our giving from members and friends. This year, with the PPP loan, our pledges made up 66% of our income but last year without the loan it made up 80%!
We need your help to keep our church actively spreading Christ’s love and making Essex a better place in which to live. Look at the trifold and see where we spend our money. Your giving supports our Worship & Spiritual Care, our Building & Grounds, our Music, our Faith Formation & Youth Groups and our Mission & Outreach. Look at the bar graph and see where your pledge registers and see if you can nudge it over to the next higher category. If you do not pledge, seriously consider supporting our church financially…. now is the time when the need is so obviously clear.
Next week you will receive our final letter and pledge card and on October 25th, we will celebrate everyone’s support in worship. Think and pray about your gift and get ready to send your pledge in with some prayers for the continued well-being of our church.
May God’s Blessings Be With You All
Rev. Mark & the Stewardship Team
