Chardon United Methodist Church

Stewardship

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Home Annual Giving Stewardship Report - November, 2008
Stewardship Report - November, 2008 PDF Print E-mail
Many of those who participated in the Irresistible Invitation program have reported the experience added greatly to the stepping stones of their journey with Christ.  From what has been anecdotally reported to me the excitement and enthusiasm around the program within the church has been worth the price of admission!  I truly feel the change in the air within our church; more of us are talking to one another and getting to know one another.  This is all a positive outcome of the program not to mention each one of us participating responded to the invitation to a deepened relationship with God and a greater understanding of our individual role within the church.

Commitment Sunday was last Sunday and here are the results thus far:
  • We have had 118 Pledges totaling $325,815.00
  • 85 Church members who pledge last year who if they kept their pledge the same would result in an additional $148,500.00.
  • There has been an increase on average of 13% of those who did pledge last year in what they committed to this year.
  • We have had 24 new pledges come from church family members predominately from those who attend the Struck Service.
These projections give us a total of pledged income of $474,315.00.  The Church normally receives about 30% of its budget from non-pledged income, so if all our families who have not pledged who normally pledge come in we should be in pretty good shape.

According to our financial statements this year our total expense was $678,571.92 resulting in a net income loss of <-$101,441.32>.  If history is our teacher, we go on faith that we would collect gifts and tithes that are non-pledged of $203,571 which would put us a break even, but with a deficit from 2008.

I would ask everyone who feels uncomfortable with making a pledge to pray about this issue and let God speak to your heart.  If the answer is yes, make the commitment; then hold yourself accountable to God and yourself and make a commitment.  Only God, you, and Cathy Comerford-Nells know any of the details and she is not talking (to anyone but God about this).

We will be in the next two weeks review budgets and cash flow projections to see where in total we stand from an overall Church budget.  What comes next is a full address to the congregation regarding that analysis and how successful our 2009 Stewardship effort turned out to be.  We will be making announcements about ongoing programming regarding planned giving, use of charitable remainder trusts in estate planning and other planning related topics, so stay tuned.

I want to thank everyone involved for their efforts in helping with the Irresistible Invitation Program, especially those group leaders who facilitated the meetings and members of the Stewardship Committee.  A special and public thanks to Ken Phillips whose spiritual approach to this issue was a guide used in the committees’ effort.  This has been a great experience for all.

God Bless,

Keven Prather
Stewardship Committee Chair