As I type this month’s Elder Buzz, the
pain in my shoulder is a constant reminder of the
consequences of taking risks. Last week I broke my
collar bone (second time, now I have a matching pair)
while riding my mountain bike through the woods. OK, I
could have ridden a little more slowly or not tried to
jump over that tree root and maybe then I would have
arrived safely home without the pain, the trips to the
doctor, the looks from my wife and the handicapped
condition. But avoiding risk can become boring. Even
though there is the possible advantage of arriving
safely at death’s doorstep, a life of avoiding risks
lacks passion, excitement, progress, accomplishment and
interest. It is like the steward who buried his talents
to ensure he would not lose it for when the master came
back.
In the same way, the Elder Board is taking on some risk
in looking at various changes. The church vision is one
such risky venture. The Elders and Staff is in agreement
on the fundamentals of what our future church will be.
It will be a force and a movement developing people to
be more Christ-like and it will have a positive, high
impact on the community. That is the basic concept; we
just need to get the right combination of words to
properly communicate what we think God is telling us.
Another area of risk is changing how we govern the
church. We are still looking at some different models to
try and understand what will work best in our
environment. This may seem like rearranging deck chairs
on the Titanic, however, research tells us that next to
leadership, organizational structure is the most
important component determining mission success of an
organization. So even though this might be a risky
change, it is an important one as we are looking to
shift from a governance model to a team model.
The leadership is in the midst of the budget process for
the 2008-2009 year and are projecting a need for roughly
the same funding we had last year. We want to provide a
cost of living increase for the staff of 2.3% which
still keeps us below last year’s staff budget. The
departure of the Worship Director, the end of the
housing augmentation for Jeff and a decrease in some
administrative salaries has reduced expenditures for
this year. We also want to maintain donations of nearly
25% of the budget to missions and the denomination.
Finally, the building will need more attention so we
will be placing the entire 4% of the capital budget set
aside into the capital fund. We will also ask to move
the balance of the new building fund into the capital
fund to catch up on maintenance reserves. In past years
the church did not have a maintenance reserve and a new
building fund was created which took up half of the
annual capital maintenance budget. This budget may not
seem like a big risk, but in light of the present
economic situation and this year’s level of giving, we
believe it is a stretch.
Finally, the Elder Board established an endowment fund
from a recent bequest. This endowment fund will be a
permanent fund to generate interest or dividends to
provide funding for special needs as determined by the
Elder Board. It will also establish the opportunity to
add to the endowment as members of the church see fit.
Again, thank you all for your generosity and
faithfulness as well as a chance to serve such a
wonderful group of people
Kevin Scheid, Elder Chair
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