The church I attended when I was growing up had several boards with information at the front of the sanctuary. One of the boards listed the hymns we would be singing that Sunday morning. The other board listed last week’s Sunday School attendance, last week’s worship service attendance and the amount of the offering from last week. A summary of this information was included in the monthly church newsletter.
Well, here at Platte Woods Church we do not post such information. However, from time to time I get questions concerning giving and attendance. One of Pastor Steve’s goals is to increase worship attendance by 5%.
With our new Web page, we have an opportunity to provide some information about how we are doing. When you go to the new Web site, visit the Stewardship page, and then select Financial Updates. (You can go there directly by selecting this link).
What you will find is a month-end report of the church’s budget compared with the support received through the end of month. Information will be provided on where we are on paying off the church’s building debt. Also, there will be information on worship and church school attendance.
As you encounter the numbers, please remember a couple of things. First, the church has up and downs with the numbers varying from week to week. Some weeks are certainly better than other weeks. Our challenge is to do well “on average.” Second, the “average” numbers are on a calendar year. Such averaging provides an inaccurate picture some of the time. For instance, as we move into September, we know that our yearly averages are usually down as we are coming off summer vacation. Our averages should improve as we move into the fall schedule. By the end of December, our averages should be a lot different than our end-of-August averages. By the way, we have a log of weekly numbers going back to 2004. So, we look not only at our year-to-date numbers, we can also compare the averages to several previous years.
As you review the numbers and have questions or comments, please let me know. I would be glad to discuss the numbers with you.
Showing posts with label stewardship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stewardship. Show all posts
Monday, September 14, 2009
Thursday, October 9, 2008
ANOTHER NEW LEARNING
Learning how to do a BLOG has been a lot easier than I thought. The hardest part has been to remember how to get into the blogging program. Once in the program the challenge is to remember how to make sure the composition gets posted.
Now Jennifer Simms has introduced me to another new bit of technology – online surveys. I have seen online surveys and have filled them out. However, I never thought I would be part of developing such a survey. Now I learn we have the ability to do online surveying.
Yesterday, Jennifer posted a survey Pastor Steve and I, with Jennifer’s help, put together. It will be interesting to see the results.
A little background on the survey – As you might be aware we are in the process of developing the 2009 Platte Woods Church budget. We have talked with and received requests from most of the groups in the church. In developing a church budget it is fairly easy to come up with number of dollars we would like to spend. What is vastly more challenging is to determine what resources our members and friends provide for us to use. That is why churches conduct annual stewardship programs. The challenge is to determine if our expected income will meet our expected expenses for the coming year. During the remaining Sundays in October, our pastors will be addressing the issue of stewardship and how we use the resources God has provided for us.
What particularly complicates our process this year is the economic circumstances we are experiencing. We know the movement in the stock market. We hear the job statistics. We experience price changes, especially at the grocery store. We pay varying prices at the gas pump. We wonder where the economy is going. At the church, we begin to wonder how all the economic forces are going to impact the support we receive.
Thus a short, four-question inquiry on the subject of stewardship.
You may participate in the stewardship survey by going to http://www.plattewoodschurch.org/pages/pageshow.cfm?pageID=158.
Thanks in advance for your input.
Now Jennifer Simms has introduced me to another new bit of technology – online surveys. I have seen online surveys and have filled them out. However, I never thought I would be part of developing such a survey. Now I learn we have the ability to do online surveying.
Yesterday, Jennifer posted a survey Pastor Steve and I, with Jennifer’s help, put together. It will be interesting to see the results.
A little background on the survey – As you might be aware we are in the process of developing the 2009 Platte Woods Church budget. We have talked with and received requests from most of the groups in the church. In developing a church budget it is fairly easy to come up with number of dollars we would like to spend. What is vastly more challenging is to determine what resources our members and friends provide for us to use. That is why churches conduct annual stewardship programs. The challenge is to determine if our expected income will meet our expected expenses for the coming year. During the remaining Sundays in October, our pastors will be addressing the issue of stewardship and how we use the resources God has provided for us.
What particularly complicates our process this year is the economic circumstances we are experiencing. We know the movement in the stock market. We hear the job statistics. We experience price changes, especially at the grocery store. We pay varying prices at the gas pump. We wonder where the economy is going. At the church, we begin to wonder how all the economic forces are going to impact the support we receive.
Thus a short, four-question inquiry on the subject of stewardship.
You may participate in the stewardship survey by going to http://www.plattewoodschurch.org/pages/pageshow.cfm?pageID=158.
Thanks in advance for your input.
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