Our ministry is entering into that time of year when we begin planning how we are going to resource the 2018 work of the church. This is your opportunity to help with that planning.

 

 The funding we need to enable Abiding Presence to grow more vital each year typically falls somewhere in the vicinity of $350,000. This pays the compensation for the staff, the utilities, maintenance, mortgage payment, programming materials, and benevolence. The reality is it is expensive to financially manage and operate a church.

 

So, it is important to state that “Abiding Presence exists because of you”. It’s true! If you did not contribute financially to this ministry in the offering plate on Sunday mornings, use an automatic drafting service like Vanco Services, a scheduled draft program from your bank, or the PayPal app on our website, Abiding Presence could not exist. Let me repeat that another way: The resource which we rely on most to ensure Abiding Presence continues to be a viable church and to do all the work that our church does, is you. So, “thank you.” We do receive funding from our preschool and our agreement with the Seventh Day Adventists to use our facility, but you are what our church relies on to keep the church vital and effective. Worship, faith education, service, outreach, caring for one another and others in crisis, fellowship, keeping the buildings and grounds safe and beautiful and so much more…it is all dependant upon your generosity.

 

For this reason, I want to challenge each one of us to commit to exercising a very special faith practice, together. A faith practice is something you do over and over, again. It’s like praying before a meal, or before bedtime. It becomes second nature. It helps you to center on the knowledge that God is at the heart of your life. Worshipping is a faith practice. And, resourcing the church’s ministry is a faith practice, as well.

 

Here’s what this particular faith practice looks like, and how it works…what I like to call ‘The faith practice of giving to God’s work”:

 

As an individual, or family, that worships at Abiding Presence, figure out how much you intend to give to the ministry of Abiding Presence in 2018. Maybe that’s $500. Maybe $1000. Maybe a little more than that, or maybe even a LOT more than that. Then, as is true with any sort of practice, you want to commit to doing it regularly. (People who have been exercising this faith practice for a long time have learned to use the Biblical standard of the “tithe” – 10% of income – or, what the New Testament highlights “free will offering” as the basis for figuring out how much they are going to give.) Whatever one gives, the Bible is serious about giving it regularly.

 

So, next figure out how often you intend to give your offering. For example: say you want to give $1,000 in 2018, and you want to break that up into monthly payments, you would be giving $83.33 every month. Or, if you want to give your offering weekly, you will be offering $19.23 per week.

The Finance Team, along with the Council, will soon present a budget proposal to the congregation for your vote. But, it would be so much more meaningful and helpful toward that process if we had a firm commitment from you that you have a plan to regularly provide your offering toward the work of God through Abiding Presence.

 

So, the faith practice of giving to God’s work is something for which I am asking your help as we prepare to identify our resources for the ministry of Abiding Presence in 2018. This coming year let’s exercise our faith practice together and let’s resource our church’s ministry to the glory of God!

 

Peace,

Pastor Jeffrey Ingold