How to Do a Church Budget

Last night was our regularly scheduled church budget meeting. For the past number of years now, instead of trying to hash out the budget in a meeting after church when everyone is eager to go home and watch the football game, I invite the Executive Board over to my house for a dinner meeting. My wife cooks up a great feast, we enjoy some beer and wine with the meal and enjoy each other's company, and then after a wonderful dessert, get started on the budget. And you know what? It goes really smoothly! I am happy to say that our missions budget is now well over ten percent of our total budget. That is a goal I've been working toward. In the past years we have given more than ten percent because we've given away some of our budget surpluses, but this is the first year we've actually budgeted over ten percent. A lot of that is going to our seminarians, for we have both a pastoral ministry student and a deaconess student, and the seminary asks for a lot of support for each of them, but we are happy to do so. Now, we aren't the biggest church and we don't have the most complicated budget, but I never dread these meetings. They are always high on collaboration and we're all on the same page. And yes, it is a deficit budget, but less than previous years. And I applaud my leaders for not cutting missions just to make the budget balance. We just go forward in trust that the Lord will provide. He always has, and we believe He always will. So well done, Executive Board!

Conference, Day 2

The topic of day 2 of my conference was Disaster preparedness and response. There were many presentations, some good, some too long, but overall not a bad day. I did find out some things I did not know - like, who knew we had "LERTs" (Lutheran Early Response Teams)? We were also told of how we can be certified to be involved in future disasters and needs. But the best thing was that instead of having the scheduled 4:30-5:30 block of reports on synod and district matters, we got an extended break before dinner! We needed it.

Divine Service was after dinner. Unfortunately, we couldn't just use the Divine Service, it had to be made "more meaningful" by changing things up. So, we had to have ten minutes of explanation before we even started about what we were doing and why. Don't you think that's a big red flag that something's off? After that, we used a confession that was four pages long! And I learned that "fear of anything new" was a sin - who knew? Next two readings from Scripture, but the "explanation" of the first was longer than the reading itself! (Again, isn't that a big red flag that something is amiss?) President Harrison preached, and I appreciated his sermon. Sadly, the only liturgy for the Sacrament were the Lord's Words - nothing else! Not even a pax domini or an agnus Dei. Sigh. Can't we just use the service we all know and are familiar with and so feed your pastors who rarely get to sit and be fed?

Today we have President Harrison present on things and I guess have a Q&A. We'll hear about the Health Plan stuff after that, which should be interesting given all the changes to the laws of late. The DP promised those guys who didn't present about their mission trips yet the time to do so, so it will be a full morning. The conference ends at noon, and then off to the airport for the flight home. If all goes well, I think I will be home for dinner.

Cleveland

No, not the president (as in Grover, I know that's what you were thinking, right?) but the city. That's where I am for a Pastoral Conference. Got here Monday night and leaving Thursday. In between they have the days packed completely full with presentations. We leave the hotel for a local church at 7 am and get back sometime after dinner. Yesterday, the first morning session was by development people, so I got some sermon thinking done and some thoughts done on my computer.  :-)  After that, we had two sessions from a pastor who has a new book on demons and spiritual warfare. He was very good and consistent in his theology and the power of the Word of God being our only power and weapon. He was worth listening to. I got to sit down with him during lunch and talk a bit, which was nice. Later in the afternoon got kind of preachy - we had guys presenting about missions trips they were organizing and leading to different countries. Good stuff, but a bit too long and as I said, preachy. Got tiresome.

It is good (always) to reconnect with guys I haven't seen in a while. Have had some nice conversations. I'm not sure how today will be. We'll see, I guess. Perhaps I will get some sermon writing done!

Web.Site.BACK!

Thanks to the tech guys in the congregation, our web site is up and running again . . . mostly. We will have to rebuild some things, which will take time, but at least it is mostly up and running again, and on a new and faster host. Thanks guys!

Web. Site. Gone.

We lost our church web site rather unexpectedly yesterday. If you were looking for it, hopefully it will be mostly up and functional soon. Part of it (the sermon archive) I think we will have to rebuild. I was worried that this day was coming (I won't go into the reasons) and had some folks at church looking into it, but it came sooner and more suddenly than expected. Thankfully I have good guys who got right on it and so the downtime should not be long.  :-)

Children's Choir

Yesterday our Sunday School children sang in our Divine Service. They have been learning the hymn The Gifts Christ Freely Gives (LSB #602). It's a great hymn for kids to learn and to teach them our theology. They have the first three verses learned so far, so yesterday, as we sang it for the office hymn, they sang verse 2 alone. They did great! And no, we did not line them up in the front of the church for show - they sang from the back. Hopefully we can continue to teach them hymns to keep singing in church. And learning them as children, they learn to love and cherish them, and they stay a part of them. So good job kids!

The Week in Review

Been some time since I've written, mainly because I'm tired. This new house has proven to be a LOT of work. But more on that in a moment.

First, the 12th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks was this week. I wove that into my sermon on Wednesday night. My wife mentioned to me that it seems like just yesterday that it all happened. But my oldest, Robbie, was in kindergarten then! We still have the stuffed animal he got at school, donated by some folks in Columbus, OH, to comfort the kids. (It is a gorilla which we named Columbus.) We were still in New York then. I still have vivid memories of it all. Not just that day, but all the days, weeks, and months after that day. Much of the country moved on, but in New York, it just kept going and going. The clean-up was so massive, and casualties (or pieces thereof) were being found in "the pile" months later. I remember traveling to Ft. Wayne in November and being away made such a difference! I hadn't realize what living with that constantly did to me.

I remember being at the pile (that's what the workers called it) and counseling the workers. Their stories were horrifying and sad, yet they returned everyday. Their stamina was amazing, and they were very appreciative of us pastors being there to support them. When I went back to see the memorial last year, it wasn't the memorial or the giant holes in the ground that got me, it was being back at the little church where I helped. For that's where I was. That's what made the memories come flooding back.

But now, we are fixing up our new house. When we actually moved in, we found out that the place was really pretty dirty and needed more work than we thought it would. So we've been cleaning (deep cleaning!) everything and doing a lot of painting. The floors were all very creaky and squeaky, so I've also been busy peeling up the carpets and reattaching the wood. I needed to get all this done now because we are getting new carpet installed on Tuesday and I don't want to pull up the new stuff once they put it down.  :-)  That should make a big difference! We also found out that the former owners had painted right over all the switches and outlets.  :-(  So in addition to repainting, we've been replacing all of them. Then there's been the work we've had contractors in to do - they're still coming. Electrician next week to fix some problems and install a lot more lighting in the basement which will be my study/office. And there's still a lot to do - but after next week, I believe all the major work will be done. Then we'll begin taking things out of our storage unit and settling in all the way.

My brother and sister came to help us move and they did a LOT of work! Not only did they help with the actually moving, but did a lot of patching, sanding, cleaning, and painting while they were here. I don't know how long it would have taken us without them!

The basement which will be my study/office is what needs the most work now. It has an old and not very nice wet bar of sorts in one corner that needs to be torn out. Some brick around it will need to be chiseled out too. Then some drywalling and painting, and with the new lighting, it should be pretty good. I want to put some carpeting down also, but I think that may need to wait a while - I think we've pretty much used up our improvements budget with everything else we've done! There's other stuff that will have to wait as well, like a new basement door and some new windows in the basement, new light fixtures in various places, too.


What we'll do little by little after this major stuff is done is the painting of all the trim in the house, as well as the wainscoting in some of the hallways and rooms. I would like to try something like this picture, except with the color above the rail light and the color below the rail and in the squares dark - maybe a dark green. I think the contrast would be nice, but we'll see. As I said, we can take some time with that.

But what I also need to get moving on is my school work! I've always tried to place church and family before school, and with all this happening, the school work has slid a bit. But I still need to get it done, so I need to carve out some good time to make sure I do.

Finally, here's a picture of the whole gang around my father. We are making plans to move him down in November. It will be nice to have him with us.