Pulpit Rock Family,
We just closed out the first quarter of the budget year and wanted to take a moment to give a few updates on where we sit financially.
We shared in June that we had a gap of about $30,000 to meet our budget for the fiscal year, and after a strong finish to the fourth quarter (April-June), I am excited to share that we did in fact come in right at budget. That’s great news and worth celebrating!
Because of your faithful giving through the first quarter of this new fiscal year, we have been able to bring on 3 summer interns in our Kids and Student ministries, hold an amazing mother/daughter overnighter, launched our father/son Man Camp, send students to the Desperation Conference, and host an incredible Cultivating Wholeness women’s event. We’ve also been hard at work preparing spaces for the start of the school year – painting, cleaning, replacing some much needed carpet in a preschool room, and even patching an unexpected break in our main water line. We are also excited to have launched a new project to update our website, added a new missions partner and increased our giving to another, and were able to send some extra support to World Orphans Ethiopian staff. None of that would have been possible without your financial partnership with us.
We kept a flat budget from last year into this year (meaning we didn’t increase our projected overall giving), but our start to this budget year hasn’t been as strong. At the end of the first quarter (Sept) we are currently sitting at about 7% below budget in giving, that’s a little over $1,400 per week behind.
I share that with you for two reasons. The first is we want to increasingly work towards more and more transparency and regular communication in regards to finances here at Pulpit Rock, and the second is to invite you, if you haven’t already, to have a conversation with God about your finances this year and about giving to Pulpit Rock.
We truly believe that God has something to say to us about our money and the ways we think about and invest it, and more than wanting you to give here to Pulpit Rock we just want you to have that conversation with God, and then do whatever He says.
Thank you for praying with us and for taking that step to talk with God!
I also wanted to update you on the 2024 Generosity Project we launched in January. In this last quarter we had 7 people give a gift for the first time to Pulpit Rock, 5 of those set up recurring gifts and 3 people increased their monthly gift.
Thank you to those of you who have made those commitments this year! We are excited to see how God continues to provide in this next quarter as 2024 comes to a close.
Speaking of the end of the year, we recognize there are lots of incredible organizations and projects that will invite you to consider giving to the work they are doing in the next 3 months. In fact, in November you will begin hearing some stories about special projects we would like to collectively invest in as a church through our annual Christmas Offering. We are proud of the fact that 100% of the money we raise for the Christmas Offering we give directly to the partners and organizations we support. It all goes outside the walls of this place.
We want to invite you to give generously to the Christmas Offering and as we do, we also want to invite you to give generously here to Pulpit Rock. We deeply believe in what God has called us to do and be as a church. To help form people into the image of Christ and find their place and participate in God’s kingdom.
Thank you for the ways you financially invest here at Pulpit Rock that enables us to do that work well. May God richly bless your generosity and heart to follow where He leads…
Kyle Collins
