If you’ve been at Pulpit Rock for a while, you’ve noticed that we don’t talk a lot about church budgets, money and such.
While we have been doing just fine, thanks to an amazing and generous community who is saying ‘yes’ to a partnership with us, we want to get better at this.
We want you to share in celebrating how faithful our God has been in providing and using your generosity!
Recently, we’ve been reminded of our true story – one as chosen by God to be Kingdom agents. Where we are so closely tied to the mission of the gospel that our loving and merciful conduct can’t help but win over others in a world that’s not our own.
This is God’s story for us individually and for our church. And we want it to affect everything… our relationships, our work, how we serve others, and how we steward our financial resources.
In my role as the Executive Director of Operations, there is rarely a day that goes by that I’m not thinking about our finances.
And in a world where success of an organization is so often defined by things like accumulating wealth or keeping spending to a minimum, we believe operating by a different set of monetary values defines the win…
Sending money out.
Ministry in action.
Helping people in need.
Leveraging every dollar for the kingdom.
Making a tangible impact on our world.
This is what I have the privilege of watching us live out as a family.
One of our values is sending money outside of these walls. This looks like financially supporting specific partnerships or projects that are living out the gospel in very tangible ways, helping them to keep doing and to grow in their doing.
We will invest over $130,000 this year in some great organizations and missionaries from our annual giving budget, which is what we call our Ministry Fund. This is the general fund that also makes possible the day-to-day ministries, cares for our buildings, and provides staffing.
But beyond that, we want our support of these partnerships to extend further, which is why we are always looking for opportunities to come alongside our partners in additional ways.
Our annual Christmas Offering, the Love Your Neighbor ministry, Pando Collective, mission trips, refugee and human trafficking relief, and emergency assistance are all great examples of this. When you give to one of these, it’s called Designated Giving – a gift that is given for a specific purpose.
How we handle these special gifts matters. There are a few things we consider extremely important when it comes to your designated gifts and want to make sure you know too…
- We do not share individual giving with the pastoral staff, and only a select few (as needed to process donations) know who gives what. This is true of ALL giving at Pulpit Rock. What you choose to give is your personal response to engaging with God, not a number that determines your value here.
- 100% of every dollar given for a specific purpose goes directly to that organization or ministry. Our regular budget funds things like admin and staff travel on missional trips, so we can ensure that every dollar makes it to the hands of those we are partnering with.
- All designated giving is tracked and accounted for separately, and is part of our annual review with an independent accounting firm.
- Designated gifts are sent as quickly as possible to the intended recipient so they can be used for Kingdom work. We’re not looking to stash cash, as we budget for a reserve to cover the “rainy day” kinds of expenses.
Lastly, let me share some numbers with you that blow us away:
- Last fiscal year (Jul 2019 – Jun 2020) you gave $317,559 in designated gifts! That’s a staggering 23.5% on top of our regular giving budget.
- In the first six months of this fiscal year, we’ve already seen $288,555 in designated gifts!
- In the past 5½ years, we’ve received over $1.6M in designated giving. Wow! What amazing things God is doing and has done with this.
With all giving, but especially so with designated giving, we want to model financial transparency.
We are committed to better communication about money and are looking for the most helpful ways to do that. You can expect to see more regular updates like this in the coming months where we touch on different areas of finance.
Thank you for engaging with God and asking how you can be part of his bigger story. Thank you for listening to Him, and thank you for trusting us with what God has called you to give.
If you are a giver here – your investment is making a huge difference. If you don’t give here – we want to encourage you to consider it.
