FINANCE | GIVE HERE
We have received $1,556,152 in offerings during this fiscal year (July 1, 2019 to June 19, 2020). Our approved budget is $1,687,052. We will need to receive $130,900 by June 30 to meet our budget through offerings.
Some of our expenses have been reduced since the middle of March. Our expenses are typically around 98% of budget, but we currently project our year-end expenses at 94% of our budget (around $1,586,000). We will need to receive around $30,000 by June 30 to meet our projected expenses through offerings.
On May 6, Blacknall received a loan of $163,900 through the federal Payroll Protection Program (PPP). Federal law provides strict limits on how this loan us used, primarily for payroll. We expect to qualify for forgiveness of most or all of this amount. The amount forgiven will appear as net income if and when we apply for forgiveness and receive written confirmation. This may occur in early fall, so this income may appear in the next fiscal year.
Additional comments from the Finance Committee acting chair
Should the receipt of a PPP loan change our usual goal of offerings equal to the approved budget? Three people contacted me this week with this and related questions. There is no simple answer, but here are my thoughts:
Our members and attenders have been incredibly generous in the difficult months since our last corporate worship on March 11. We experienced reduced offerings during the early pandemic period (March and April). In contrast, offerings were strong in May and early June. We are now on target to meet our reduced expenses with offerings. We may even come close to meeting our full approved budget.
Our first fiscal responses to this pandemic may seem paradoxical. In a time of reduced offerings, our Session called for a special missions offering, and we raised over $40,000 in March and April. While cutting expenses in some areas, we continued to provide planned support to international, campus, and Durham ministry partners. These are strong symbols that reflect our underlying priorities. Continued strong giving will allow us to continue or even expand our benevolence commitments.
Possible PPP loan forgiveness would provide budget support for deficits that may arise this summer or fall. The Session also provided another safety net several years ago through the Cash Flow/ Deficit Protection Fund. So we are confident that we will remain solvent.
I affirm the goal to meet our full approved budget with current offerings. This will provide a strong positive signal for pending Session decisions. Our new fiscal year begins July 1, but we postponed our usual budget process due to the uncertainties of this spring. Uncertainties remain, but we do expect to begin budget planning in July. Our Session will face major fiscal decisions related to personnel transitions and support for ministry partners. A strong finish to this fiscal year will positively inform these decisions.
Please contact Rich Frothingham with questions.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Service of Lament | Listen Here
Last week, we gathered virtually for a time of lament, confession, and asking for God’s Kingdom to come. You’re invited to listen to the recorded service.
Gather Over Zoom | Details Here
Join others virtually for Sunday worship, Sunday school, or weekday morning prayer.
June Missionary Prayer Guide | View Here
Prayer & Thanksgiving
Pray for Woody & Mary McLendon with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Waxhaw, NC. Woody is President of JAARS. Mary home schools. Please pray for:
Thanksgiving for God’s protection over their family and JAARS.
Wisdom in knowing how to safely restart more activities on campus.
Creativity and adaptability amid the pandemic and the concomitant restrictions for their global translation workers.
The safe birth and health for their second grandchild due this month.
About the Music
Today is the first Father’s Day of my life when I do not have mine. Today is the one year anniversary of my father’s death. He was a careful planner in every regard, and given the chance, would have planned to die exactly as he did: in the house he designed and lived in for 60 years, he lay down to take a nap on Father’s Day and did not wake up. He thought carefully about everything, and once he settled on a “position” he was, like many of us, essentially unmovable. The God whom we worship is described as being unchanging, “the same yesterday, today and forever;” in the words of the hymn, “Thou changest not…as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.” This makes the Hosea 11 passage one of the most astonishing in Scripture: the Lord laments the waywardness of His child, Israel, rehearses the punishment to come, and then changes His mind. Why? In considering the one (Israel) deserving of severe punishment, He says “all My compassion is aroused.” Intransigence is a fancy word that perhaps sounds better than stubbornness. It is a human characteristic. Compassion that overwhelms even a divine plan is not; as He says, “for I am God, and not a man.” I am my father’s son, and his influence on my life is predictably prodigious, and I’m grateful. But I aspire to be more and more like the Father who adopted me; I want His heart of compassion to fill me, to cause me to be His man, setting aside my childish thoughts and ways. So my prayer for today: May our hearts be filled with gratitude as together we sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness;” may we be overwhelmed with an awareness of His compassionate love for us, His children, as we pray, “Our Father…”
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not --
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning, new mercies I see.
All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided --
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.