Category: Stewardship and Sustainable Growth

By Peter Wall, CFO

The first six months of 2020 (maybe even seven, by the time you read this) are done and gone. That means I have enough information to give you a mid-year financial report for our church.

So where do we stand? 

Let me start with a broad recap of the budget that you the congregation approved at our annual meeting on January 26, 2020, way back in pre-pandemic times. First, there was a theme for the budget, which was “investing in the children.” Based on that theme we budgeted to hire a paid director of Christian Education, and to pay for classroom assistants. Second, we budgeted to set aside $7,000 in anticipation of the sabbatical that is written into the call of our Pastor. Those were the significant “new” things in the budget. Overall, we budgeted income of $353,026 (including $186,500 in pledged giving, $31,000 in identifiable giving, and $11,950 in loose offerings and other giving; $63,700 from facility use fees; $27,575 in endowment transfers; and $14,100 from fundraisers), and expenditures of $352,796 (which is a difference of $230, allocated as “Reserves”).

Starting from the approved budget as a baseline, there is bad news and there is good news. 

The bad news you probably already know: this year has not gone the way any of us expected. Because of the pandemic, we were not able to hold our major fundraiser, Jazz on Van Ness, and facility use fees are way down (but Head Start and Amazing Grace Ministries are both continuing to pay as agreed, and as budgeted). Because of those two things, income for the first half of the year (January through June) was $23,121 less than we budgeted. 

The bad news continues on the expenditure side. Because our in-person activities have ceased, it has been a struggle to figure out how best to serve the children. We still do not have a paid director of Christian Education, and we have not needed to pay classroom assistants. As well, most of our Ministries have not been spending at the rates they expected. Overall, expenditures for the first half of the year were $29,105 less than we budgeted.

Before moving on to the good news, however, I want to pause and acknowledge the seriousness of the bad news, particularly on the expenditure side, and particularly given the budget theme of “investing in the children.” We should all be concerned about the kids right now. Their opportunities for healthy social engagement are significantly reduced, and we as a church have struggled to find ways to overcome that problem. All of the children, all of the people who work with children, and Candice Blair, the chair of our Ministry of Christian Education, and Tracy Bright, who is chairing the search committee for the paid director of Christian Education, need our prayerful support in this difficult time.

But here is some good news: giving remains strong! During the first half of the year, pledged giving, totaling $97,111, was 100.63% of what we budgeted and identifiable giving, totaling $15,547, was 100.29% of what we budgeted for that period. Despite all of the bad news, that strong giving means that, for the first half of the year, we were $12,523 to the positive (in other words, that much more came in than went out). And those numbers do not include more than $15,000 that was given or raised to feed the hungry, both through the pantry and with home-cooked meals. We also don’t yet have the final numbers for Creativity on Virtual Van Ness, the fundraiser intended to help replace Jazz on Van Ness—but I can say preliminarily that you will be impressed.

Finally, there are a couple more things to report. First, to help ensure that the congregation’s wise decision to set aside money for the pastoral sabbatical will be honored in future years, we now have a separate account at the bank for that money, and we are transferring $583.33 into that account every month. The balance at the end of June was $3,500, which was right on track with budget. Second, because the money coming in and going out to feed the hungry has been significant, and to provide greater transparency, we also have a separate account at the bank for the pantry fund. The balance at the end of June was $16,712. In addition to those balances, our general cash balance at the end of June, which basically is our operating funds, was $17,760, and that good position has been holding steady. We have not yet made any unbudgeted transfers from endowments.

That good news is not a reason to stop or slow your giving. The second half of the year could still hold expensive surprises. As well, we are still in the process of purchasing new video equipment to improve the quality of our online services, and we are still working to hire a paid director of Christian Education. We could still get to the end of the year and find that expenses were far greater than expected. And, as I have said before, we need to be well-positioned to spring back into a wounded world. 

We have lots of challenges, and our own practice of generosity helps to lay a strong foundation for meeting them. In mid-July, giving progress statements were mailed to everyone who both pledged and had given during the first half of the year, together with a letter from the chair of the Stewardship and Sustainable Growth Committee. Please review those things carefully and consider how you can best continue to support the work of our church.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me by email at [email protected]. 

Written by Peter Wall, CFO

This has been a year of challenging surprises. One of them is that all of our services are now online, through Zoom, Facebook, and YouTube. You have probably witnessed our struggle to get up to speed with video streaming technology. And our limited equipment has not made it easy. If enacting a beautiful celebration in person can be taxing, just imagine having to coax it through a patchwork of devices that were not made to do this kind of thing.

So we should all be thankful that the chairman this year of our Ministry of Resources, Wade Hobson, has done the hard work of researching which equipment would hit that sweet spot of being most helpful to our needs, while getting the biggest bang for our buck. And the Council in June approved an unbudgeted expenditure of about $10,500, which is the estimated amount to purchase and install a two-camera system with a switcher/scaler.

I know what you are asking: Can we afford it? The short answer is yes, with your help.

Here is the longer answer. As I write this in June, we know our financial status through the end of May. (The numbers at the end of June will become available in July, and I hope to provide a better mid-year report in my next column.) Through the end of May, we did very well. Pledged giving was at 99.44% of budget, identifiable giving was at about 110% of budget, and giving overall was about 99.2% of budget. To put it simply, giving was right on target. (And that does not count several thousand dollars in additional donations to feed the hungry.) Keep it up!

Other forms of income have dropped significantly, however. Building use income is way down because fewer outside groups are paying to use the facility. And we were not able to hold the Jazz on Van Ness fundraiser in May. But our expenditures were lower during the same period by almost exactly the same amount. That means our expenses have not exceeded our income. In fact, through the end of May, our income was about 107% of our expenses for that period, which puts us about $8,600 ahead. But that is still a pretty slim margin with half the year still left (and surely more surprises in store). We need to keep up our practice of giving.

We also need your help with that video project. If you are able, and you wish to contribute, you can increase your usual giving, or you can specify “Video Project” on the memo line of your check or use the “Video Project” category in Givelify.

On that point, I need explain something that is often misunderstood in our congregation. When we develop the budget for the year, and we include a line for “pledged” giving, that line only includes the ordinary giving that you have pledged. You are always welcome to give more, and we know there are many circumstances when you might need to give less. But when you give to a specified project—for example, Coffee Hour, flowers, the pantry, or a fundraiser—then when you get your giving statement at the end of the year, you will see that specified giving does not get counted toward the fulfillment of your pledge. Why is that? 

Let me explain by analogy. If you are an employee, you probably get a regular paycheck. Now imagine one morning your car breaks down unexpectedly, so you are late getting to work. When you finally arrive, weighted with stress, you explain the situation to your boss, and lament that it will cost $1,000 to get your car fixed! Not to worry, the boss tells you—I will pay to fix your car. Greatly relieved, with this financial weight lifted, you get back to work. But then your next paycheck comes, and it is $1,000 less than usual. What is this? You study the pay stub and see that the boss deducted the amount paid to the mechanic! Suddenly, the weight of that stress returns. How will you pay rent? How will you buy food? The boss did not really pay for anything. The boss just took away your decision how to spend your paycheck.

How does this relate to giving at church? The givers are the boss, the church is the employee, the paycheck is the pledge, and the money to the mechanic for an unexpected expense is giving to a particular project. Do you see the problem? If you are only able to give the amount that you pledged, then you should be faithful to your pledge, because we are counting on your gift. (And thank you for your generosity!) Redirecting your pledge to a particular project can make things difficult for the church, financially. Give more to the project only if you are able.

It would be great if our general giving from pledges were enough that we would never need to ask for additional donations or hold fundraisers. And personally, I think that ought to be our goal. (As I wrote a couple months ago, “I like to imagine a crazy, radical world that runs on generosity, instead of on scarcity.”) But we are not there yet.

If you are able to give extra to help with the video project, please do. Thank you for your generosity!

Written by Peter Wall, CFO

Ecclesiastes might be my favorite book of the Bible. I love the way it pierces earnest pieties and forces the reader back to the messiness of life on earth. It is the kind of thing that I can imagine Jesus reading, and pondering inwardly, and kneading into his cryptic parables. The book opens with a poem that includes these lines:

What has been is what will be,

And what has been done is what will be done;

There is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has already been,

In the ages before us.

This time of pandemic might feel unprecedented. But there is precedent. The people who came before us walked this path before we were born. Over the past few weeks, historian Ethan J. Kytle, who is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Fresno, has been writing about the pandemic a century ago, in 1918 and 1919, and how the City of Fresno responded. (You can find his dispatches at https://tropicsofmeta.com/category/dispatches-from-fresno/.) A lot of it sounds eerily familiar, including widespread closures, people wearing masks, and business owners clamoring to reopen.

The First Congregational Church of Fresno was founded in 1883, which means our congregation was around in those days, and I wondered how we handled the influenza pandemic. Fortunately, we have a chronicle of our first hundred years, written down in a book. When Mary and I first joined the church, we borrowed a copy of that book from Ruth Gadebusch. We read it together. And before we gave it back to Ruth, I digitized it to keep as a reference. 

What was happening with our congregation a century ago, when the influenza pandemic swept through Fresno? The pastor of the First Congregational Church of Fresno then was Thomas T. Giffen. But he was out of town when the influenza pandemic arrived, having taken “a year’s leave of absence to work with soldiers in San Diego under the direction of the Young Men’s Christian Association.” While he was gone, “[m]uch of the business of the church was handled by the moderator, E.J. Crawford, who for several years was one of the most prominent laymen in the church.” And “Mr. Crawford had to call upon the congregation to keep up their subscriptions so that the budget would stay balanced even though the Health Department did not allow the church to hold services because of the influenza epidemic.” If you have read my columns in the past couple months, you might be wondering whether one of us is a time-traveler.

Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us.

Do you know what else has already been, and will be again? A hundred years ago, the influenza pandemic closed the doors of our church. And back then they didn’t have Zoom or Facebook or YouTube or Givelify to keep them connected. But the moderator Mr. Crawford called on the congregation “to keep up their subscriptions so that the budget would stay balanced.” They must have heard that call because—spoiler alert—the congregation did not fold and we are still here today, a century later.

We are doing it again. Would you believe that, through the end of April, our pledged giving for this year has actually been better than the expectations we budgeted, by about $2,100? In fact, our giving overall through the end of April was $4,225 more than the expectations we budgeted. We are keeping our covenant in giving, and we will continue. We are a strong and generous people, giving faithfully to sustain our open and affirming community, even in the midst of challenges—just as our predecessors did a century ago. They were faithful to their times, and to us, and we are faithful to our times, and those who come after.

We have our problems. Plenty of them. But we are going to come out of this pandemic stronger than we were before. It has taken a little while to get our bearings, and to open our eyes and ears and minds to the possibilities of serving in this terrible age. There is still a lot of work to do. There are relationships to maintain, and people to feed, and faces to cover, and plans to make. I am trying to figure out what I can do.

How will they tell our story a hundred years from now? Well, whatever they encounter, and however they overcome it, I hope they, too, will be able to say, “It has already been, in the ages before us.”

Written by Peter Wall, CFO

We pay stores in exchange for goods. We pay utilities in exchange for service. We pay rent or a mortgage in exchange for shelter. Some people pay employees in exchange for labor. But why do we give money to our church?

Folks have sometimes said to me that we should encourage each other to give based on the value that we receive—or what the church “is worth to us.” But there is no way that can be right. Because often, maybe even usually, the people for whom the church is worth the most are the people who have the least to give. Sometimes there is a similar problem at the other end of the spectrum. (See Mark 12:38–44.)

Our church is not a transaction. We have transactions to conduct (people and bills to pay), because we have to operate within a transactional world. But we ourselves, as a congregation, are not a transaction. Do not reduce yourself or others to that. This is why we “give” to our church, instead of “pay” to our church. A payment is owed, but a gift is given.

So why do we give money to our church? Yes, as I wrote last month, there are bills to pay. And, as I wrote the month before, in world where everything is measured in money, money is what we need to carve out the space to “draw the circle wide.” But if we are just giving in order to accomplish those things, then our giving is only another transaction, and not a gift of our generosity.

Maybe you remember this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44.) Usually I have heard this parable interpreted either as meaning that the kingdom of heaven must be extremely valuable, or that the kingdom of heaven is hidden for only a select few to experience. But neither of those interpretations makes any sense to me. Consider the next two parables: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind.” (Matthew 13:45–47.) When I read all three of those parables together, I cannot say that the kingdom of heaven has extreme price-value, because in the parable of the pearl, the kingdom of heaven is compared to the merchant, not the pearl—and that merchant, on ordinary terms of business, is plainly a fool, because he sold everything not for the pearl of greatest value, or all intrinsic value, but only “one pearl of great value.” (But only to that merchant, presumably, and not to the one who sold it. Did the seller previously do the same thing to acquire that pearl?) And it cannot be that the kingdom of heaven is hidden or restricted, because it is also like a net that catches fish of every kind—whose catch is later (in verse 48) sorted by less inclusive others. The kingdom of heaven cannot be explained in transactional terms. It confounds the business sense of the people who find it. And includes more than they are willing to accept.

Now go back and read the last paragraph again, except every time you see “the kingdom of heaven,” read “our church.”

So why do we give to our church? Let me suggest that it is not because “the church” needs our money—it is because we need to give. And when we give to our church because we need to give, then we are acting out a radical inversion of our transactional world. And it is in that act of giving (not by the money given), that we are becoming the kingdom of heaven together.

Sure, there are still bills to pay. There will always be bills to pay. So far this year, despite everything that has happened, we are paying the bills. We are still ahead of our budget—although it will be a challenge to keep that up. Giving as a whole is on target, but pledged giving has slipped. Are you on track to meet or exceed your pledge?

Nobody is getting rich off our church. And I am not getting paid to write this, or to do anything else for our church. But I like to imagine a crazy, radical world that runs on generosity, instead of on scarcity. The church is where we can light that fire. As I often say (and it seems especially appropriate these days), don’t prepare for the “end of the world” by stashing a bunch of stuff—prepare by building a team. Well, here we are. Let’s build.

By Peter Wall

Happy New (Big Red Church) Year! At our annual meeting last month, we elected a new church council. As part of that process, you elected me to serve as the “Chief Financial Officer” (or “CFO”) for our church. And one of the things I hope and plan to do for this year is to write a monthly column for the Grape Vine (the one that goes out in the mail) about money matters here at church.

This is the first of those monthly columns, so I will start by introducing myself. My wife Mary and I first came to the Big Red Church about five years ago. Like many of you, we were pulled in by the music and the inclusive atmosphere. We wanted to be where people “draw the circle wide” because “no one stands alone,” as our song for the children’s Time for Discovery goes. So we did not waste much time getting involved. What else? I am a lawyer by profession. I work for the County of Fresno (which is not the same thing as the City of Fresno, by the way), in the Office of the County Counsel. Yes, that means I am both a lawyer and a government employee, so I get to be doubly unpopular. Most Sunday mornings these days, you can see me in the choir. I am up in the back row singing tenor (which is the best part, of course). My undergraduate degree is in music, with an emphasis in piano performance. I am opinionated, often argumentative, and sometimes impatient. For the last, I apologize in advance.

Speaking of being opinionated and argumentative, I should tell you up front that I resist the title of “CFO” because I dislike the church’s appropriation of jargon from the business world. Although we have “business” to “transact,” as Article IX, Section 3, of our Bylaws recites, the church is not primarily a business. In my opinion, we ought to think of the church more like a family. That does not mean we ignore money issues. Families have to think about money, too. That is why the title of this column is “Our Family Finances.”

What are my official duties? They are described in Article X, Section 7, of our Bylaws, in language that is delightfully old-timey. Primarily, I am to “receive and keep all monies contributed for the support of the Church and its benevolences.” That includes keeping records and making monthly reports to the council and annual reports to the congregation. You should know that a lot of the nitty-gritty work is done by our accountant Penny Peterson, who volunteers her time. But if you have questions or concerns about money matters this year, I encourage you to contact me first. Just know that I might need to talk to Penny in order to answer your questions.

I know that money is an uncomfortable subject for a lot of people. But we need to talk about it. The work of the church is to “draw the circle wide,” and to “draw it wider still.” This is not just a metaphor: we really do need to have a safe and peaceful place where “no one stands alone,” and where “the Church and its benevolences” can be prayed and enacted into being. The church is the body of Christ and, like all bodies, it needs food to eat, and it needs room to grow and play and live and rest. And in a world where everything is measured in money, the only way to make that room, and draw that circle in a real way, is with money. This uncomfortable reality is our challenge. And I submit to you that we cannot expect ourselves to be propped up from outside: we are responsible in our own generosity to draw that circle together, as widely as possible. So I am going to talk about money this year.

You can write to me at [email protected] or talk to me at church or wherever you happen to find me. My phone number is in the church directory.

This month is our annual giving campaign, and we are encouraging each other to give, so that we can keep doing great things.

This year’s campaign has been a little different.  We started in July by sharing our dreams of what we might do together next year. In September, we met to talk about how those dreams might look in the form of a budget. We really wanted to start making some of our shared dreams for our church come true, rather than just sticking with things as they have been, particularly adding things for our children, and making more ways for us to connect with each other in groups and inter-generationally.

For this campaign, we have been inspired by the word cloud made up of the what we want to see in our church’s future. We recognize that our future will be built on what we have done in the past and are presently doing.  Each week, we are showing a different perspective on what we are doing here at the Big Red Church. The first week we looked at “Welcoming anyone and everyone” with Peter.  The second, we looked at “Working for justice in our community and in our world” with Sally. Last week, we heard from Bitsy on “Connecting with each other.”  This week, our answer to the question “What are we doing here?” is that we are “Supporting the church and each other,” and we heard from Gayle Thornton.

Of course, one of the most important ways we support the church is by doing so financially. The church needs those gifts to help us keep doing what we are doing here—and more.   There are many ways you can give:

• You can use the Givelify app on your phone.
• You can contact the church office and set up a regular bank-to-bank transfer or a credit card payment.
• You can give in the weekly offering.

But no matter how you give, every year we need you to fill out a pledge card with the amount that you expect to give. Turning in a pledge card is your promise of how much you will give to the church in the next year. Turning in a pledge card is important, because it helps us making plans that we can then carry out. 

Here is our pledge card to fill out:

• Put your info in the boxes at the top
• Fill in the amount you plan to give over the course of the 2020 year
• Check a box to let us know if you plan to give that weekly, monthly, or in one lump sum
• Which payment method you will likely use, and if you need help setting that up
• Then sign and date it

The pledge cards are your way to be part of our plan. This week, please thoughtfully & prayerfully consider what you will give next year, and then fill out the pledge card, and bring it back next week on Stewardship Sunday, November 3, as we will collect the pledge cards during the service. 

Here at the Big Red Church, everybody counts, and everything you give counts. Thank you.