Dear Friends,
If you are receiving this, you are in some way connected to the ministry of our church. If you are a financial donor to Grace in 2021, you should have already received this letter last week in a separate mailing along with a current statement of your giving to Grace for the year.
If you are not currently a donor, I ask you to prayerfully consider giving to further the Lord's work through our congregation. There are several giving options at the end of this email. While it was a bit of a roller coaster, God continues to be very kind to Grace financially. We ended the first half of the year with income exceeding expenses by approximately $90,000—a dramatic turnaround from where we were at the end of the first quarter. In addition, as I mentioned in the last quarterly letter, our Payment Protect Program (PPP) loan was also forgiven early in the year, which added a one-time income adjustment of almost $103,000.
The combination of these two factors resulted in our 2021 income exceeding our 2021 expenses to date by almost $193,000. This is a huge blessing, and the best first half of the year financial results we have had since I have been Treasurer.
The following chart breaks down our income (giving) by month (excluding the PPP loan forgiveness) for 2021.
I wanted to share this monthly giving data, to share the joy of the spontaneous giving we received in May, as well as to issue a challenge.
It was such a surprise and blessing to see so many of us open our pocketbooks and give so generously this past May. I truly thank God for the generosity of this congregation. It is truly remarkable and has enabled us to continue moving forward with all of our 2021 ministry efforts, most especially our Serving the City efforts.
I also wanted to challenge those of you who are willing and able to consider convert a larger % of your annual giving to a regular monthly amount. At present our regular monthly giving is only 65% of our total budget. Being dependent on one-time gifts for 35% of our regular budget presents operational challenges. It would be a blessing to increase this percentage to closer to 100%.
In spite of this challenge our finances at Grace continue to be quite healthy, and for that I am very thankful. Here is a summary of the church’s financial picture for Q2 2021.
In summary, we continue to be grateful and blessed as a congregation. And we remain hopeful and committed to the vision for increased outreach and giving to the many needs that surround us.
If you have questions please contact me, or any of the elders, deacons, or a staff member.
And once again, thank you for your generosity to our church.
Warmly, Clint Morse Treasurer
clintm@themosaiccompany.com
PS There are many ways for you to give to Grace.