The Numbers Just Don't Add Up

Last Sunday I admitted to the worshippers in the Celebration Service that I was never good in math. Algebra still makes little sense to me. I was very thankful that the least math credits required for any major while I was a student at Centenary College was for a religion degree. God is gracious!

However, I do have enough math savvy to realize when the numbers don’t add up. Through the first 29 weeks of the year, our attendance in worship is up an average of 125 people a Sunday. That is an increase of almost 10%. We have already had 3,637 more people in our worship services this year than in 2008. We have had only four Sundays of the twenty-nine this year that had less people in worship than the same Sunday the year before. This is great news and a good indicator of the continuing growth and health of our church. Thank you for welcoming your neighbors into our church.

On the other hand (I’m sure you knew there was going to be another hand involved), offerings to the church have not increased with attendance. For eighteen of the twenty-nine Sundays of 2009 giving has been less than the same Sunday in 2008. Some Sundays the difference is just a couple hundred dollars, a few are down as much as $15,000. Overall, giving has decreased over these first twenty-nine Sundays by over $65,000. As the reports from our Financial Ministries Team have reassured us, we have been keeping our spending down to record levels, so the numbers are not as bad as they seem. But you don’t have to be a math genius to realize the attendance figures and the giving numbers just don’t add up. The old church adage is “giving follows attendance” and usually that is a truism. If that were the case for us, we should be having a banner financial year in 2009.

The most frightening number of 2009 is the comparison giving for the summer. Giving since June has decreased this year from 2008 by over $28,000. Of the $65,000 we are behind our 2008 giving, $28,000 of that has come this summer. That means 43% of our shortfall for the year has come over the last seven Sundays. In other words, we are going in the wrong direction…fast. Instead of catching up, we are falling further behind and the fall has increased in momentum. We cannot even blame this one on the economy – it has been picking up the past few months. Even my retirement fund increased this last quarter for the first time in the last year and a half.

Your church needs your help now. Please help us catch up these next six weeks of summer. I am asking you personally and individually to prayerful consider your response to the church’s need. We cannot allow this trend to continue without serious harm to our ministry. Starting this Sunday, we will give you an update each week on the comparison from 2008 to 2009.

In addition, in August we will inaugurate a new stewardship emphasis campaign called “One Dollar More”. Watch for details in the next few weeks. Until then, please make your additional contribution to the church so we can right the ship. Together we can make a difference and help these numbers begin to add up.