For the past few weeks, we have been making announcements at church that we are getting really close to having a permanent space of our own. This week, we get to make a big announcement regarding our progress, but I wanted to send this out to all of you who subscribe to this blog or who follow us on facebook or twitter.
Amazing Financial Numbers
About a month ago, the elders and I were going over the budget for 2010. Some of our categories have been underfunded, some of our categories have been overfunded, and so we have been going over the budget to potentially revise the budget for the rest of the year. In the process, I also created an “experimental” or “vision” budget.
This “vision” budget was my attempt at putting some numbers down to see what would need to happen in order for our church to finally get a place of our own in terms of a 24/7 lease. We had been talking to a realtor and a number of landlords, and had figured out that we might be able to get 4,000 square feet of space for about $3,500 per month. However, we would need to do a build-out campaign which would require a construction loan. As a result, I prayerfully put down some numbers like this:
- If God blessed us, and we got a good loan, we might be able to get into that space for a total of $4,500 per month, so I put down $4,500 in the “rent” category.
- If I took a reduction in my own pay, and if we shifted some financial numbers around, bringing them more in line with current spending, then our total budget would work out to be $10,583.33 per month.
Problem:
The one problem with those numbers is that our current budget is based on an income of $9,000 per month. It seemed like an impossibility to me. I showed the revised budget to the elders, we prayed about it, and I set it aside for about a month.
Miracle:
This is where two amazing miracles come in:
- Just two weeks ago, we got a phone call from our realtor who got a lead on a space that was 6,000 square feet for $4,500 per month, and was already built out almost perfectly for our needs!
- After viewing the property with the location team and hearing how excited they were about it, I came back to see how our finances are doing. The May numbers had come in, so I worked the averages, and discovered that our monthly average for 2010 so far is … $10,545.50!
- For the non mathematical in the room, that means our monthly average is $37.83 under what we need for this new budget!
Faith:
So, here is the dilemma faced by the leadership of this church this past week: Do we keep looking for another opportunity, or do we step out in faith believing that God can provide $40 extra dollars each month so we can have a 24/7 space to call our own?
What do you think we decided to do?
