Update from Finance & Planning

Spring offerings
above projection,
mail income down

By Ron Kelly

As I write, we have passed through the first third of 2001.

In many ways, time has passed quickly. Yet in other ways, especially the completion of the Pasadena property sale, time has seemed to drag.

The good news is that the sale process is still plodding along. Both the city planning commission and the city council have a variety of business issues to address. They address these issues in public meetings—but the process isn’t moving at the pace we prefer. The not-so-good news is that escrow is starting to look more like a September or even an October close.

In the meantime church finances are near projections. As I have reported, we are experiencing a progressive decline in regular member donations. So far, through four months this year, we are down 11.5 percent when member contributions are compared to the same period last year.

On the positive side, the spring offerings were generous. We have received more than $1 million in special offerings—and that’s above our budget projections for festival offerings (as noted, however, regular mail donations are down.)

All special or seasonal offerings from late April to early June will be counted as Pentecost offerings. After Pentecost, we will probably tabulate all offerings in one category. In other words, we will delete the category of special, festival or seasonal offerings. Many of our congregations will now take up weekly offerings, so we will not keep track of what are regular mail offerings and what are festival offerings.

To give you a slightly different idea about understanding church finances, our budget for the year was projected to average $77,236 per banking day. The daily average so far is $74,875. That $2,361 daily shortfall would leave us more than a half million dollars in deficit by the end of the year. And that is in addition to the $4 million we planned to take from reserves to avoid further employee and program reductions. That also doesn’t include the $700,000 per month budget deficit we will experience from July 1 till the close of escrow.

As one of our administrative leaders put it so well, "If escrow does not close until the end of 2001, the budget deficit to reserves this year will essentially consume the total sale price of the Big Sandy campus last year." But at least we can be thankful the Big Sandy sale has made it possible for us to maintain a better sense of equilibrium.

We are also striving to do all we can to keep our expenses at a minimum. So far this year our budget teams have managed to keep expenses about 10 percent below budget allowances. All in all we are thankful that our reserve fund is still maintained at a level we can live with.

Our legal office has informed us that a couple of estate donations are expected to be completed in the near future. This will be a good boost to our declining regular donations. However, the key to future financial good health will be the consistent and generous offerings in all our congregations. So please pray with us for willing hearts and generous spirits as we continue both our spiritual and financial transitions.

Statement of Income and Expenses for

WCG and PTM combined for April 2001

                                                        For the Month                 For the Year-to-Date

Income

            Mail Income                                $ 1,395,481                             $ 5,841,596

            Festival offerings                             621,072                                   1,038,661

            Other income                                   410,435                                  1,370,084

                Total income                             2,426,988                                  8,250,341

Expenses                                                   2,843,542                                10,270,343

Net gain (loss) to bank reserves                 $ (416,554)                             $ (2,020,002)

Wills and Trusts

Many members have requested information on how best to make a gift to the Worldwide Church of God, either during their lifetime or upon death through wills, trusts or other means.

If you want to receive information regarding such gifts, the Legal Department of the church is available to aid you in this regard without cost or obligation. Please write to Legal Office, Worldwide Church of God, Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123.

The Legal Department regrets that, because of the variance in laws of other countries, such legal information is only applicable to residents of the United States and Canada. However, in regard to other countries, the Legal Department will furnish whatever limited information it may have available.

Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2001