While hope always springs eternal, reality is what we have to live with. As we close the book on the first month of a new year, we received just over $1.25 million in regular mail donations. Last year, we received $1.43 million in January. That’s about a 12 percent decrease.

When we add special offerings and other sources of income, total income for the month was about $1.6 million compared to $1.75 million for January 2000.

Accurate picture

I pray that reporting these figures does not cause you to be discouraged. It is our intent to be open and forthright so that all of you will have an accurate picture of church finances. In that light, I certainly want to thank the thousands of you who have placed financial stewardship as a high priority in your life. Sharing the blessings you receive so that the work of your church can move forward is something we all appreciate so much.

From time to time people ask me, "How do you like your job as church controller?" I have a ready answer, "Well, if we had an annual income of $40 million, I would have the best job in the world." However, our income last year was $31 million.

Now that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy my job. For I truly do. It’s just that we had expenses of more than $34 million last year, so juggling the expense budgets and dipping into the reserve fund are constant realities. It would really be exciting if in the future sometime we could actually increase departmental budgets, provide pay raises to pastors and have significant funds available for local outreach and evangelism. That is my regular prayer.

However, as we prepared our 2001 budget, we continue to allocate funds from the reserve account to maintain our current level of ministers, employees and congregations. And we keep looking for the completion of the property sale so that we can earnestly begin our reorganization plan.

Property sale

Last year at this time, it looked as though that sale would have been completed by now. But these things have a life of their own, and a sale of this magnitude has many complicated twists and turns.

One major milepost in the sale was the preparation and release of the environmental impact report. That has been competed, and as I write this column the public is having opportunity to comment on the report. The city commission will then review public concerns and hopefully resolve any uncertainties that are raised.

New office facility

If all goes well with city planners and the developers, we look for a close of escrow sometime between late April and the middle of the summer months. In the meantime we are continuing our search for a new office facility to house the international headquarters of the Worldwide Church of God. Those plans are coming along, but of course we cannot enter into a final contract to purchase a new building until the close of escrow on our current property is secured.