By Ronald Kelly
By Ronald Kelly
PASADENA—Regular mail income for May totaled $1.362 million. Compared to May 2003, with an income of $1.573 million, we are down just over $200,000 for the month. That’s a decrease of less than 1.5 percent. We reported gains in income for March and April, so this minor decrease for May is not unsettling.
This brings our total income for January through May to $6.41 million. Compared to the previous year, we are down three percent. But as we have reported, five private residences on Orange Grove Boulevard have been sold this year, making it possible to add more than $4.2 million to our reserve fund. In these figures, we are not including the two major campus sales that took place in February and May.
Having this cushion allowed us to maintain the campus sale project without any funding from member contributions. With about two thirds of the campus now sold, we are working hard to achieve a successful conclusion to the campus sale later this year.
Of course, we have a lot of work yet to do, but we remain optimistic. This year has certainly been an upbeat year for us financially.
We have been able to stay on target with our balanced-budget plan for member contributions. In other words, so far this year we have received $6.41 million in mail donations, and we have allocated $6.37 million to church operation expenses. Can’t get much closer than that.
Our time and energy are now being devoted to rolling out our long-desired new financial model, where congregations will retain the bulk of their donations in the local church.
We now have a projected beginning date of July 10 to implement the first district and then every two weeks thereafter bringing in a new district. If all goes well in July and early August, we even have hopes of accelerating the implementation process so that all our congregations will be in the new model by mid-October—in other words, well before the end of 2004.
This will mean of course a dramatic change in the way the Worldwide Church of God functions financially. For more than 70 years our fellowship has maintained a centralized financial structure. For some 60 years the emphasis of our work was media and education- based radio, television, printed literature and Ambassador College.
For the past few years we have been diligently preparing for the emphasis to be based at the level of the local church. That, of course, means providing funding at the local level, not at the international headquarters.
In fact, headquarters’ funding will drop from about $20 million per year for 2003 and 2004 to about $3.5 million during 2005. Thus you can easily see that the WCG will have quite a different financial look in the future.
Our staff has been preparing for this transition for the past few years, and we feel confident this will be a tremendous boost to our congregations as our local church groups reach out in local communities to serve according to the gifts God has placed in each congregation within our fellowship.
We look forward with anticipation to see how God will direct and inspire each of you as together we live and proclaim God’s grace to the world.
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.
Copyright © Grace Communion International, 2004