By Ronald
Kelly
By Ronald
Kelly
The first half of 1999 is now in the books. Income in June, which started with encouraging amounts, began to trail off during the last two weeks.
The daily average donation income for the month was $96,549. That brought the year-to-date average to $95,134.
While that is almost exactly at our targeted budget, it would have been nice to have a higher average that would help make up for the first quarter deficit.
The main reason we are running a deficit is that our expense budget exceeds our donation income. As I have explained before, we have only two major ways to deal with this kind of deficit: 1) terminate additional employees and church programs or 2) take the deficit from our already decreasing reserve fund. Of course, neither of these options is desirable.
We are thankful so many of you have been responding so generously. As I mentioned last month, if we all can continue our giving patterns of May, and now June, it will ease the financial tensions for the remainder of the year. So keep up the good work.
Our prospective buyers for the Big Sandy campus have once again requested an escrow extension. They are making good progress on their financial package, but still need to finalize their financial commitments to complete the sale.
It now looks like the earliest date we can close will be the last week of August. Please continue to pray that this sale will be successfully completed. On the brighter side, they have increased their escrow extension deposit amount that helps defray our costs.
The escrow process on the Pasadena property sale is coming along right on track. The first two stages of escrow have been met, and we are in stage three. This will be a lengthy process as the developers present more specific plans and designs to Pasadena city officials.
As we continue the sales processes, two major committees are working to prepare for the move to a new location. Bernie Schnippert, director of Finance & Planning, supervises both these committees.
The first committee is our Relocation Committee, chaired by Dale Trow, our facilities director. The second is the PRO Committee (Planning, Reengineering and Organizing Task Force), that I chair.
The function of the Relocation Committee is to evaluate space requirements for a leased or purchased office building. The church board of directors asked Mr. Trow to identify potential buildings within a 30 to 40 mile radius of our Pasadena campus.
The PRO committee will determine the staff size, equipment needs and procedures that may be different with a smaller staff in a smaller building. We are selecting 12 to 15 congregations to assist us with a pilot program to evaluate different procedures for our mail processing department.
We have both nostalgia and excitement as our headquarters team prepares to relocate. So please keep us in your prayers, as we do all of you. We pray for many of you individually as we hear of your needs, and pray every day for the collective body of believers who make the Worldwide Church of God such an exciting group to serve.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 1999