We
are off and running with another year and have completed our accounting processes for
January 1999.
By Ronald Kelly
We
are off and running with another year and have completed our accounting processes for
January 1999.
Unlike January of the previous year, where income took a disappointing downturn, January this year came closer to our anticipated new budget of $98,000 per day.
Income for the month was $95,550. January is usually one of the lowest income months of the year, so we appreciate your care and support and hope that the coming months will find us at or above budgeted income.
As another year has come to a close, this issue of the WN gives us an opportunity to report our 1998 income and expenses.
You may remember that we began the year anticipating an income of $115,000 per day. Early in the year, however, we saw that was unrealistic, and so we made the difficult decision to reduce the budget to $110,000 per day. That meant a further reduction of employees including some of our church pastors.
As we closed the year, income didn't quite reach the hoped-for new budget, and we closed with a daily average income of $106,793. We had to dip into our reserve fund more than we wanted to. We pray that will not reoccur in 1999.
I thought you might like to see a comparison of our annual budget for 1998 compared to several years ago. As you view the pie charts on page 23, I think you can easily see that the focus of the church during the decade of the '90s has significantly shifted to support our local churches.
Putting together numbers for a chart can be done in a variety of ways.
For example, if you were to compare a chart we published two or three years ago, it would be different from the ones you see in this article.
The reason is, I am focusing our church finances on what we believe will be the primary emphasis of the church after the Pasadena property sells.
I chose not to break out such departments as Computer Information Systems, Accounting, Human Resources and Shipping & Receiving.
In past years, you might have seen charts with several more departments. In the charts you see in this issue we have lumped those administrative functions into one category --headquarters support.
Also in previous years, we generally allocated a percentage of Pasadena administrative functions to the Church Administration chart because so much of what our headquarters employees do is directly related to the field ministry.
This year we have placed all of those items into a chart showing what we think will be necessary to support a small headquarters staff.
My purpose is to show you that after the property sells, a much larger share of member donations will be channeled to the work of the local church. This is a time we all eagerly anticipate.
The accompanying charts show that in 1989 the media expenses for the work of the church were 33 percent of the annual income.
The Ambassador Foundation expense was five percent and property was one percent.
The remaining 60 percent of the income was allocated to church and congregational support including the college, the international churches and congregational support services.
Last year, the media expenses, now allocated to PTM, were only two percent of our annual income.
Because we no longer operate Ambassador College and Ambassador Foundation, the remaining 98 percent of income was allocated directly to congregational support and included discretionary assistance to retired church employees, property maintenance pending the sale of the Big Sandy and Pasadena campuses and congregational support services.
(To understand the importance of maintaining denominational support services, please be sure to read the mission and vision statement on pages 10 and 11).
As we prepare for the future, we envision a relatively small expense involved in leasing, purchasing or building a headquarters office facility. That amount, compared to the past, will be small.
All we will need is an appropriate office facility for a small headquarters support team and warehousing for corporate archives and literature supply.
I hope this will help you see we are on a steady track to fund programs at the local church level. And when our property sales are completed, an even greater percentage of income will be apportioned to local church programs.
We are excited and optimistic about the future possibilities for our local congregations. So please keep the property sales high on your prayer priorities.
And please be patient. The sale of our properties is a complicated process, and if all goes well with the Pasadena sale, we are probably looking at one to two years from the time we enter escrow until the sale is finalized.
Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support during the past year. We look forward to a positive 1999.
Surely our God has a great plan for the Worldwide Church of God in the coming years. We are all privileged to be part of a wonderful work God is doing.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 1999