RevWrites- November 1

Sometimes you just have to go for it.

There is no doubt that many people are anxious about our financial future. Most workers lost value on their super over the last year. Prices are higher. Cost of living goes up. The Diocese lost about $160m.

We could be financially conservative in response. That would be normal. Most people are being very conservative. But most people aren’t aware of the love of God or the security of knowing God.

Our Parish could be conservative. We know that James Lewis will accept appointment to a new parish sometime next year. We could simply manage without replacing him. Spread the wear. Reduce outputs. Miss opportunities.

But we’ve decided to seek a replacement (?!) for James. That means we will need to bring that man on board at the beginning of next year. That’s how it works! So there’ll be an overlap – James and the new guy until James leaves.

That will cost us more but it’s the better way ahead. It’s not financially conservative but it is the right thing to do. It also means we’re stepping up as a parish in our diocese when there’s a record number of people being ordained at the end of this year.

Paul Rees is going to Moore College next year. A huge loss to our Youth/Children’s Ministry. We will be able to pick up some of his ministry by employing Sarah, Leah and Troy more than we do at the moment. That is conservative and we’ll get by.

But we could be a little more adventurous. There’s a young man who wants to train for youth ministry. We could employ him to work with Ed as his trainer while he does college part-time. We could try to expand our Youth/Children’s Ministry a little in the next year!

That will cost us more. It’s not conservative, although it’s not really too adventurous either. The cost could mean an increase in our staff costs of about 5% next year. We’re working on the details but it’s impossible to be precise because we don’t know when James will leave. We are developing several financial scenarios for next year.

But the question is: Do we want to go for it?

Our parish continues to grow. It grows numerically. Some of that numerical growth is teenagers and children. They tend not to have much income to tithe. But we also have more adults joining our church. As they become members of NAC they will become financially responsible members.

Soon we’ll be talking about our financial commitment to NAC for next year. That concerns the second kind of growth we pray for – growth in godliness. As we grow up into Christ so we learn to depend on him more and more. So we invest more and more of ourselves, our time and resources, into ministry with him.

We’ve experienced both types of growth over the last year. About 5% increase in staff costs. Do you want to go for it?

Neil