Just wanted to shout out a huge THANK YOU to the Living Stones Church for your generosity and support of the mission and vision of the Living Stones Church.

At the beginning of 2008, after a few years of spending beyond what we had coming in, we set a 2008 budget based on the total giving amount for 2007 (oh yea…it hurt!).  The consequence of that was cuts in areas of ministry that we really wanted to see take place.

We then challenged the church with three mission phases that we had hoped to accomplish – and could - if each family unit gave either $4, $7, or $12 more per week.  They were:

 

• Phase One:  ($4) Total funding of the budgets our ministry leader’s had requested going into 2008 and prior to any cuts.
• Phase Two: ($7) – [in addition to funding total ministry budgets] Being able to renovate the south end of our building into an exclusive children’s wing.
• Phase Three: ($12) – [in addition to funding total ministry budgets and children's wing] Putting ourselves into position to hire two-part time staff people to help us accommodate the changing dynamics and needs of growth (very good problem!!)

After completing the 1st quarter of the year – not only have we blown through phase one, we have surpassed phase two, and are on average only $74 per week shy of passing phase three.

THAT IS AWESOME!!!  So, here is the deal – after revising the church’s budget to reflect the level of generosity and response to our challenge – effective immediately we are:

• Fully funding all of the ministry budgets that were requested going into 2008!
• Preparing to move forward with the renovation of the children’s wing (this will still require time to gather prints, designs, quotes, bids, and strategic implementation etc.)
• And have put us into a position to strategically think about staffing possibilities and needs …

As the above so well illustrates – every bit counts!  I know many people feel like they can’t give a BUNCH of money…but have committed to at least giving an additional $4, $7, or $12.  And what I can say is – YOU HAVE MADE A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Now…for the bean counters among us that are nervous about this declaration and the potential for people to ease up on their generosity (and you know who you are )  let me throw in this last admonition: 

NOW THAT WE ARE MOVING FORWARD, YOUR GENEROSITY IS NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER!  We are moving forward not because we have reached a total dollar amount, but rather on the assumption of a continued (or increasing) level of generosity that has been evident over the past three months.

Living Stones Church – you are awesome!!