Fellowship Memphis Financial and Strategic Update September 18, 2011
I get the privilege this morning of ending our worship service by just taking a few minutes to share with our Fellowship family a few evidences of God’s grace.
We operate here on a fiscal year that runs from the first of August to the end of July and so obviously we are just into the beginning of a new fiscal year and took the month of August to figure out exactly what happened last year, and where God choose to grow us, and what He chose to do in our midst. And so I want to share just a few evidences of God’s grace with you as well as on behalf of our elders and teaching team and directional team, share with you some of the challenges and opportunities that are kind of in front of us in these next few months.
If you look at our attendance, which we celebrate things well beyond just actual attendance as our end zones, and so attendance isn’t everything to us, but it is something. If you look at our attendance over the last twelve months and compare it to the year before, we can see some interesting things that we are learning about ourselves.
First of all, there are about 2,000 people that call Fellowship Memphis home. That doesn’t mean that we have 2,000 people here on any given Sunday or every Sunday, but in the course of a month or so that’s about how many unique people who would darken our door. Said another way, around 2,000 people call Fellowship Memphis their church home.
If you look at our attendance on a Sunday morning, we averaged right at 1,200 people on a Sunday morning. Now you look at that compared to the last year, I think two years ago we averaged right at 1,200 people, last year we averaged about 1,250 people, so our attendance, our average attendance on a Sunday, has not gone up much, and so we’re going to address that in just a minute.
If you look at our giving, two years ago our body gave 1.7 million dollars, last year our body gave 2.1 million dollars, that is a 24% increase in giving. To God be the glory for that. That tells us a couple of things:
First of all, we have got to open up some lanes for some growth to be able to happen here in the way that we do services weekly or Sunday morning here at Fellowship. So were going to make plans to do that.
Secondly, in a year in which we really had flat growth, we had an amazing increase in giving. And so that tells us something else, it tells us that last year God used the year to really deepen and get buy-in among our body.
Last year a couple of hundred people joined our church. You just saw 60 more people join our church this morning. Financial giving is usually the last step most people take on a typical journey from visitor, to checking out discovery, to actually joining, then starting to serve, and finally the last piece is usually the financial piece and so we believe that is what happened last year. We believe the large surge of numeric growth that happened the previous two years actually turned into fully fledged partners in ministry with us last year and so we are very much celebrating God’s grace, evidences of God’s grace through the people He’s brought us who have bought in now and partner with us. Even these last three weeks, year-to-date, already show us that were up about 11% in people attending.
The third thing the numbers show us, they shows us that the way we are hosting services here at Colonial and Downtown have us boxed in to a degree. And so one of the things we’re going to have to think about, and pray about, and plan, and figure out is how do we open up some lanes for some people to be able to be apart of what we’re doing.
Now part of our challenge here, and it was funny because it’s been the same issue in our last two facilities the exact same scenario, is we have more adult space than we do children’s space or parking, which is why your looking around going “what are you talking about I see empty seats everywhere?.” Adult seats are not our tipping point, it is parking and space for children.
At the 11:00 service here at Colonial, if you have showed up at 11:10, 11:15, 11:20, you probably arrived to a jammed parking scenario and ended up you know a mile and a half away from here. So parking is our tipping point, children’s ministry our next tipping point, and so we’ve got to kind of figure out a way to make it more manageable here where we don’t, in a rude way, kind of dominate the neighborhoods and block driveways and all that good stuff.
So we are exploring the option here at Colonial of opening up a night service. That’s far from being a decision made, but we are starting to consider that option, which would be identical as the morning service. We are also probably going to ask some of you 11 o clocker’s to either push down to the nine or check out that service if it becomes a reality. We’re also continuing with our effort that we’ve been really pushing hard here the last 2 or 3 months with the East Outpost.
There are a couple of tensions with the East Outpost we would like to be honest about and bring you into.
There’s been about $15,000 already raised for our East Outpost, which we’re very excited about. But one of the tensions we have in getting that thing started is that it can feel like something else other than Fellowship Colonial and Fellowship Downtown if you don’t live out East. And one of the things Ben brought up a couple of weeks ago and it’s a great point, it’s how we’ve always kind of framed our outpost strategy, it is this, our outpost strategy is our capital campaign. That is our future way in which we’re going to handle and manage growth.
And so, what we need to feel and what we need you to maybe reshape in your mind is when you think about our east outpost or whatever the one is that comes after that one, that’s not just a move to make church more convenient for a couple of hundred people that are coming here out there. That’s not a growth solution necessarily for Colonial. It is our church effort to really saturate this city with the gospel through the unique lens of the Fellowship Memphis DNA and so we are going to really push that all of us can get on board with really trying to help to make that happen. When you go to our budget and look at this next year, we’re doing kind of two things that I want to point out.
We usually budget our next year based on our past years giving and so if you were to do that, we were given, our body gave 2.1 million dollars last year. There is going to be about a 20% increase we’re going to weave into this next years budget, and so about half of that, 10%, of that increase were natural increases that we really couldn’t do anything about. They were either accelerations in our rent or our heath insurances costs going up or a few other things like that. The other half, the other 10%, roughly, is factoring in an East Outpost operating budget for about half the year so should by God’s grace we get that thing going by November, December, or even into January, February maybe, we wanted to make sure again we were giving and budgeting toward making that happen.
The other thing we will continue to do is to have a fund set aside for the start-up cost. Obviously it’s going to be easier to raise that money once we nail down a location. And we are running down all the paths. We have gone the private school path. We are checking out Shelby County School options. We are checking out partnerships with existing churches and existing buildings. We are looking at community buildings. We are looking at commercial real estate, warehouses, and all kinds of rental partnership scenarios. Once one of those becomes clear then we will know exactly what our start up cost will be. What we do know is that you guys have already given $15,000 and we are hoping to get that as healthy as we can get it. We believe there are going to be opportunities soon, Lord willing, that we are going to want to jump on. Whether it is a leader for out there, ultimately the long-term leader or whether it is a facility we need to secure. So we are going to weave the East operating cost into our operating cost as a church and we are going to continue to raise funds for a start up fund to get that going.
And so, we are going to push the gas pedal here this next year, by God’s grace, and we need everybody on board for that. As God has brought us bounty and as He has produced fruit among us, one of the little sayings we like to say is we have always chosen to sow the corn rather than eat the corn. Things that come in, go right back out as we steward what God gives us for His glory among the nations and here in the city.
I want to close with four groups of people that I want to encourage and challenge this morning.
First of all, for those of you who give regularly and faithfully and sacrificially I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. You are the financial engine that makes everything we do happen. This is the 7th straight year where we have hit our budget and we are 100% debt free. So I want to say thank you for that. Yes. Let’s celebrate that.
There’s a second group of people and some of you guys give randomly or sporadically, you probably fund a lot of other great causes, in fact I know you do. And some of you have said individually to me personally or to some of our leadership team, “hey, let us know when you really need us. Let us know when something is like a game changer. Let us know, you know, when we really need to step up.” And I would challenge you and encourage you that this is the year that we need that step up. This is the year we need the best of our folks and all of our folks giving the best of what they can give, because I believe the decisions we make to establish ourselves out East, possibly create a 3rd service here, and do some of the things we want to do, will really shape the next 7 years of our ministry in a lot of ways and will really solidify our outpost strategy. So we really do need you to step up and be a part of that.
There is a third group of people among us that wish they could invest with us financially, you love us, you are here, you are serving and you are praying for us, but you are just in a season of life or a life situation where you cannot give financially to what we are doing here. And I want you to hear load and clear from me and from us THAT’S ABSOLUTELY FINE. Don’t you carry one ounce of guilt for that. We’re going to pray that God gets you through this season into financial health, but if that is you don’t you feel bad about the financial side of our church at all.
Then there is a fourth group, which is a group of people who are here apart of what we are doing, enjoying the services we provide, who can give financially to us and do not, for whatever reason. Whether that is a spiritual issue between you and God, whether you are just not a giver, whether the gospel has not gotten itself into that piece of your heart yet or not, or whether, I don’t know. For whatever reason you’re not serving with us.
I want to challenge that 4th group to really get before the Lord and figure out whether you are with us or not with us. To continue to come here and to be apart of what we are doing and, I guess in your way of thinking, hope that the other groups of people will continue to carry the weight financially just is not right.
I mean, as nice as I can say it, maybe it is the Eastern Kentucky in me, that is just sorry. Here is what I say to you, if it is not us, go find a place you believe in enough to get all of you. I would rather you be in a place where you believe in it enough that you will financially give to it than to just continue kind of mooching off of everyone else here who is giving. There are proverbs written about that!
So I would just challenge you and encourage you, if you need questions answered before you open up your wallet to a place like this, ask them. If you need issues cleared up, let’s clear them up. If we are not a place where you feel like you can give your heart, soul, mind and wallet, then there are some great churches in Memphis that need you and I would say find one. But we need all of us to kind of get on board. We love you. We do not want you to just coast we, we need you on the playing field.
We believe God’s great.
We believe our best years are still in front of us.
We need you to pray with us that God’s hand remains on us. Amen? Amen.
Prayer: God, thank you for this body. Thank you for what you are doing in our midst. We do pray that you will continue to lead, guide, provide. Lord you have taken the little sardines and saltines, the little fishes, and loaves, of our efforts, prayers, peoples, and moneys eight years ago and you have created exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine.
And Father we do want your gospel to saturate this city, every corner or it. Lord we want your fame great among the nations. We want to continue to take big risk and trust you and to steward all that you have given us for your glory. It’s as simple as that. And so God would you give us wisdom, discernment, would you show us the way? God, would you provide for us this year financially in a way that brings you honor and glory? Would you continue to guide us, and teach us, and lead us? We love you and honor you. It’s for your fame, name, and glory. In Christ name. Amen and amen.
