FINANCIAL UPDATE (MARCH 2020)
2019 was a crazy year in every way for Emmaus, including our finances.
We saved money on pastor salary from May through September but spent more on staff because we raised Jacob’s salary and added crucial part-time paid staff to help carry the church pastoral load after Bryan left in April. When we hired Micah in October Emmaus once again took on responsibility for a full-time pastor salary. We gave Micah a 6% increase over Bryan’s salary, and decided to continue with our paid part-time staff structure for the time being. We will reevaluate that in May.
In the table below I summarized our annual financial history for the past 4 years, as well as through March 20th of this year. It shows what we planned to spend versus what we spent, as well as some basics about our giving. (We create a budget every December for the coming year, but like most small churches the bulk of our budget goes to payroll and buildings.)
Note that the large budget increase from 2019 to 2020 (~$80,000) reflects incorrect budgeting for 2019 (we originally budgeted $230,000 but spent $271,000) as well as the assumption we will continue with our paid part-time staff for the full year. We also added in some money to improve our communications tools, but all other ministries are roughly the same as 2019.
On the giving side you can see that 2018 was very good, but the surprise was that 2019, while lower, was still very good given all the turbulence we experienced as a church family last year. Unfortunately, we expect 2020 to be unsettled as well as we take ownership of the Pilot Mill property in downtown Raleigh and deal with the impacts of the Coronavirus on our corporate gatherings. These situations are introducing uncertainties into our congregation, and we can already see the effects of this in our early 2020 giving.
Thankfully we have consciously worked at being good stewards these past several years and have roughly $140,000 in savings. That is good for a small church, but we will be assuming responsibility for the Pilot Church property and can expect expenses with now being an “owner”.
Shifting gears from current to future, we are evaluating options for our eventual transition to Blount Street in downtown Raleigh. Based on the property inspection conducted for us in January we are assuming some significant amount of renovation or construction will be required to make it suitable for our use. With that expectation, I have been exploring possible financing options. These would be in addition to any monies we can raise through an Emmaus building fund.
The 5 commercial financing options are: BB&T, Pinnacle, North State, Self Help CU, and Christian Financial Resources.
BB&T is a “No” since we cannot meet their minimum criteria (10 years in existence).
I met in person with reps from the other 4. All are at least interested in working with us.
I will be completing financial questionnaires for the initial financial review for each.
While these 4 representatives were empathetic to our situation (at least 3 of them are Christians), and we will have awesome equity value in our new property, their final decisions will be made on an assessment of our organizational stability and our ability to repay the loan.
I’ve been through this before when I served as administrative pastor of another small church, and it is not a sure thing. But God is in charge, and He will provide a way for us to proceed - we just need to explore the paths in front of us and ask Him to guide.