Mission and Vision in Dollars and Cents

As you may recall, Trinity Church switched to a fiscal year budget, meaning our operational budget runs from July 1 through June 30. This has been a great benefit for our congregation to live out our call to be good stewards of what God has given us. This also means that we closed our 2015-2016 budget on June 30th and began our new 2016-2017 budget on July 1. The church council has accepted our 2016-2017 year budget of $260,000. But how does this budget reflect our mission and vision?
As a reminder the mission of Trinity Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We live out this mission through our vision which is to Connect to God in Jesus Christ, Grow in our faith in Jesus Christ, and Serve in our world for Jesus Christ.
So let’s look at this year’s operational budget and see how it shows how we are living out our mission and vision. It is important to note that only the operational budget is represented here. This includes salaries, materials, maintenance, and overhead but does not include designated giving. Designated giving are all the funds given to a specific cause like missions, education, and our capital fund (taking care of God’s house.) The best way for us to see this is using percentages, so you can imagine for every dollar given to the general budget can be divided this way.
The first thing you will see is that the church tithes. The tithe (which means 10%) comes out of our budget first. This represent s11% of our total budget. We give 1% or one cent on the dollar to the northeast district. This money goes to support trainings and ministries that extend beyond individual churches in northeast Indiana. We give 10% to the annual conference which supports ministries inside of Indiana, but almost 60%,or 6 cents on the dollar, goes to the global United Methodist Church. A large majority of that 6 cents supports the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) and their ministries around the world.
The next item you will see is where a majority of your support goes to Connecting to God in Jesus Christ. This is primarily done through worship, but this also includes things like reaching out to the community and offering hospitality. This represents 37% of the overall budget or 37 cents of every dollar given to the general fund. Beyond that we spend 26% on both Grow and Serve. We Grow in our faith in Jesus Christ by meeting together, studying God’s word, and holding each other accountable. This area is primarily made up of education expenses across every age group. We Serve Jesus Christ when we are the hands and feet of Christ in the world. The number that is represented in the general budget shown here does not include your extra-mile giving toward missions, Common Grace, or other ministries. This amount in our budget represents the supplies and personnel to equip and empower the people of Trinity Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in the world.
Thank you so much for your willingness to give so that God can do amazing things through your gifts and through Trinity Church in our world.


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