Financial Update

In September last year I shared with you the difficult financial situation we faced – with the possibility of finishing the year $45,000 down. Praise God for His generosity reflected in His people; we finished 2012 with approximately a $9,000 deficit (the figures are still being finalised).

Whilst this is a fantastic improvement on what we were facing, it still left Church Council with very difficult decisions when working out this year’s budget. We were facing up to a $50,000 plus deficit for 2013. A big part of this will be covered by promised donations (over and above regular tithes and offerings) but we still had to make some staffing cuts to have any chance of covering our costs.

The decision has been made to reduce our Children and Families Pastor’s position to 32 hours per week. This will leave Libby with 15 hours per week in PITSTOP (this is funded by the government and includes PPP parenting program etc) and 17 hours per week for the rest of our Children and Families Ministry. This is a decision the Church Council agonised over but we could not in good conscious move into the year with such a large deficit. As it is we are still facing a deficit budget of about $8,000, so there is still more work to be done.

The consequence of this decision is that we have effectively reduced the time put into our general Children and Families ministry over the last 2 years by half (up until the end of 2010 Libby was employed for 30 hours per week with another person employed for the PITSTOP program for 15 hours per week). Libby, Glen, Tim R and I are continuing to strategise the best focus for Libby’s time as helping children and families grow as disciples of Jesus is vital for the life and health of our church (across all campuses). We will be looking to more and more people from the congregations to help lead Kid’s GIG and other children’s ministry.

Please be in prayer for this most important part of our life together. Please pray for Libby as she adjusts her time and priorities. Please pray about how you might participate in helping disciple children. Please continue to be faithful in giving to work of God through this part of Christ’s body called Logan Uniting.

Yours in Christ

Graham Keech