We all know about the tithe, giving 10% of one’s goods and finances for the service of God and the community. But did you even stop to think about what God requires from us as far as your time is concerned? God wanted the Sabbath to be kept holy and dedicated to service. Service for God in the community. So one day equals 1/7th or about 14% of your time. But I’ll go with waking hours and say 7%, that’s 12 hours. Now, it doesn’t all have to be spent at church or be church related—volunteer work of any kind. However, we have no mandate to do this. But God also does not ask us to do anything without a good reason. There is something liberating about feeling useful and having purpose. It can be doing anything simple like greeting or serving coffee.

All the ministries need help and all that is asked is that you participate in an area that interest you.

Now for a little financial update…..As far as the start of summer goes, we had a misstep for the month of June. We knew expenses for June would be high. However, expenses for June were unusually high, in fact the highest for the year. Add to that the fact that your donations were down and we ended up with a $5,000 loss for the month. The deficit for the year grew to over $16,000 which means that we spent $16,000 more than we took in. The chart on the finance bulletin board outside of the library says it all! Donations may have been down in June due to the start of summer vacation season but we will need to adjust our levels of giving if we hope to get out of the RED. The $500 challenge is still available for those who wish to pledge and additional gifts to the Continuing Gifts Payback are encouraged. Anything you can do to help is greatly appreciated.

Al Berkner
Ministry Area Coordinator

July

For those of you who missed it, our meeting on Finances on June 14th showed that as of the end of April, we had a deficit of around $11,000 but at least the income exceeded expenses the last few months. So that page was good news. In other words, we managed to spend more than we took in the first few months of the year to the tune of $14,000 but managed to gain back part of that during the past few months. Hopefully we can continue to eat away at that deficit moving on. We cannot continue to overspend; if we do, at some point IUCC will run out of cash and will not be able to function as we want it to. Ministries will not have the money to minister to the congregation, we will not be able to pay our bills and eventually we would have to close the doors. Back in January, it looked like that day might be June or July. Obviously that did not happen but if we don’t continue to bring in more than we spend that day will eventually come. Once I verify that the budget numbers are correct, I would like to include the updated handout from that meeting in future Lanterns.

I am amazed that we only had a deficit of $11,000. Especially since we have around a $35,000 budget shortfall. But there are a few good reasons for that. One reason is that we have not yet hired a full time music director. As much as we love Val’s playing, the goal is to hire someone who can hit the ground running and we have not found that person yet. There is also money budgeted for finding a full time pastor that may or may not be spent this year. But the biggest budget number that we have not addressed is the Continuing Gifts Loan Payback. A few of us have been contributing to that fund (a BIG THANK YOU to those few), but there is at least $10,000 left to pay back on that loan for this year. We need to pay back the entire amount next year. Remember the blue jugs that Jim Farrell set up?

That debt is not going to go away by itself. Maybe we need a special drive to seriously start to pay back this debt. I really do not want to be in a position to have to borrow money to pay it off. So please think and pray and act on this.

Lastly, I would like to point out that we are not a school. We do not shut down for three months during the summer. So, if you are gone for a while in the summer, please stay faithful to your financial commitment to Immanuel.

Al Berkner
Ministry Area Coordinator

June

Finance and Stewardship would like to give a big THANK YOU to Trena and Linda for stepping up with the $500 Challenge. It took a little bit of courage and it is not an easy thing to do. Both have also made it a priority to track the progress and continue to work on it.

The outside audit will be conducted in June by George Rousch.

If there is anyone out there who is unsure of their envelop number, please check with the office or see the counters after service. As long as you have your name on the envelope we can still properly credit you but we always make sure there is Evangelism Ministry Area an envelope number also. So if you have forgotten yours or need one, let us know.

Summer is a popular time for taking vacations and with summer coming up, I would like to make you aware of an easy and trouble-free method of keeping up with your contributions while on vacation. It is called Electronic Fund Transfer or EFT for short. This is not an additional pledge for giving or a way to increase your giving level right now but a way to help you remain faithful to the giving level that you have already made, whether pledged or not. If you practice online banking and pay most of your bills electronically, you are already aware of EFT but may not have thought to apply it to your offering to Immanuel. But you can do this even if you don’t pay any bills online.

I pay most of our bills through EFT and thought I would try making a contribution to Immanuel online. I bank at TCF and got onto TCF’s website to start the process. Let’s say I get a bill from the gas company; I can set the gas company up as a payee and most of the time I can select the gas company from a list stored in TCF’s website. IUCC is not going to be stored on the web site and I will have to type all the contact info in. Since IUCC is not set up to receive EFT payments, what happens is that TCF issues a check to IUCC in your name and actually mails it to the church. I can put the envelop number as the account number and it is really very easy to do. So I did a trial run for $20 to be sent to IUCC for the next Sunday and waited. On Friday Bonnie called me from church and wanted to know why there was a $20 check in her name in the mail made out to Immanuel. (For some reason TCF puts all our accounts in Bonnie’s name- I think there is something fishy about that.) But it worked! I did not accidentally empty my bank account or cause a computer virus to destroy my finances. So if we can’t be at service for any reason, I can set this up early to cover by contribution. It can be a one-shot deal or can be recurring. If you have any questions talk to me and I can help you out or put you in touch with someone who can.

Al Berkner
Ministry Area Coordinator