Thought For The Week 20 August 2023

Welcome to our unscheduled combine service this week. Thank you to the Trinity folk who are graciously attending St Stephens at such short notice. This was due to a genuine oversight and clash in bookings when we changed the date of our budget meeting, which was to be held this week. The Fijian congregation are hosting visitors and dignitaries from their community today and we felt the only suitable option was to combine for worship at St Stephens. Although we don’t like making last minute changes like this,           sometimes we have no other options. Once again, thank you for your patience and    understanding.

Next Sunday we have an important congregational meeting to approve the budget for 2023/24 so I encourage your attendance at that. Please note this will be at St Stephens at the earlier time of 10am. Copies of the budget are available in the foyer which show our operating costs and expected income. Once again we will be presenting a deficit budget (-$44,562). When we zoom out our budget looks like this:

• 49% is spent on ministry expenses. This is ministers stipends and expenses  and some worship expenses. Alpine Presbytery EO Rev Martin Stewart says the typical church spends between 60-75% on this category.
• 22% is spent on Admin expenses such as our office functions, membership   dues (assembly assessment and presbytery levies), compliance costs, advertising etc.
• 26% is spent on property expenses such as rates, insurance, power, maintenance etc. This is the cost of running 2 sites. If we had one site only we would halve what is spent on property and eliminate our deficit.

Blessings,