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This Narrative Budget currently contains ideas and numbers from 2006 in anticipation of 2007. It will be updated with new 2008 budget amounts following our Administrative Council on Monday October 15, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. At typical modem speeds, the pictures below take about three minutes to load. They're worth the wait! And you can start reading while the pictures are loading.
The Ministry of the People of Christ at Lakeway UMC A Place to Begin The church is a unique institution in that it exists for the benefit of those persons outside it. Our ministry is not to ourselves but to the community of people around us. If our mission ever becomes preserving the church, then we will have turned inward and begun to die. We hope that this narrative budget makes more sense to most people than a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is certainly still available if you want to come join the work of the Stewardship/Finance Team. This presentation, categorized by our areas of ministry attempts to ask for what will be needed without making it necessary for other funds to be raised outside of the budget. Some who use this ministry document may be tempted to “pick and choose” the areas that are the most appealing, like a buffet lunch where you serve yourself. As much fun as that might be, please trust that your pastor and the elected leaders of our congregation have invested significant time and energy, prayer and reflection into this plan for ministry, and that we prescribe it as a full and balanced meal. It is a meal that will nourish our mission and ministry for the coming year and beyond!
Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. At Lakeway we are guided by this addition: “Worship, Learn, and Love, With a Servant Heart”. Lakeway has been built and nourished upon a tradition of serving others with our passion as well as with our pocketbooks. We have always brought offerings of time, talents, and service, as well as money gifts. All of these are vital and life giving! Throughout the year we have special offerings for shorter-term mission projects. In the past twelve months, we have collected for school supplies, hurricane relief, health kits for UMCOR, Angel Tree, Visions of Sugarplums, the Air Chapel Ministry, our annual Coat Drive, and serving families at Christmas with meals and presents. Our goal is $8,500 to help fund these mission causes. This is comparable to what was raised outside the budget in the past year. Our Communion offerings on first Sundays are part of what is collected for these special purposes. Our youth have eagerly raised funds for hunger relief through World Vision. Though none of these funds have traditionally been budgeted through the regular operations budget, they always attract generous support. Our overall investment in mission work will continue many of these items and others like them as goals. Our Resale Barn funds are kept entirely separate from the church funds and Lakeway UMC does not receive any financial income from this ministry. After Resale Barn staff and operational expenses, all profits go to our neighbors in need. The folks of our community and area have been extremely generous in donating good sellable items to this ministry. And in offering volunteer hours to help process these items and run the store. Employees. Income and giving for past twelve months. Our connectional giving through our North Texas Conference
Apportionments has included support for the missions, agencies, and
administration of the conference and the larger Our Mission Budget includes $1500 for Youth Travel Expenses since we do not have a church van. This amount (and more from fundraising) went into rental vehicles for the two United Methodist Youth in Mission trips in summer of 2006. In addition, we ask for $300 for A.S.K. Alliance for Saving Kids, a community based program to save youth from drugs, and $600 for the Air Chapel Ministry.
Welcoming Ministries Significant work can be done in this area without spending
much money. But this area funnels new life and energy into our church family by
inviting and welcoming visitors and new members. Therefore it needs strong
support in every way. Our Evangelism committee works on this with our Doorstep
Visitation program of first-time visitors, our Spring Picnic, our Name Tags, our
Greeter Program, our hospitality coffee mugs, packed with Our modest ad in the Pottsboro Press costs about $900 per year and we spend another $350 on local ads such as those in school printed programs. We need about $400 to bring in bands for Fatted Calf and Mardi Gras to enhance the energy and celebration of our worship and gathering on those traditional days. And another $200 will be needed to support the annual spring “Bring a Friend” Picnic and Ice Cream Contest. Evangelism cards, postage, and name tags are supported through the Office Administration area though these expenses are significant. But in the coming year, we need a general church brochure for distributing to newcomers in our community through the Chamber of Commerce’s new Visitor Center. We need around $350 to do this well. Our website could use some professional attention although this is very expensive and will not be included at this time. The Evangelism Committee had a budget of $1100 in 2006 and because our budget is not completely funded, have only spent about $60. In some years we have had an annual New Member Dinner and spent around $600 on this although this is not currently budgeted.
Nurturing Ministries
Ministry with Children and Youth Midyear in 2004, Lakeway UMC made a strong and long-term new commitment to growing our ministry with youth and children. Salary support for our full-time Minister with Youth and Children is about $23,500 with another $7500 in health insurance and $2000 in reimbursable expenses. We budget $300 for background checks on all volunteers with
youth and children and on any persons who handle money even though they are
bonded by annual conference insurance. Also $300 Although $1000 is currently budgeted for Youth Activities, only a small amount has been spent. This is largely because the youth have raised funds in several other ways. $3545 was raised and spent for Youth Mission Trips. Some of it was fundraising through events like the Pumpkin Patch and Valentine Dinner and some was raised through designated contributions. The Vacation Bible School budget of 600 was spent and much more because of various donations of food or craft or other goods. Puppet Ministry has enriched our work with children and with youth. Our puppet ministry was the beneficiary of some of the components of our older sound equipment when improvements were made in the sanctuary system. This area has not been budgeted but needs the support of about $500 for supplies and for additions to the sets, lights, and for new faces in the chorus of puppets.
Worship Ministry
Worship is the one part of our work that encompasses all our areas of ministry: Mission and Outreach, Welcome and Invitation, Nurture and Fellowship. Our worship is the main and most significant gathering of our church family in all its diversity. Our worship is rich, filled with prayer and praise, inspiring music, affirmation of our faith, and creative scriptural preaching. It is a way to be reenergized for the challenges you face in the coming week while it is also a way of offering up all the work and service that you have completed in the week just past. Coming to worship seems to be enough for many people who are not involved in the further ministries and mission of the church. They are missing out on the great blessing that comes when we put our worship to work in the world! Worship is a different experience for everyone present. For the most faithful, it is life-saving and at the same time life-giving!
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Lakeway United Methodist Church 1501 Hwy 120 North Pottsboro, Texas 75076 Church Office 903-786-2138 Rev. Allen Snider, Pastor
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church
in such areas as World Missions, support of UM colleges/universities, conference
communications, and advertising/welcoming programs such as Igniting Ministries.
Our fair share in this giving for 2006 is $33,106. Our apportionments are paid
in ten monthly installments to the Conference Treasurer. As of August 2006, we
are behind four payments for this year. The work of apportionments is an
opportunity to participate in the larger ministry of the North Texas Conference
and the whole United Methodist connection.
information
about our congregation, and through our Visitor and New Member receptions, held
quarterly.
The
area of Nurturing Disciples is about relating people to Jesus Christ and to the
church family. All we do is aimed at making and nurturing disciples. In
addition to its inherent administrative tasks, this is very personal
bridge-building work. "Nurturing Ministries" includes Sunday School Classes,
groups for Bible Study and Fellowship, Support Group resources, and the Heritage
and Archiving of our story and history. Heritage and Archives is an
underdeveloped area in which we need to focus on preserving our story and
pictures and getting them into some organized and distributable form. Sunday
School curriculum materials for Kindergarten through Senior High cost around
$1700 for the year. Small groups are often self-funding but some funds (around
$250) are needed for Bible Studies and Support groups. We give our third
graders beautiful “New Adventure Bibles” and present them in worship. They cost
around $20 each. We give our graduating seniors small leather-bound “backpack”
Bibles. They cost about $25 each and have print smaller than anyone except a
college student could read. But they’re small enough to carry. For both these
Bible ministries, we need about $600.
is
budgeted for nursery and childcare expenses in addition to hourly wages for our
two workers which are typically about $2,000 per year. 