news.zionbuffalo.org

by Carol Clark

Obviously things have changed dramatically over the past 12 months for most inhabitants of the globe. In the wake of that you’d expect me to get up here and detail how dire things are fiscally at Zion. But interestingly enough they are not notably direr than prior years.

Don’t get me wrong – we are not in the black and things are a little scary. For years we’ve been doing what most Americans have done so well – spend a little more than we bring in. We’ve borrowed from the building fund to plug the gap in the general fund. More recently, we’ve had to get very nimble at watching which bills get paid first in order to be sure other important ones (like payroll) get made on time. Things are increasingly tight and Finance Committee has been working hard with staff to be sure everything’s been pared and trimmed and thought through to the greatest extent possible. We’ve renegotiated insurance and supply contracts, extracted whatever costs we could from already lean program budgets-but still we spend a little more than we bring in. In terms of the Building Fund, the most concerning trend in the current year relates to the fact that we are steadily drawing down the building fund checking account balance because the income versus expense toll in that fund runs typically about $10,000 per quarter to the negative. The building fund checking account is down about 35% at the end of this March over last year…rapidly eroding our cushion. As you recall, this is the fund that pays the mortgage and the bill for recent roof repair. And that bill will be going up by around $1000 month starting in June. You can read the numbers in the weekly bulletins and the monthly newsletter and no matter what we have tried, things are tight. We get a lot of calls to present things in a more positive light, but that’s the interesting thing about accounting – the numbers are what they are.

Every once in a while we are able to close the year in the black due to an estate gift or a Herculean Christmas effort but the truth of the matter is, we run most of the year in the red. And our finance secretary gets adept at holding some bills in order to pay others through the month. Much the same as I think most of us are doing in our households these days. To ease the burden on her and to insure we can make payroll in a timely manner each month, FC proposed and Council approved the opening of a $50,000 credit line with KleinBank. The intent would be to use it to cover shorter term financing needs should they arrive (e.g, if payroll goes on Friday and there won’t be enough to cover it until after a Sunday offering or two). To the extent it is drawn upon, the congregation will be kept in the loop.

The primary issue is at Zion that 75 cents or so of every dollar is related to program and staff. We’ve been able to keep it together in recent years by being very nimble about what gets paid from which account when and because we’ve had unexpected onetime events like estate gifts. But we are running out of proverbial rabbits to plug the gap with. In these tough economic times, there’s even more call for the services and outreach that Zion provides. For example, Zion Day Camp…a program which was not going to happen this year…has been renewed given the fact that Buffalo Schools are suspending summer school and everyone involved felt this was a vital part of Zion’s outreach in the community. The finance secretary is working closely with program staff to be sure this program is cash flow neutral, however, rather than a cost center as it had been in prior years.

When the status quo alters as rapidly as it has for all of us the past year or so, we can choose to sit around and gnash our teeth and wish it hadn’t happened, or we can say “now what?” As an interesting aside, did you ever stop to think that we don’t sit around crying “Why Me Lord?” when things are going exceedingly well….so why would we presume to do so now?

At Zion, we’ve faced significant challenges in the past few years from a leadership and financial standpoint. The great part about where we are, though, is we have plans on all sorts of fronts to address these. In stress and change lies significant opportunity and we as a congregation have an opportunity to step up here and really seek God’s guidance in how we are to live our secular and Christian lives. You will hear a lot about his in weeks to come. There will be announcements of a dynamic call to action by Pastor Chris and the Stewardship committee. You will hear more about a day of prayer with a key component being contemplation of our financial condition and personal obligations. You will hear about a committee being formed as a result of the recent BridgeBuilders events that will help guide us as we move forward as a congregation.

A recent reading of mine embodied these thoughts. It’s from the Women’s Devotional Bible and is related to the Parable of the Talents. The writer noted that God is calling each of us to a life of adventure, and noted that adventure does not come without risk. She also noted that the warning of that parable is that God holds us responsible for our lives and what we do with them. I think we are each being given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collectively rethink what we are doing with our lives; our time, talent, and resources, and being given the chance to rethink how we want to account for ourselves, our church, and our country on that final day. As Americans and as Christians we are being called to a once in a lifetime opportunity to rethink what God is calling us to do and how he is calling us to invest of ourselves. So stay tuned for more and please, stay open minded, prayerful – and optimistic!

There were surplus funds available in the General Fund account on 1-1-09. Because of the month-end deficits so far in 2009, this surplus has been exhausted. It was previously communicated that the church would apply for a line of credit to be used as working capital in order to keep up with expenses. This line of credit was secured in early April 2009 and it has not yet been necessary to use this line as of the printing of this newsletter.