Of Special Projects and Parking Lots

After so many years of seeing God work generously through his people at Crossroads I should not be surprised, but I still marvel at the faithful, consistent, and generous giving of this congregation. And that without a collection in the service! 

Many will be aware that we initiated a low key special giving project in May 2007. We hoped for $250,000 to be used toward some parking and lighting improvements, replacement of one of our four aging rooftop HVAC units, and some miscellaneous   improvements that need to be done around our entries. We also needed some funds to create a new facilities master plan.  Anything above that would go towards paying down our line of credit that remains after our move into the Eastgate facility.  

So, what happened?

I’ll leave the detailed accounting to the Business Administrator, but this short-term special giving project will wrap up on May 1 and we have received just under $250,000 through the end of March.

And, what got done?

We actually added HVAC capacity made some repairs to one of the rooftop units. The Fireside Room is now much more comfortable and controlled, as is the foyer and the youth room. The damaged lighting in the parking lot was repaired, and the most significant trouble spots in the parking lot were patched and repaired. We also began the process of designing new covered entries, but decided to hold off on constructing  them when we dug into the initial master plan work … a greater opportunity presented itself and we chose to change the scope of our work to focus on that. More on the that in my next post.

Oh yeah, as for our line of credit, between extremely generous contributions to the general fund, and some under-spending in our staffing and programs, we were able to make a significant “payment” on the line of credit too.

An Often Asked Question

I mentioned that we have seen our average attendance grow by 400 over the past few years. Many are already believers who have been sigificantly committed to a previous church. They have many questions about our fellowship, but one comes to the forefront fairly quickly - some form of “how do I give to this church?” or “why don’t you take an offering in worship services?” Our practice for 22 years has been to allow members and friends of Crossroads to discretely drop their contributions to the work of the church into collection boxes at the back of the worship center (or, deliver them to the church office during the week).This choice (which pre-dates my joining the staff) wasn’t made because we considered collections in worship to be wrong or unbiblical and in looking back at the leadership records of that time we find that there were three understandings that lay behind the decision:

• Taking up a collection in the middle of worship was seen as a distraction, often breaking the flow & emphasis of worship.
• People outside the church in the early 1980’s seemed to be very put off by churches and ministries that were “always talking about money.” It was one of the primary spoken excuses the un-churched gave for avoiding church. The same feelings continue to be held by the un-churched today.
• A conviction that offerings were to be “given”, not “taken”.

There were those who were concerned that the church would run out of funds, lay off staff, or have to cut back on missions when donations shriveled up. (Even today we still have some who suggest that we’d get a much more in financial support from a weekly worship offering). Interestingly, a look at the financial records shows that donations to the church increased by 10-20% weekly after the use of collection boxes was implemented.

An earlier statement of ministry convictions included this statement:

 Our ministry is supported by faith in an omnipotent and sufficient God who provides for His church through the faithful financial gifts of its members and friends.  Because we believe that an offering is to be given rather than taken, offering boxes are located by each doorway for the convenience of those who understand their God-given responsibility.

The manner in which people give to the church may change over the years, but that first sentence will remain true in all times. We do talk about money as appropriate, and always let the congregation know if there are financial concerns, believing that God will move through his people — no cajoling, begging or manipulation required.

I suppose that I should note that we do take up one collection monthly as part of our remembrace at the Lord’s Table. As a tangible response in remembrance of God’s great grace and mercy we give to our Benevolence Fund which is used to minister to those in need (a topic for a future post).