Hey Church Family,
I hope this email finds you well as 2024 is not all that new anymore. I have lots of updates to get to, but first, the most important one. The Jaskilka squad grew to six with the arrival of our precious baby boy, Bradley Samuel. Mom and baby are healthy and amazing. We have had the most wonderful extended “Welcome Bradley” season, getting to know him, functioning off little sleep, and trying to convince our oldest two to learn how to change diapers (so far, no luck on that one). Thank you so much for your prayers and support while I was on leave. We missed you and we’re excited to jump (more likely crawl) back into our regular routines.
So we have a plethora of numbers and comments for you to scroll through to keep you updated on our financial picture. I’m going to try to keep this concise, so if you’d like further clarity, please reach out with your questions. Here we go.
YEAR-END GIVING REPORT / MINISTRY FUND
December Budget: $240,000
December Actual Giving: $275,863.31
Difference: +$35,863.31 (+14.94%)
2023 ANNUAL BUDGET REPORT / MINISTRY FUND
Budget: $1,925,000
Actual: $1,760,360.82
Difference: -$164,639.18 (-8.55%)
Comments: God is so good! We prayed for strong end-of-year giving and God used you all to answer that prayer! This December the Morning Star family gave $35,000+ more than last December, and we were able to close the gap in our 2023 budget shortfall by nearly 5% during that final month. Thank you for praying and giving generously!
We ended last year 8.5% below budget. Yet last year’s budget shortfall was offset by the fact that 2022’s abundant giving allowed us to set aside funds for anticipated expenses (such as building maintenance and essential equipment repair/replacement). We used those funds to meet some of those needs in 2023. This helped us make additional payments on our mortgage principal, in keeping with our goal of retiring our debt. As we saw that we were falling short of budget month by month, we made adjustments to cut expenses without jeopardizing our mission. It was a challenge, and I’m proud to be in a church that makes the most of what we have and stewards well what God has given us.
2024 Total Budget: $1,890,000
Comments: We are praying to reverse the current below-budget trend in 2024. The challenges facing all of us are steep. We were not able to give well-deserved raises to most of our staff and we had to make cuts in other areas to keep health benefits with the rising costs of premiums. We are understaffed in our facility and production departments. Making extra principal payments on our debt needs to slow to a trickle. We’ll need to keep deferring some needed maintenance for another year. All this is happening in uncertain economic times, which may make giving much more difficult for some than others. I’m not trying to be a wet blanket, I just want to share the reality of what we as a church are facing.
How You Can Help
- Pray.
- Pray some more.
- Trust what God is leading you to do.
- Make a budget that includes giving or increases your giving. (There are tons of resources out there, so please let me know if you would be interested in a class or workshop something like Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.)
- Set up automatic giving with our church center app which you can do by clicking HERE.
- Invest in a Nokta Pro Pack Legend metal detector, go to the coast, and search relentlessly until you find buried treasure.
Phew! That was a lot of information. I truly believe God has great things in store for Morning Star in 2024 and I’m excited to see how He will work. We’ll end it here by saying you rock! I can’t imagine a better church family. Thank you for your investment in gospel-centered work. Below you’ll see how we started 2024, but I’ll wait to comment on that until next month. Keep doing what you do to lead people to pursue a Jesus-first life.
JANUARY GIVING REPORT / MINISTRY FUND
January Budget: $125,000
January Actual Giving: $120,265.64
Difference -$4,734.36 (-3.8%)
February Budget: $135,000
In all things, Jesus first!
