The last few years, we as a congregation have intentionally budgeted at a loss. We have sensed God leading us to plan and to staff for growth, and to trust that over time, God would grow us to the point of not having to budget at a deficit. Over our long history—next year we will celebrate our 155^th birthday—on several occasions, ECC has made ministry decisions for which we didn’t have the money. One big example will suffice, but it’s happened in smaller ways too.

In the 1990’s, the people of ECC saw the need to move to new building. In 1995, they launched a fundraising campaign called “Building Up to Reach Out”, in which they raised pledges of nearly $850,000. The price tag for the project was $2.6 million, not counting the purchase of the land, but that’s another story. So, ECC had raised not quite a third of that $2.6 million! And yet, they stepped out in faith and moved forward with it.

We paid all of that off just a few years ago, in the spring of 2017.

The average weekly attendance at that time was less than 400. Today, our current average weekly attendance is 249. However, we know that if everyone who calls ECC home all showed up on one Sunday morning, there would be just over 400 people in the room.

If a congregation of 400 can step out in faith like ECC did in the mid-1990’s with $2.6 million of debt, then we can step out in faith today, and we aren’t talking about anything near $2.6 million.

As many of you know, over the past 5 or 6 years, ECC has received some larger gifts that have been designated as special funds. Some of these gifts are in a memorial fund, and some are in our strategic ministry fund. These funds are not part of the operating budget, though we can transfer funds to cover operating expenses, if necessary.

These special funds have allowed us to make the strategic budgeting decisions we’ve made over the past few years. However, we know that eventually, what we receive in the offering must cover our expenses. We also know that there are some necessary larger non-budgeted expenses in the not-too-distant future, and those expenses will likely need to come out of the memorial fund or the strategic ministry fund. So, while the situation isn’t urgent or dire, we know we need a plan.

Our fiscal year 2023-2024 ended on June 30. We finished the year with an $86,000 loss—a bigger loss than we had budgeted. In years past, that has not been the case. We have closed the gap between planned income and expenses, rather than widened it.

As we look to the future, we continue to look for ways to cut costs and we plan to move toward a time in which all our expenses are covered by our monthly giving. We will talk more in depth about stewardship in the month of November, but for now, we simply invite you to prayerfully consider a proposal that comes from a council discussion at our last meeting.

A relatively simple calculation shows us that if every household that currently calls ECC home would increase their giving by about $40 a month, we would, over a year’s time, close the $86,000 deficit gap we experienced last fiscal year.

Once again, we have dealt with far greater challenges in the past than this, and I know we are up for it.

So, we invite every household to prayerfully consider increasing our giving by about $40 a month. Some of us might consider giving more than that. Some of us may not be able to come up with $40 extra a month. All we ask is that all of us prayerfully consider it, seek to hear God’s voice, decide in our hearts to give as we are led, without any compulsion or guilt and with great cheerfulness and joy.

In the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 9.8, our prayer is that our intentional generosity will bear fruit in our lives and in our congregation, so that in all things at all times, having all we need, we will abound in every good work.

As God has met us and provided for us in the past—often above and beyond—we trust that he will do the same now and in the future.