Posted by Anchit

What is budgeting?

Making a plan for the year estimating what money you will receive, what costs you have and how you will spend any excess over your costs.

Next Sunday at the annual general meeting the council will present the financial plan or budget for your approval. In the budget we estimate what rents and other income the church will receive and the costs for heating, electricity, salaries etc that we will pay out. Unfortunately the difference between what we expect to receive and what we have to pay out is negative and we depend on your gifts to make up the difference to allow us to run the church and to give 10% of what you give us to organisations such as Gonja and Sabonna. In 2019 when we created the budget this difference divided by 12 was 13300 and this became the monthly budget for offerings.

At a temple talk some years ago at ALC a school girl stood up to talk about budgeting. She explained how she estimated how much money she would receive for baby sitting and how she planned how she would spend what she received at the start of the year. She went on to explain that when she made her plan at the start of the year she also made a commitment as to what she would give to God during the year. I was very impressed that somebody so young was making these financial plans and making commitments to giving back to God even though she had very little. Her example touched me and I resolved to make a commitment to regular giving instead of just giving in the plate when I was able to attend church.

In 2020 we need to replace the roof of the administrative block where the class rooms are located. On the Properties report which was given out with the annual report there is a pledge card. The purpose of these cards is that you can make a commitment and let the church know what you plan to give in 2020. I would like you ask if you can fill in two cards one for giving specifically towards the roof repair work and one for your regular donations. We will collect these at the end of the annual meeting.

In 2019 you generously gave 49000 specifically towards the 85000 which it cost to repair the Narthex roof and we are very grateful for your gifts which were in addition to your regular offerings. In 2020 in our financial plan, or budget for the church, we are planning to spend 408000 on replacing the administrative block roof which is leaking. Please consider setting up a regular monthly gift through your bank to the church specifically for this work and mark it Roof. While 408000 is a huge amount we could get to this amount if 60 people pledged to give 567 NOK to the roof fund each month.

Every thing we have is from God and he has been very generous to us. God wants us to be good stewards of the time and talents he has give us. It is important that we consider the gifts that God has given us and make a plan for our finances and what we are going to give to God in the coming year.

I leave you with one last thought. What have you received from the ALC ? What can you give to the ALC and its mission in 2020.

Thank you,
Mark Lanham