Art Winstead, Stewardship Committee member
“Faith in Numbers.” Really? What does that even mean? The world is probably split, 50/50 as to those that HAVE “Faith in Numbers” and those that do NOT have “Faith in Numbers.”
So, here’s a take on “Faith in Numbers.”
Annually, we as a church of Faith, gather financial information as to our annual expenditures and place faith in our ability to receive many gifts or the funds necessary to support those expenditures. It is a process of prayer, careful discernment and ultimately Faith. Perhaps hundreds of hours are devoted by a number of members of staff and FPC committees to gather the information necessary to determine these expenditures in order to conduct the programs necessary to achieve the priorities for all as a congregation of faithful believers.
Our process of budgeting is not a complicated process. Without doubt, while It’s not complicated, it is challenging.
Simply put, our process at FPC works something like this: Once our Faith-driven expenditure budget is determined, another group sets about the task to determine if our Faith giving will support those expenditures. And yes, annually we make a determination that “yes,” Faith supports our budgeted expenditures as we have Faith that on or about the beginning and end of each calendar year the first and last dollar given to the budget will in fact be enough to pay for the budgeted expenditures.
Our ”Faith in Numbers” starts with God’s trust given to us to us to spend based on the priorities established and be able to adjust spending as needed as priorities may change. The trust gives to us as spending and our faith to meet our budget is indeed a gift and blessing. These are God’s resources we are trusted with as to being good stewards of those resources. God calls us and gives us the freedom to budget and to give of our resources. It’s us and God.
God’s Faith and trust in us to be good stewards of God’s resources is where our “Faith Budget” begins. From there is it up to us to have “Faith in Numbers”.
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Commitment Sunday is November 21.
