There’s only a few days left in 2011 and I look back on what a wild, roller coaster ride the year has been. At the beginning of last December, our board met and decided the church could no longer continue on. We would be flat broke in four months. Two years of work had not produced the needed difference to financially go on and our savings would be completely depleted. We planned to use our annual church meeting in early 2011 to recommend a vote to close the church by April first.
I was going to attend the Midwinter Pastor’s Conference in Chicago the first week of February. I would simultaneously go through the last of my ordination transfer proceedings and hand in a written proposal to close First Covenant Spokane.
Since 2011-2012 was going to be my daughter Kelsey’s senior year, Tonia and I had pre-decided not to look for another ministry position, but stay put in Spokane for at least one more year, working any job I could find.
Last year at Christmas, a homeless person who believed in our church gave us $10,000 to keep going. Thanks to that gift, the April deadline was pushed to June.
Some of our Board met with North Pacific Conference leaders in January, and they recommended we shut things down. In February at the Midwinter Conference I handed in the written proposal to close our church. 122 years of ministry was over—it’s time was done—everything has an ending.
They delayed a month getting back to us, so we postponed our church meeting to vote on closing since we didn't have enough information to proceed. In March, our Conference Superintendent Mark Novak countered with an offer he was putting together with National Covenant Properties to offer us an equity share, line of credit, loan on our property. The loan would come through in April. It seems our work with the poor, the fact our church was growing, and the new faces in our leadership had convinced them that we were worth an investment.
We also benefited from a bad economy. Our property was worth 2 million in 2007. Now it was only worth 1.3 million. In eight months of trying to sell it in 2010 we received only one offer —for half of THAT!
In our denomination, when a church closes, all of its assets and property go to the Conference. It was worth it to them and to the greater denomination not to take such a huge loss on the property. Keeping us going for 2-3 years with a $200,00 investment was a smart business move. So we agreed to the loan and we took the property off the market in March.
Just a few weeks ago, our real-estate agent called saying he thinks he can now get the full 1.3 million. He was wondering if we are still interested in selling—HA! What a difference nine months make. (We said, no)
But, the loan didn’t fund in April. The Dept. of Church growth and Evangelism wanted to get involved making sure the deal was solid, saying that if we get such a loan, numerous other churches will be lining up to ask for the same deal. They wanted a detailed plan explaining why we would get a “yes” to such a deal when other churches might get a “no”. So things were put on hold as we filled out detailed plans and budgets, and paperwork.
The money we had that would only last until June somehow stretched us into the end of August. Through strange circumstances May saw a level of income that was high enough to not produce a loss. We even got odd, unexpected money, like a refund from the IRS for over charging us! One of our board members said they hadn’t remembered a break-even month in over a decade of their attendance.
The first phase (60K) of the equity loan funded the last few days of July. We spent some to stay afloat each month, and some to pay for much needed building projects. We know we will need to borrow more to make it through 2012, but for a church that should have been dead—it’s still quite amazing.
I however don’t care for the stress and wish God wouldn’t do these things to me. He’s making me old before my time. It’s a fine line between faith and stress— I cross it a lot!
Isaiah 11:1-3, A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD — and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
This famous Christmas-time verse is referring to the family line of king David (Jesse’s son). Long after the life of this family line of kings and rulers had been cut down and forgotten, a man would be born in the family line, like a shoot coming up out of a stump everyone thought dead, to become even more glorious than King David ever was. That inspired me this year.
We know we are a small, humble church growing by desperately poor people. We aren’t a great tree, just a little shoot, It seems God has plans for us which are bigger than our own plans. My prayer is that 2012 brings us more joy, hope, and strength than we could imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment