During our morning services on December 17th, we will be asking for congregation affirmation on the 2018 Budget.
Our budget process starts back in late August with the staff and ministry team leaders being asked to think through the upcoming year. It’s during this process that we evaluate what we do through the lens of Love God, Live Connected, Serve All, and Multiply Another. We want every single thing we do and touch have something directly to do with one (or more) of these values.
Once the ministry teams submit their budgets, it goes to the Finance Team and staff. We spend a lot of time here making sure that what we have planned for 2018 fits our mission and vision. During the month of October, there is a lot of back and forth between staff, ministry leaders, and finance team. In November, the budget is presented to the Church Council for final review. Once that review is given, we (Church Council, Finance Team, staff, and ministry leaders) take a couple more weeks to pray over the budget before sending it to the congregation for final affirmation.
Couple of highlights for this year’s budget. Your giving went up this year. In fact, this is the 3rd year in a row giving to Western Hills has increased. For 2018, we have increased our missions giving across the board. This is going to allow us to sponsor more individual trips as the team sees fit.
There are not a lot of changes for 2018. You may notice that administrative costs went up. With more traffic in the building due to our Upward and children’s ministries, we have high utilities and maintenance on the building. In fact, we increased the reserve fund this coming year for the potential that some of our AC units may need replacing. We understand that technically we could classify some of our administrative costs under Love, Live, Serve, and Multiply. For simplicity sake, we’ve chosen to show it as administrative.
One final note about the Capital Expenditures. These are projects like replacing carpet or patching the parking lot that we would do ONLY if the rest of the budget was met first.
Over the next few weeks, you will hear our heart for what we think God is calling us to in 2018 that this budget supports. More details are coming during our Sunday services.
If you would like more information about the budget or our finances, please drop us an email at office@whillschurch.org or finance@whillschurch.org. You can also download these two information graphics with the link below.
2018 Budget Graphic