At our recent Business Meeting, we celebrated the report about our year-end financial statement. We give thanks as we finished the year with a
balance of $16,040! We had accrued a significant deficit of about – $72,000 before the fourth quarter of the year. This was due to unforeseen increases in our property insurance and building maintenance needs. We are thankful for the collective effort to address this concern, and we are also grateful to the congregation as we lean into our budget for this year, knowing that these expenses will remain a need.
As we collectively tend to the needs of this place, we are also thankful for the commitment to the needs of others! At the Business Meeting, we voted to make a three-year commitment of $10,000 each year to the Community Market Capital Campaign. The Community Market is building a larger facility to serve the needs of food insecurity in our community. Auburn First Baptist was a part of the original effort to create the Community Market years ago, and we remain committed to its work. If you would like to make an individual contribution to the Capital Campaign, it can be made through the church!
We also voted to become an Encourager Church to Eddie Adalpe, a field personnel, or missionary, through the Cooperative Baptist Church in Spain. We made a three-year commitment to offer encouragement and support for this ministry. This might involve a group in the congregation sending cards of encouragement, a yearly financial contribution, or sending a group to Spain on a mission trip. We give thanks for Eddie’s ministry in Spain and our opportunity to participate in it.
Finally, we look forward to Global Ministries Offering Sunday. We approved the GMO Budget for the coming year, and we will start making pledges and gifts to it on February 9. A pledge card will be emailed the week prior. This budget serves needs locally, regionally, and globally. We will also sign the covenant as an Encourager Church on February 9 in worship!
-Tripp