Lessons from April Faith Day 2009 (by Stephen Simpson)

We are praising the Lord for what He did yesterday at our April Faith Day. Over $90,000 was added to the building fund!! When you add the General Fund giving and Faith's 100 giving, well over $100,000 was given in the offering plates yesterday. Praise the Lord!

Here's a breakdown of the $90,000 that was donated for the building fund:

• Over $39,000 was pledged money.
  
• Over $50,000 of new money was donated. There were two $5,000 gifts and two $3,000 gifts. The rest (over $34,000) was given through many, many checks of various amounts.
  

What can we learn from this?

• There was widespread participation in our April Faith Day. 324 checks were deposited in the bank today. God did not provide through one or two large checks. He used hundreds of people to accomplish his purposes.
• God's people are extremely generous. Even though times are tough and there is a lot of economic uncertainty, God's people still gave.

To God be the glory, great things He has done!

Sacrificial Giving (by Stephen Simpson)

This coming Sunday is April Faith Day. Our Capital Campaign will come to a close. Most of you know that for the past three years our church has been raising and saving money in order to build and expand our facilities. You may recall the desserts that we held three years ago. Pastor Osborne gave presentations and asked us to consider making a pledge towards the campaign. One thing that stuck in my brain was the concept of sacrificial giving. Pastor explained that gifts toward the Capital Campaign were to be extraordinary gifts. They were to be gifts over and above our regular giving.

At the time of those desserts, Nicki & I were very newly married. We both worked full-time jobs. We prayed individually and together about what God would call us to pledge. God brought both of us to the same amount. We agreed on that grand total and decided to break it down into equal monthly contributions, in addition to our regular tithes. We were certain that it was going to be a huge sacrifice; it was definitely stretching our "budget."

Fast forward three years to the present time. Much has changed! We have been blessed with two girls and have moved into a larger house. Nicki went from her full-time job, to stay-at-home Mom, back to working a few hours a week. All this means our "budget" was stretched even more than planned. I'm sure many (if not most) of you have also experienced some significant life changes these past three years.

This month, by the grace of God, we were able to send in our final monthly contribution. PRAISE THE LORD!! We have been so excited to look back and see what God has been able to accomplish. We certainly could not have done it on our own! But, as I have thought about our pledge, I have thought again of the concept of sacrificial giving. I have asked myself, "Was our pledge a sacrificial gift?" What did we have to sacrifice? What did we give up in order to give more? I can honestly tell you that our pledge truly felt like a sacrificial gift. There were times when we worried about how we would meet our monthly commitment, and it felt like we were sacrificing tremendously. But, if I'm honest, I can't really look back and provide a list of the specific things that we sacrificed. We never went hungry, and we were able to pay all of our bills. In fact, we were even able to pay off some of our debts early. We never ran out of clothes to wear. We still went on vacations. There were still Christmas presents under the tree each year, and we still exchanged birthday presents.

My point is this, God has blessed us tremendously. He has provided above our needs! I don't know about you, but I feel like I have truly grown spiritually through our giving. I look forward to the next Capital Campaign because I want to grow even more. Maybe next time I'll come closer to the true meaning of sacrificial giving.

Capital Campaign Statistics (by Stephen Simpson)

As our Capital Campaign comes to a close, consider some of these statistics.

• There were 192 different pledges
• Smallest Pledge = $39.25
  
• Largest Pledge = $300,000.00
  
• Average Pledge = $7,132.29

• Over 160 pledges were for $10,000 0r less
  
• There were 22 pledges of $10,000 or more.
• There were 9 pledges for $25,000 or more.
  
• The largest one-time cash gift was $125,000.
  

• Stock in several different companies were donated to fulfill pledges. All stock was sold as soon as it was received and the funds were added to the building fund.
  
• Property was donated to fulfill one pledge
• Some contributed directly from an IRA through the Pension Protection Act of 2006
• One interesting gift was 40 shares of stock from a company in Ohio. The stock is not publicly traded which made it somewhat complicated to sell. The Lord graciously provided a buyer who paid $400/share adding $16,000 to the capital campaign.