Financial Report for February and March 2020

PRAISE GOD, PRAISE GOD, AND PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wanted to keep everyone informed of the Financial Situation at Lakeview during these times of the Coronavirus.  The virus has made it much more difficult to communicate but I will be using Lakeviewumc.net website to pass on information as often as I can. 

First, let’s talk about February, since we did not have a Newsletter to report February’s financial results, I first want to say that all who calls Lakeview home did a GREAT job in February of following God’s lead to give generously. 

We not only got rid of the $17,000 deficit that happened in January but February Year-to-Date (YTD) showed a Positive Income of over $13,600.  Another reason this is so great is because based on past experiences, we were expecting February Budget YTD to be a negative by over $14,900 and that did not happen due to our member’s generosity. 

We did have some help from one of our members who passed away in 2019 and left a generous bequest amount in their will to Lakeview.  While this was a generous bequest, it is not something that Lakeview can count on, it is the offerings that the church receives on Sunday Mornings that pays the bills.  In fact, Lakeview only budgets about $12,000 for bequests a year or about $1,000 a month because historically bequests have not been very large. 

There are two major sources of Income for the church, one is Sunday Morning Offerings and the other is “Other Income Received”.  Other income represents income that comes in from other resources, like Interest Income, Christmas/Easter Offerings, Bequests Income from a person’s will, etc.  Generally speaking, Other Income is about 18% of the annual budget and it is NOT what the church depends on to pay the monthly bills, the fact it is that OUR MEMBERS who provide the majority of the Lakeview’s income or over 80%.  It is our members who we depend on in the long run with God’s help to pay the monthly bills.

Now let’s talk about March 2020, as you can see below we finish the First Quarter 2020 in the Black, Praise God by almost $6,000.  Again this is really great because according to our Budget we were projecting a short fall of almost $12,000.  Again Praise God!

Due the fact that we stopped meeting together in March, it took a little time for everyone to start mailing in or dropping off their offerings.  But soon everyone caught on, the offerings started showing up.  In fact, the offerings received in March were only about $10,000 less than we were expecting and that is great news. 

The really important numbers to look at are the “Offering Received” because this tells the real story about what our members have done through March.  Not only did our members make up the deficit from January but February and March are currently back on track with our income budget and it did help that Expenses through March were $5,000 less than expected, all this together is really great news.  GREAT JOB!!

NOW with the COVID-19 Virus it is very important for everyone continue to either MAIL, bring their offerings to the church office and put them in the Mail slot in the staff entrance door on the north side of the church office where the green picnic table is located, or here online. 

Although the office is locked, there is usually at least one person at the office each weekday to take calls, receive the mail, answer messages, and receive prayer requests.  So continue to pray for God’s guidance, give what is in your heart to give, and we will get through this with God’s help.

God’s Blessings to All, Eli Reeves, Finance Chairperson

Financial Report