REDHILL FINANCES UPDATE: AUGUST 2020
from Redhill Core Leadership
(Andrew, Candace, Emily, Vaughan, Brent, Jill)
We are very thankful to be in a position where our finances are secure and we can consider investing more in what God is doing. God has provided and you have all been very faithful in return, meaning our offerings have continued to be strong over the past few months. Additionally, we have received $20,000 from the Australian Government as an economic stimulus payment to small organisations.
We would like you to prayerfully consider the following items that we would like to commit to as a church:
Air-conditioning at Lyons - $10,000 (funded from the $20,000 government stimulus)
Missionhouse Project donation - $10,000 (funded from the $20,000 government stimulus)
Increase Brent’s employment hours – see options below (funded from regular offerings)
Details on each below.
Air-conditioning at Lyons
$10,000 – funded from the $20,000 government stimulus
It has been wonderful to meet at the Lyons Church of Christ building and we look forward to continuing to do so. However, many of you may remember how hot and unbearable it was last summer! Lyons are looking to install air-conditioning, which also legally requires significant electrical work to bring the building up to current standards.
How can we help?
The cost of this is about $30,000. Lyons Church of Christ can afford around $20,000, and we would love to help out by contributing $10,000.
Why invest in this?
This benefits anyone using the Lyons building in the warmer months. This includes not only Lyons Church and Redhill, but also a couple of other small church groups, as well as community visitors such as AA and kids’ tutoring, plus people in need who use their Food Bank. We don’t see God’s Kingdom as being broken up into individual churches, but rather that we are all one body!
But how long will we be at Lyons?
Lyons are keen to have us meet in their building and we pay very low rent in order to do so. Lyons have indicated that they are happy for us to continue using the building for the foreseeable future.
If for some reason we did move on, we believe this investment is still worthwhile. We will have helped Lyons invest in something very necessary for the building which has great potential to serve people in the community.
Missionheart ‘Missionhouse’ project
$10,000 – funded from the $20,000 government stimulus
Missionheart has been saving towards buying a property to love vulnerable people in our community. The aim of this initiative, Missionhouse, is to ‘help those who are broken and lost to find freedom and wholeness through being part of a Christian community’. More information is available here.
How can we help?
We would love to help make this possible by contributing $10,000.
Why invest in this?
Serving with Missionheart is one of the ways that Redhill practises our value of ‘active compassion’. We have partnered with Missionheart for many years and contributing to Missionhouse is an opportunity to continue this.
Increasing Brent’s employment hours
$17,000 or $34,000 per year – funded from our regular offerings
Brent and Jill have not asked us to consider this, but it is something that the rest of the core leadership have identified and discussed.
Brent and Jill both contribute an extraordinary amount of energy, time and effort into loving the Redhill family, and leading us to love God and to love others. Last year we increased Brent’s hours from 2.5 days per week to 3 days per week, as a first step towards recognising their contribution. We would like to increase the hours Brent is paid for as a better reflection of this.
How can we help?
We see there are two options if we were to increase Brent’s hours:
Increase Brent’s hours from 3 to 4 days per week, at an additional annual cost of $17,000. This can be funded within the current level of offerings we are receiving.
Increase Brent’s hours from 3 to 5 days per week, at an additional annual cost of $34,000. This would require an increase in our current offerings by about $9,000 per year.
These costs includes all expenses associated with employment such as superannuation and tax. Further information on how we can afford this is below.
Why invest in this?
As a paid employee of Redhill Church, Brent well and truly works five days per week. Jill and Brent both put in a lot of voluntary time too to serve the Redhill community.
We feel we should pay Brent for the time he contributes and that his serving as our pastor should be something we all contribute to.
A key biblical principle here is 1 Timothy 5:18, that states:
‘For Scripture says “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”’
Some background financial information
Last year, our income exceeded our expenses by about $25,000 (if we remove ‘once-off’ items such as the stimulus payment and purchase of audio-visual equipment).
For 4 days per week, we could afford this within our current level of offerings.
For 5 days per week, we would need to increase our offerings by about $9,000 per year.
We currently have about $59,000 in the bank (which would reduce to $39,000 if we invest in the Lyons air-conditioning and Missionhouse). This gives us a bit of a buffer to smooth the transition.
We don’t see that there are any opportunities to reduce our current expenses to fund this salary increase and we want to maintain our current level of support for our ministry areas and mission partners.
God has proven He provides and is faithful, and we have seen you be so faithful as a Redhill family. Suggesting this salary increase is not something that troubles us! We believe the Smith's love and leadership are invaluable and well worth investing in.
What we are asking you to do
We would like you to prayerfully consider the three proposed investments above.
We are keen to consider spending the stimulus money on the Lyons air-conditioning and Missionhouse gifts as soon as we can, to help Lyons and Missionheart make their own purchase decisions.
We would like to increase Brent’s paid hours soon, but this has less of a deadline. We can consider this suggestion separately, depending on how we feel led as a church family and what questions people have.
We need to prayerfully discern these things. Please discuss any thoughts or questions with Andrew Spencer, one of the other leaders, or with your small group leader. We will share any major questions or thoughts with everyone.
Please let us know what you think, including raising any questions or concerns, by 2 September 2020 for the air-conditioning and Missionhouse, and by 30 September 2020 for Brent’s paid hours.
