On November 3, 2019 we gathered for our annual Town Hall meeting. We know many of you would have loved to attend but were unable to make it for various reasons. So we decided to share the relevant info here! Below you will find links to our proposed 2020 Ministry Budget and other goodies. At Town Hall we also presented our candidates for the Deacon Body and a Bylaws amendment. Ready? Let’s do it!
Budget
The Budget was presented by Blake Horridge, our current Deacon Treasurer. It takes a couple of months to create our yearly budget.* A huge thanks to our Finance Team and Deacon Board for their hard work to get us to this point. You will notice that we are budgeting a deficit for next year, so let me offer some background on how we arrived at this point. Our general offerings are slightly lower than last year, which is a trend we have been watching for the last couple of quarters (three month blocks). We projected lower general offering contributions for 2020, which also meant we tightened up our expenses as much as we could without lowering our ministry capacity. Budgeting a deficit is a short term reality for FBC Pasadena, because we will have some big positive shifts to our revenue stream in the next couple of years. We have healthy cash reserves to absorb any imbalance in the short term as well. Plus we have no debt! Even with all of this, we are looking at a deficit of only $53,000 for next year’s budget. Zach Hoover, our Board Moderator, challenged us at Town Hall to step up our giving for 2020 as a way to close this gap. The Deacon Board have together committed to digging deeper in 2020 to help us flourish as a church. It was a beautiful commitment to generosity, and combined the Board members will be raising their giving by $350/month.
We are continuing to build our revenue streams by expanding our building use, and 2020 will see several new building partnerships. These will be closely aligned with our vision of being a blessing to our city and world. All of these efforts will allow us to expand our ministries while our current and newer members step into expansive generous practices. We think a lot about growth at FBCP, but intend that growth to be sustainable and deep. So we are in the stages of putting down good foundational roots. This is the most important growth of all. From there we believe that any other growth can scale without unraveling our core convictions. Speaking of core convictions…
Bylaw Proposal
We also presented a Bylaws amendment for consideration. We will formally vote on this amendment at Gratitude Night on November 17, 2019. The Board refined the language around membership to more accurately reflect our values and practice as a church. Prior to 2013 (the last major revision to the Bylaws), there were several paths into membership, including the recognition of the unique baptismal and conversion experiences of each person. FBCP has always had a normative path to membership, and that will continue into the future. The baptist distinctive of immersive baptism after a profession of faith will still be our internal practice moving forward. This amendment will once again allow us to welcome people to membership who have been baptized in another Christian community.
Here is the language we are proposing:
The membership of the church shall consist of persons who have professed their faith that Jesus is Lord, have been baptized, participated in the class for membership and signed the church covenant. (Article II, Section 1)
Here is the 2013 language being replaced:
The membership of the church shall consist of persons who have professed faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord, have been baptized as believers by immersion, participated in the class for membership and signed the church covenant. (Article II, Section 1)
Board Candidates
One last thing you missed was a discussion about our candidates for Deacon Board leadership. We have a seven person Board of Deacons. There are four officer positions, and three at large members. The Officer positions are Moderator, Vice Moderator, Treasurer and Clerk. Deacons serve two year terms, and can serve three concurrent terms before they have to take a year of sabbatical before being eligible again. This year we have three deacons terming out, so we are recommending three new candidates for service. Here are the short info statements from each candidate…
Angel Cheng
As we are discovering what it means to be a safe place for people to come as they are without pretense and find the open embrace of Jesus welcoming them home, I believe that what I've learned from seminary and the rooms of recovery about becoming sacred safe spaces of authenticity and grace can be of service to FBC in this season of formation.
Brian Young
I have attended the church with my wife Jen since November 2011. I have served by organizing the young professionals small group, running and building worship slides, and performing various consultations around the church. I also serve on the board for the First Baptist Church Foundation. I work as a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and just welcomed my son, Elliot, into the world on October 17.
Jason Ellis
I am married to Natalee, and we have sons Asher (9) and Bennett (5). We’ve been going to FBC for about a year and a half. We were immediately drawn to the warmth we felt from everyone on Sunday morning, the diversity, and the preaching. I work at Disney in Title Lifecycle Management, which is a fancy way of saying a project planner for their movies. We’re both California natives and have been in Pasadena post-college.
As you can see, a lot is happening around FBC Pasadena. Our annual business meeting will be on Gratitude Night on November 17 at 6:00pm. At that meeting we will vote on the above topics in the context of worship and celebration. We will also be reintroducing the historic practice of Promise Cards, where we will invite individuals and families to prayerfully pledge to a level of financial support for 2020. This will help us in many ways, and will also allow everyone to enter into their practice of stewardship with intentionality. All are welcome at Gratitude Night, but voting is limited to the membership of FBC Pasadena. If you would like further clarification on any of the above items, feel free to email our Deacon Board or Ministerial Staff using the buttons below.
*First, the ministry staff prepare recommendations for their various areas of focus, collaborating on a preliminary rough draft of possible changes. Those recommendations go to the finance team, who begin the process of balancing the budget. This is accomplished by analyzing income and expense trends, thereby creating run rates to estimates how we will finish year end. Our fiscal year is January-December. It usually takes 3-4 sessions to fully integrate all changes and finalize a budget. The Finance Team then passes their recommended budget draft to the Deacon Board for their notes and changes. They prepare a final budget draft to share with the larger membership, which is how we got to Town Hall.
