New Stuff we added after Town Hall Up Here
Matt Christopher and team members are hosting a pair of Q&A sessions over video call to discuss the proposed changes to the Bylaws.
Wednesday 11/11 @ 7 PM. LINK HERE TO JOIN
Monday 11/16 @ 1:30 PM. LINK HERE TO JOIN
Matt also generated a helpful comparison report to see what was changed, why, and how it impacts the church. See the button below for that info.
Gratitude Night
November 22, 2026 at 6pm in the gym
On this page you will find a few important items ahead of Gratitude Night.
Nominations for our Board of Deacons
Summary and Detailed versions of the 2027 Ministry Budget
The proposed revisions to our church Bylaws, as well as the current Bylaws that were updated in 2019
A handy “Bridge Resolution” that, you guessed it, bridges the governance continuity between the adoption of the new bylaws (pending member approval at Gratitude Night) and actual transition to the new Bylaws that would begin January 1, 2027
A report on the changes degenerated by Matt Christopher
The Budget Companion, a narrative exploration of our Ministry Budget for 2027
For questions related the Budget, please reach out to our Board Treasurer, Rich Laski at this link. For general Board questions, please reach out to our Board Moderator, Jessica Henson at this link. For questions about the Bylaws revisions, Board member Matt Christopher and chair of the Bylaws Committee can be reached at this link.
New Board Nominations
Molly Wilkerson
After growing up as the daughter of an American Baptist pastor in Bloomington, Indiana, Molly Wilkerson moved to southern California for college and has lived here since. She has been attending FBC Pasadena since November 2024. She has participated in service, joined the handbell choir and is co-teaching a Sunday School class. Professionally, she is a board-certified family physician currently providing outpatient primary care to older adults. In her free time, she enjoys taking dance classes and hanging out with her two wonderful cats.
John Sanchez
John Sanchez has been a member of the First Baptist Church of Pasadena since 2021, when he joined alongside his late husband Joel. Raised in a pastoral home, John has a deep lifelong foundation in faith, leadership, and community service. Over the years, John and Joel, opened their home to house ten boys, ultimately adopting their two sons, Nathaniel and Leonidas. As a single dad, today, John balances family life with service in the children's ministry and on the Governing Docs Committee. Professionally, John serves as a Senior Director of Transportation and construction, and he holds a Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership from the University of La Verne. In his free time, he enjoys theater, sports, and singing. He is deeply honored by this nomination and looks forward to supporting the growth, governance, and spiritual life of the congregation.
Chris Brandow
I’ve attended FBC since December 2023 along with my wife, Maggie, and children Bess, Pearl & Gus who are all either attending college or have graduated. Maggie and I are currently coping with our empty nest by taking care of other people’s little ones in the nursery. Other church contributions include injuring myself countless times playing “easy going” basketball. Outside of church, I am a software engineer who builds iPhone apps. In my free time, I am a budding ceramicist.
2027 Budget Narrative
Pastor John Jay here with another annual Budget Companion, your one stop narrative for the story behind the spreadsheets.
Every year we spend September and October with key leaders, including staff and deacons, to prepare for the next year’s Ministry Budget process. Staff leadership bring recommendations related to their areas of focus, revenue/expense trends are researched, and future possibilities are considered. All of this starts and ends with prayerfulness, meditating on the mission of this church in this time, and values of prudence and faith are held in healthy tension. This year we also considered the impact of sudden changes to both our staff and our congregation. Just one year ago we began the painful process of reckoning with staff losses that were planned and unplanned. This reckoning resulted in a segment of our congregation grieving, pulling back from participation, and ultimately leaving our fellowship. This steady drip of discontent has had an effect on our ability to thrive as a church. And it has had an effect on our financial health. I believe this background is important at the start of this budget narrative, because these realities had a direct impact on our planning for the future. This proposed 2027 budget is a part of that future, written in numbers, fiscal forecasts, and faith.
I can say confidently that our church is in a miraculously healthy place financially. I can also say that this is only because God has seen fit to care for us when we needed more than we knew to ask for. It was clear early in the current fiscal year that we would have to navigate the short term loss of a portion of our regular tithes and offerings. We have tracked that loss to be around $200,000 for the year. Some of this loss in offering revenue is directly related to certain families leaving our church. And some of that loss is from families who remain in our church lowering or pausing their regular giving until the future of our church came into focus. The other reality that affected our budget process was the large estate gift we received in early 2026. This gift is a miracle, in the same way that all generosity is miraculous. Only this miracle was of a different scale than an average gift. We were left around $1.9 million for the ministries of First Baptist Church of Pasadena. This was a large enough gift that the Deacons created a separate team to advise the Board on how to allocate this unexpected resource.
Let me share some of the ways we are utilizing that estate gift in the present and into the future. First things first, we are setting aside 10% of that gift for missions as is our regular practice with all tithes and offerings. Some of that missions money will be included in our missions dispersement in 2026, some is budgeted into 2027, and the remainder will be placed in a designated missions account so it remains earmarked for future missions use. To balance revenue projections and true expenses in our current fiscal year, we have used $100,000 in 2026. We have also allocated $200,000 in the 2027 budget to balance our projected expenses. This allows our ministries to stay responsive to the needs of our community and gives us a longer runway to rebuild our giving base. I have full confidence in our congregation’s generosity. I believe that God has given us all we need in one another. I also trust our leadership to oversee our assets, financial, brick and mortar, and relational.
We have covered the ways this large gift will impact missions, its impact on revenue loss in 2026, and its use in balancing revenue projections in 2027. The remaining portion of the gift will be stewarded by the Board and staff so our church thrives now and into the future. There are some exciting ways we are exploring to invest in building improvements that will allow us to be more effective in ministry. This fund will also remain an asset as we rebuild our practice of generosity, allowing continuity of ministry and staffing into next year. God has blessed us with all we need not just to maintain our mission, but even to dream about what might be possible as we shift into our next chapter as a church.
Staying with the revenue side of the budget, we now turn to the building resources. This budget proposal is funded by not just tithes and offerings, but also wise management of this property as an asset to our ministries. Our physical space serves several roles in our church. We utilize our building for the work of FBCP ministry. We also see our facilities as missions opportunities, where we practice generosity in sharing our space so others can thrive in their service to our communities. Finally we have been blessed to expand the ways that our building and grounds generate reliable revenue to supplement our ministry budget. Marcie Lumpkin and I have been at work for years with our Board to stabilize and shock-proof our ministry budget by diversifying our revenue streams. We never wanted the volatility of the stock market or a short term change in giving patterns to threaten our ability to fund our core ministries.
On the expense side of things, I want to highlight some exciting things. Missions continues to be funded with bold vision, with an expanded impact locally and internationally. We are committed to at least 10% of our revenues being earmarked for Missions beyond our church community. This year we project that contribution to be 15%! The Missions expenses are a mix of ongoing support for American Baptist Global Servants, local missions partners and opportunities, and space donations to local ministries who utilize our building. We are thrilled to expand our ongoing support for Global Servants by adding a sixth partner to our Missions giving!
Staffing and building are commonly some of the largest expenses in a ministry budget, and in a region as expensive as ours, our budget matches those trends. We invest heavily in our staff as core resources for the support and implementation of our ministries. 2027 will be a key time of staff realignment, and our funding plan supports the team we need moving forward. We will share more about longterm staffing strategy at Town Hall and into the beginning of 2027. We are beginning an official search for our next Associate Worship Pastor, which will be guided by a search committee of staff, Board and lay leaders. We are expanding the profile of some of our part time staff in line with their gifts. We have also added a new position in 2026 of a Volunteer Coordinator that will carry forward into next year, held by Natalee Ellis who joined our team in the middle of 2026. Our staff compensations are monitored and adjusted based on available funding, regional trends, and yearly cost of living adjustments.
The day-to-day operations of our facilities requires funding in line with the size and age of our properties. Old buildings like ours present complex situations and funding needs. Fortunately the Foundation partners with the church to support the health of our buildings and their use for ministry. We budget enough margin for building utilities and maintenance so we stay within budget as these expenses grow.
Our ministry expenses throughout the budget all follow a year-to-year trend of steady growth and expansion. This 2027 budget maintains the funding priorities of the last several years, with slight changes to how we categorize and track specific accounts. We budgeted increases to some areas like Men’s and Women’s Ministries, as well as Worship. Our ministries are extensions of our most precious resource, namely each of you! Consider your own involvement in our various ministries, from choir to small groups to cleaning up in the kitchen after a shared meal. Each of these ways of service is a part of our ministry, and the budget supports your relational contribution under the guidance of our staff and lay leadership.
A church is made up of a specific collection of people who are called to organize for the work of the Gospel in our neighborhoods at this time in history. First Baptist Church of Pasadena is over 140 years old! Across our history we have found numerous ways to preach the Gospel through word and deed. As you sit in our ancient sanctuary with the worn wooden pews supporting your body, I hope you can feel your place in the long line of faithful Christians who called this church “home.” If you are new to this church, we can’t wait to see how God calls you into deeper connection and service. If you have been around for a long time, you know that God always provides beyond our best laid plans. And to those of us who stand in leadership positions, remember that all authority is provisional, and ultimately God is the author and perfecter of our ministry. We simply continue to show up and do our best with the gifts entrusted to us. Thank you to the Board of Deacons, lay leaders and Staff for all your hard work to get us to this Town Hall and Gratitude Night. And to all of you who have been faithfully funding and supporting our 2026 Ministry Budget. We would be…
Less without you,
Pastor John Jay in collaboration with the Board of Deacons