Let’s Become Paid in Full. . .Together!
May 27, 2022 | Brian Dorini
Our Church Building cost ~$20M! We have occupied it since late 2013. By God’s grace, our current mortgage is only ~$2M of that original cost!
Currently, we pay ~$200,000 a year on the mortgage, and we would continue to do so for the next 13 years. The ~$200k each year is approximately 10% of our annual church budget. A generous donor approached the church leadership with an offer of up to $1M, as a dollar-for-dollar match, to pay off the ~$2M mortgage. After a season of prayer and due diligence, the church leadership agreed that God is leading us to launch the Paid-In-Full campaign.
Goals
Our Goal is to raise $2M and have full church participation. We have already raised $516k. With the matched donation, that’s ~1M. That’s already half of our 2M goal. With just $484k and the remaining match, we will be Paid in Full!
The church leadership is convinced that God wanted us to use the ~$200k each year for additional ministry expansion. The principal areas in which the church plans to use that money are 3-fold:
Missions
In Missions, we would look to acquire new GO Partners. We would look to expand toward funding our GO Partners toward at least 10% of their needs. Lastly, we would look to increase our short term Mission opportunities.
Local Community
We would also love to grow our existing Arts Series and Science Series to provide more opportunities to connect with the community and our congregation. Another goal would be to fund the Mind The Gap program to be launching later this year. This program will help provide critical skills to local high school graduating seniors to help them transition to productive adulthood. Thirdly, we would also look to provide funding for another church plant if our congregation size, and God’s leading, continue to move in this direction.
Church ministry
Another way we would expand is to provide funds for a worship and music coordinator. This is a position that has been recommended for quite some time by our talented and long-serving music volunteers.
Timeline
May: We are treating May as a season for everyone to get information on the campaign, and to pray about the part they will play.
June: Some have given already, but we will ask all to make their gifts in June if possible. Some may need to make part or all of their gift later in 2022, and that is fine too. The match will be available through December 31, 2022. For those that will make gifts after June, we will ask that they fill out a pledge card (to be provided) in June so that we can all see how God is answering prayer and leading the congregation, and also plan accordingly.
What you can do
- Please pray to see how God is calling you to participate. God calls us to give sacrificially, and our giving should be a source of joy (e.g. 2 Cor. 8-9).
- Please give over and above your normal giving to the church. It is important that we maintain our ability to meet our normal budget obligations. We are praying for 265 givers! We have 46 givers so far. Stone Hill Church is your church, your building, your ministry—we are doing this together as the local body of Christ. We take the Lord’s example of the widow’s offering seriously (e.g. Luke 21:1-4), and it informs how we operate—believe us when we say that no gift is too small (and all gifts will be matched!).
Gifts toward this campaign should be designated to “Paid-in-Full” and can be brought to the office, dropped in the Sanctuary offering boxes or safe, or made electronically. Please note that gifts and the corresponding match will be applied to the mortgage on a rolling basis. We have already significantly reduced the mortgage!