Jim's Jots 

     I have heard people comment that they miss receiving the Visitor weekly now that we have gone to a monthly publication.  I, too, enjoyed receiving it every week and feel a bit out of touch when it comes less frequently.  There have been discussions regarding this issue over the past few weeks.  I think that the congregation needs to be aware of not only that this issue is being considered, but also reminded of the reasons that we had to make this change.  The primary reason for the change was financial.  

     For the past several years, the Stewardship and Finance Committee has been telling us that we have had expenses exceeding our income by about $50,000 - $80,000 each year.  In order to maintain our mission and ministry, we have used the All Saint's Fund to cover this financial gap.  The All Saint's Fund was money left to our Church by our parishioners who have passed on and remembered FCC in their estate plans.  But the All Saint's Fund is now practically exhausted and we can no longer use it to meet our budgetary needs.  

     So what did we do ?  We significantly cut the expense side of our budget for 2015 by over $130,000 from 2014.  Many ministries continue to feel this pain.  One very significant budgetary cut was that we were unable to replace Jan Montgomery when she retired last year.  Jan did many things for our Church, and one of those tasks was the publication of the Visitor which may have taken about half of her time each week.  Therefore, it is no longer possible to do the Visitor as we did in the past.  

     Many other Churches our size publish their newsletters on a monthly basis, so we decided to continue the Visitor on a less frequent basis.  We are aware that a less frequent newsletter can create a gap regarding getting information to the congregation on a timely basis.  One attempt to close this gap has been that the weekly Church Bulletin now presents more information on activities than it did before.  We are considering other options for keeping us all updated on important news.

     But the hard realization is that many ministries have had to cut back and they are feeling the pain.  The less frequent visitor is a pain that we all are experiencing and it is a tangible sign that we all are cutting back to be more responsible with the funds that we have.