Jeff Shortridge from InJoy Stewardship Solutions spent the afternoon and evening with us on Wednesday, kicking us into gear as we get ready to take our next step into the future!
Jeff was able to provide our elders with a very in-depth Financial analysis of our church, showing us that from a financial standpoint, we are seeing some overall healthy growth. We already knew we have experienced a significant downturn in our YTD budget giving, but this is largely because people have “shifted” their giving from ministry to property this year. We THINK we will be okay, with some intentional belt-tightening. As you might expect, we get by on what he called “blue-collar giving,” meaning every gift of average people like me and you matters. We depend on it.
After that, Jeff spent some time with our staff just picking our brains and getting to know our mission and vision, our style, and our corporate DNA. This will help him as he works with us to build the capital campaign that we need.
That evening, Jeff presented the plan overview to our elders, deacons, life group leaders, and ministry team leaders. This set our expectations for how InJoy will guide us over the next 18-24 months as we build and launch into our capital campaign. We will be rolling it all out right after the beginning of the year!
A Spiritual Journey
The part of Jeff’s presentation that resonated with me the most is that this whole thing is NOT about “raising money” to build a building. Instead, this is going to be a deep spiritual journey. It is about us becoming the people of obedience that God is calling us to become. It isn’t about opening our wallets. It is about us opening our hearts to God’s plan for using us in a great way in this community.
For almost ten years, we have been here for Gilmer County. Our next step will determine our ministry capacity for the next several generations. What an exciting time!