Sometimes, when you are looking at rows and rows of costs illustrating just what was spent over the past year and on what it was all spent on, you could start to glaze over, or even gloss over it in your attempt to just get to the “bottom line”. Numbers have a tendency to do that. To me, however, our parish expenses showcase the enormous tapestry of support, engagement, learning, healing, faith, connection, and excitement that is Saint John the Evangelist. The breadth and depth of St. John’s missionary, ministerial, liturgical, operational and functional environment is truly awe inspiring. We literally support tens of thousands of people in our Parish Family and the local community with the efforts of our volunteers, staff, and clergy. The overall spending on all these good works can be seen as the Expenses of the parish.
A few comments to assist in understanding our Expenses, especially in relation to last week’s discussion of our Offertory Income:
- Our Expenses are the total amount spent by Saint John on all our efforts. That number is significantly larger than our Offertory collection, which is what we consider to be our Income. Your gifts for specific programs and events, along with special collections and second collections are not considered Income for the Parish, but we use that capital as you direct us to.
- Our Capital Campaign and our Catholic Faith Appeal are not considered Income to St. John (which is why they are not taxed by the Diocese), but any funds that we spend from those sources are part of our Expenses.
As you can see, we have increased again this year in our overall Expenses by roughly 7%. We have actually decreased our operational expenses with new vendors for church materials and even continue to reduce our wages to less than 23% of our total Expenses. That is considered extremely low, since most Catholic Churches’ wages are between 40% to 50% of their Expenses. The increased Expenses are due to several major mission-focused factors:
- New roof for the Parish Life Center – we were so blessed by your gifts that we did not need to dip into our Capital Reserves to pay for this essential renovation.
- Significant support increase to Guadalupe Social Services – through the amazing support of a single donor, Saint John provided for the full renovation of the Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry of the Catholic Charities programs in Immokalee.
- Increased support for Catholic schools in the Naples, FL – including tuition assistance for our Parish Family members.
- Increased direct support for counseling services – for Parish Family members that require assistance to deal with grief, personal troubles, or physiological concerns if they are not able to afford these essential services.
- Capital Campaign expenses to ensure proper communication and engagement for the future of our church.
- Institution of new programs for the Parish Family, including the Adult Faith Formation efforts, a Divorced and Separated Support Group, the Catholic Youth Organization, and many others.
Next week, we will discuss the FY2017 budget of the parish. This will be the first year of our new programmatic focus, and you will see the continued increase in investment and opportunity that we have together to make a real difference in the lives of the community with positive and engaging efforts.