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Stained Glass and Asphalt

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By Dan Amos

For the next couple of weekends we’ll be gathering to take care of our parking lot. The details will be on the website and in the newsletter. We are resealing our lot because we want to be good stewards of the property which God has given us and which those who came before us worked and sacrificed to provide. We use our budget to support people, programs, and property; as the last “p,” property is often where we make first cuts to make ends meet. We’ve been planning the resealing for years and put it off for several of those years when the funds haven’t been available. Thankfully, the time to get this done is finally here!

We’re not known for having a magnificent facility, but our community noticed when we paved the previous gravel and puddle lot. We’re making some improvements and getting some work done that we’ve put off when times have been lean. We fixed our deck and dry rot issues with in-house labor and did it all for much less than if we had contracted it out. We have a solid deck and ramps enabling access for everyone due to the ingenuity and hard work of many people.

Every year we go through a painful exercise of creating a budget. We set a target based on giving patterns and then form a budget to accomplish ministry within that budget. There’s always more we want to do within that balance of people, programs, and property. Consistently, property gets cut to the bone and many things get left undone. But we’re in an unprecedented situation this year: we’ve had unprecedented giving. We want everyone to know our budget is spent prudently, and we try to do what we can while capitalizing on the precious, limited resources of our people’s time and energy.

Don’t expect to see stained glass in the next, well, probably ever. But, if we continue to be blessed with strong giving, we will take care of our people, support our programs (ministries), and make wise improvements to our facility to make Elim an oasis for renewal with God and one another.

Saturday, August 24, 8 a.m.
We will work on sealing cracks and holes and priming oil spots.

Sunday, September 1, after church
We’ll close off the parking lot and get it ready for Monday’s sealing. We’ll leave it closed off until Wednesday to give the sealant time to cure.

Monday, September 2, 8 a.m.
We need a couple dozen people to come out. Parking will be on the youth house lawn. We’d like to have three teams starting in three corners of the lot and working toward a center. We’ll have people on each team carrying buckets of the pouring material for those who will be pulling wide squeegees and spreading a thin coat over all of the lot.

Please sign up or let me know if you can help on those days or at some other time. Thank you!

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Unprecedented

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By Dan Amos

Last year we embarked on a strategic adventure. As a body, we brought on a
third full-time staff member. We stepped out in faith that the budget would
be met and through your faithful giving and the Lord’s blessing we are
seeing a small abundance that has many praising God on a regular basis. In
nineteen years, I can’t recall a time such as this. We are working on a
strategic response.

Budget line items for grounds and facilities have been routinely underfunded,
and now we have a bit of money in the bank beyond our operating reserve.
Even though some really good deals have presented themselves recently, we
chose not to go after them because they weren’t strategic. This implies a
firmer set of strategic goals than what we had at the time, but we are
working on it.

We’ve begun collecting requirements from leaders and are putting together a
plan. We’re forming a strategic goals team for this reason. We are also
recruiting a grounds team and a facilities team.

The grounds team will look at what needs to be done for lawns and plants,
sprinklers and tools. The facilities team will look at the maintenance
needs of our buildings and property. With lists of what needs to be done we
can prioritize, budget and schedule. These teams will coordinate with the
strategic goals team to make sure we maximize our efforts.

The people we need for the grounds and facilities team need to love Elim and
want to see it thrive for God’s glory. Team members won’t be expected to be
doing the work any more than now, but we need people with an eye for what
needs to be done as well as some people with expertise in various areas.
Elim’s people are great at responding to the call when work needs to be done.
Now we need to identify the work to be done.

If you were here on Sunday and heard the message on our Shepherd and His sheep,
you can see that we need some lead sheep to make the first move. If that’s you,
please contact me and we’ll get to work. Thank you!

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