4 February 2022
Greetings Yorkshire!
It is the first Friday of February, and the weather is certainly validating that! Cold, gray, rain, sleet, and they say maybe some snow later on. Seems dismal, but it is February in Pennsylvania. And the groundhog states that we have six more weeks of this. Well, it would be my hope that if, in fact, we have to persevere this winter weather for any type of extended period, that it would at least include one good actual snowfall!
Now, I know many of you just groaned. I just happen to like snow and I really enjoy at least one big snow per year. We have a tradition that the evening of the first big snow, we dig out our firepit in the back yard and have a snow-fire where many of our neighborhood friends come over and we enjoy fellowship sitting around the fire, outside, in the snow. The deeper the snow, the better. One year we even carved chairs into the snow.
But with that said, I also respect and appreciate the hardship that such weather events can cause for some. When it comes on the weekend it can disrupt our opportunity to worship with one another. As the reality exists for such snow events over the next several weeks, I want to remind you of how we announce any schedule modifications. First, you can go to our church website, yorkshirechurch.org where a banner will be posted at the top of the home page. We will post it on our church Facebook page, facebook.com/YorkshireUMC, and/or you can call the church office and there will be a message on the answering service notifying you of our schedule changes. In any case, we will still livestream a service. We may pre-record our service so that it is available on Sunday morning.
There were some really great happenings at the church this week. On Monday evening, an ad hoc team made up of Joe Blackwood who serves as our Staff Parish Relations Committee (SPRC) Chair, Barb Snare, Rachel Fry, Debra Why and myself met to brainstorm how a Director of Children and Family Ministries position may benefit our fellowship. We enjoyed great discussion and felt that such a position would have great value to our children and families in grades 5 and below. Of course we currently have a position that serves our Youth, grade 6 and up, but we really want to expand our reach to include the rest of our children, including outreach to families in whole, as well. As a result of this meeting, we are working through a job description development process and hope to bring our ideas to the entire SPRC team and the Administrative Council in the near future!
We also have a team that has been working together to select a Worship Leader and a Music Director for our church. Joe Blackwood, Mike Heintzelman, Norey Lucash, Rachel Fry and myself (Steve Spangler and Tara Focht were unable to attend, but are members of this team) met on Wednesday evening to discuss the two candidates that we are currently working with. Over the past few weeks, we have had an opportunity to work with both men and we are seeing some very exciting possibilities for our music ministry at Yorkshire. The team will meet again next week for some one-on-one discussions with the candidates and we hope to make some final decisions quickly! Our candidates spent Thursday evening working with both the Choir and the Praise Team. This Sunday, you will have the opportunity to see them lead worship together at 9AM as well as our candidate for Music/Choir director lead the choir at the 11:15AM service. Great stuff!
Last week I presented our end-of-year financial numbers and this week I want to share our 2022 budget goals.
Income/Offerings: Expenses: Balance:
Money spent on Repairs & Improvements: Money needed from our Savings:
2021 Actual
$ 430,704 416,238 $ 14,466
$ 29,485 ($ 15,019)
2022 Budget
$ 472,920 464,559 8,361
See Notes
We are projecting increases in our income and our expenses. The largest percentage of increase in both categories is a result of growth in the Joyful Noise Christian Preschool as our enrollment has more than doubled which drives income, while our staff has grown from 2 (1 Director/1 Teacher) to 5 (1 Director/4 Teachers) which is reflected in our expenses.
In regards to our general giving, we are projecting a 2.5% growth, which is based on congregational growth. We are projecting reduced expenses in the area of administrative expenses which are the expenses that we spend to run the church such as telephone, copiers, internet, supplies, postage, etc., as we have been able to implement improved processes in these areas. We are expecting slight increases in our facility expenses. A few weeks ago, I reported that our new boiler investment last year has provided us 60% savings in our natural gas bills. This is now a key factor for us to be able to control increases in our costs. But we still have to account for electric and a potential increase in our property insurance.
We will experience increases in our staffing expenses as we will be hiring a Worship Leader and Music/Choir director this year. This increase will be offset by the monies that we have been spending this year on guest musicians and honorariums- but the net will reflect an increase. We are also considering investment in a Director of Children and Family Ministries- a part time position. We will continue to evaluate all of these expenses based on financial trends we experience in January and the first few months of this year.
Another area of our 2022 budget that is not reflected on the numbers above is the repair and rebuilding of our Fellowship Hall. We are expecting the quotes for this work to exceed $100,000.00. In addition, we have many other capital-type expenditures and upgrades that we believe will be necessary to our facility and operations over the next few months. To accommodate this and not create any financial hardship on our fellowship, Doug Berman and Justin Mann are working with financial institutions to secure a $150,000.00 improvement loan, which will be reviewed by our Finance Team in whole. In conjunction with that effort, Steve Spangler and Josh Strange are working with engineers and construction firms to finalize the scope of work and secure quotes for the actual work. The Trustee Team will review and determine our final plans. These two teams are quickly converging with the necessary information so these decisions can be made in the very near future. Although we will hopefully secure the necessary financing, we will also let you know of opportunities to give to this initiative. If we can raise a portion of the funding through your gifts and contributions, it will help us to offset or reduce the monthly/annual debt service that we will incur. Stay tuned!
So, lots going on at Yorkshire. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. I am always happy to share additional information with you, but I’m out of room on this letter! Have a great and blessed day!
-pastor dave.
dkominsky@susumc.org
125 Edgewood Road, York, PA 17402 • (717)755-4952 • www.yorkshirechurch.org
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