April 14, 2021 – Eastertide

Dear Chapel Hillers….

As promised, at the end of each quarter, I want to give you an update on the ministry that is happening at Chapel Hill and provide a financial update.

First, we are extremely grateful we are able to re-enter the sanctuary for worship this Sunday!  And, beginning on May 2^nd, we will be able to worship at 9:30 and 11 with Sunday school for children and youth at 9:30 only.

Secondly, by God’s grace, we have been able to create an online worshipping congregation with people from all over the world! It is exciting to see lots of adults from various places taking our online classes. Also, our Preschool and Kids Day in Christ ministries have been flourishing and many of our fall classes are already full. KDIC will have a summer session and we are already at near-capacity. This past Sunday, we had 16 youth participate in creating sack lunches for Open Door.  Our ministry in Planeview, under the leadership of Marilyn Small, continues to bless the children and youth of the most impoverished neighborhood of our City. Our recent distribution of coats, hats, gloves and blankets during the cold snap helped several hundred students. We are gearing up for Vacation Bible School, July 19-23. More information to come!

Thirdly, we want to provide you with an update on our financial performance in the 1st quarter of 2021. The Board-approved operating budget for 2021 is $1.275M, which is largely unchanged from the prior year, with the exception that we are now including our building interest expense in the operating budget. As of March 31, we have received nearly $226K, or 17.7%, of our annual budget goal, with $1.049M left to go this year. Our first quarter generated a net operating loss of $43K, which was in line with our budget expectations. Thank you for your continued generosity in support of our mission!  Although our capital campaign ended in 2019, debt reduction remains at the forefront of our short-term financial goals. As of March 31, we are carrying a $2.735M mortgage balance on our church building. We have $507K in capital reserves remaining from our 2018 frontage land sale, which will cover approximately 2.5 more years of principal payments. Please be assured that ALL capital offerings now apply 100% to principal payments on our loan, as interest expense is now covered by our operating budget.

Finally, thank you for your prayers and financial generosity as we seek to be faithful and fruitful for the cause of Christ in and through Chapel Hill. We have many stories of how our mission of “Welcoming all people to experience and share the extraordinary grace and love of Jesus” has been at work, in spite of the pandemic. You will be seeing some video testimonies in the months to come!  God bless each of you!

Pastor Jeff Gannon