God’s Provision

13 12 2007

God is good. MAN, is He good. We are in need of a copier here at work and have been in the process of getting one. We actually approved a lease for a nice color copier, got it installed and started using it. Soon, we realized this copier was just WAY more than what was needed for our office use at this point , and at the price (good price for the copier, bad for what we needed) we just couldn’t keep it. So we returned it with no problem. (Thanks to our friends at Rocky Mountain Business Solutions who were so generous in helping us with that)

Well, if you follow this blog at all you’ve read about our recent budget work. If you’d like you can read about that here and here. Well, as I said, the budget is almost done. Although in reviewing it I had overlooked ANY money for a copier. Really, at this point, a lease is about the only way to go. We already had a meeting scheduled with an Elementer who works in the copy industry. I knew this would be a fairly hefty budget addition once we decided what copier to go with that they would suggest. I was prepared to re-allocate some funds in order for us to get one.

Today they came in to give us their proposal. They handed us a pamphlet of info on the copier they suggested that would work for our size of use. With the pamphlet was the lease proposal. It listed all the service it includes, toner, etc. At the bottom under the lease price per month, in red letters was “RAK“. Then these words were written. “Random Acts of Kindness. One never knows when they might return.” They are basically DONATING the use of this copier to us. I was blown away. I have had such a peace about this budget thing the last two days. I didn’t have that when I started it, but I felt God just saying “Trust Me!”. Then this happens. Even though it’s just a copier, it’s just another way that God says “I have it all under control.”

I don’t have permission to share who did this for us, but THANK YOU! And I hope we will take your act of kindness and bless someone else as well. If we’ll just rest and trust in God, He takes care of all the details.

I didn’t overlook a copier in the budget, God already had it taken care of.


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Categories : budget, church life, provision, updates

God’s Provision

13 12 2007

God is good. MAN, is He good. We are in need of a copier here at work and have been in the process of getting one. We actually approved a lease for a nice color copier, got it installed and started using it. Soon, we realized this copier was just WAY more than what was needed for our office use at this point , and at the price (good price for the copier, bad for what we needed) we just couldn’t keep it. So we returned it with no problem. (Thanks to our friends at Rocky Mountain Business Solutions who were so generous in helping us with that)

Well, if you follow this blog at all you’ve read about our recent budget work. If you’d like you can read about that here and here. Well, as I said, the budget is almost done. Although in reviewing it I had overlooked ANY money for a copier. Really, at this point, a lease is about the only way to go. We already had a meeting scheduled with an Elementer who works in the copy industry. I knew this would be a fairly hefty budget addition once we decided what copier to go with that they would suggest. I was prepared to re-allocate some funds in order for us to get one.

Today they came in to give us their proposal. They handed us a pamphlet of info on the copier they suggested that would work for our size of use. With the pamphlet was the lease proposal. It listed all the service it includes, toner, etc. At the bottom under the lease price per month, in red letters was “RAK“. Then these words were written. “Random Acts of Kindness. One never knows when they might return.” They are basically DONATING the use of this copier to us. I was blown away. I have had such a peace about this budget thing the last two days. I didn’t have that when I started it, but I felt God just saying “Trust Me!”. Then this happens. Even though it’s just a copier, it’s just another way that God says “I have it all under control.”

I don’t have permission to share who did this for us, but THANK YOU! And I hope we will take your act of kindness and bless someone else as well. If we’ll just rest and trust in God, He takes care of all the details.

I didn’t overlook a copier in the budget, God already had it taken care of.


Comments : Leave a Comment »

Categories : budget, church life, provision, updates

God’s Provision

13 12 2007

God is good. MAN, is He good. We are in need of a copier here at work and have been in the process of getting one. We actually approved a lease for a nice color copier, got it installed and started using it. Soon, we realized this copier was just WAY more than what was needed for our office use at this point , and at the price (good price for the copier, bad for what we needed) we just couldn’t keep it. So we returned it with no problem. (Thanks to our friends at Rocky Mountain Business Solutions who were so generous in helping us with that)

Well, if you follow this blog at all you’ve read about our recent budget work. If you’d like you can read about that here and here. Well, as I said, the budget is almost done. Although in reviewing it I had overlooked ANY money for a copier. Really, at this point, a lease is about the only way to go. We already had a meeting scheduled with an Elementer who works in the copy industry. I knew this would be a fairly hefty budget addition once we decided what copier to go with that they would suggest. I was prepared to re-allocate some funds in order for us to get one.

Today they came in to give us their proposal. They handed us a pamphlet of info on the copier they suggested that would work for our size of use. With the pamphlet was the lease proposal. It listed all the service it includes, toner, etc. At the bottom under the lease price per month, in red letters was “RAK“. Then these words were written. “Random Acts of Kindness. One never knows when they might return.” They are basically DONATING the use of this copier to us. I was blown away. I have had such a peace about this budget thing the last two days. I didn’t have that when I started it, but I felt God just saying “Trust Me!”. Then this happens. Even though it’s just a copier, it’s just another way that God says “I have it all under control.”

I don’t have permission to share who did this for us, but THANK YOU! And I hope we will take your act of kindness and bless someone else as well. If we’ll just rest and trust in God, He takes care of all the details.

I didn’t overlook a copier in the budget, God already had it taken care of.


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Categories : budget, church life, provision, updates

Budget almost done…

11 12 2007

On one hand I HATE budgets. Not HAVING them but MAKING them. Today, outside of our creative session and one counseling session I spent the entire day trying to finish the budget. It is pretty much done and I love the way we are doing our budget. I received some tips from some other church planters and it has really simplified the process of doing the budget.

Now, on the other hand I LOVE this budget. Why? Because starting this new year we are going to be completely on our own financially as a young church. What a scary thought, but what an invigorating one as well. We are 2 months and 2 weeks old, we had 240 people at church last week, we’ve seen 34 people acknowledge that they asked Jesus into their heart to be Savior AND we are looking at being self sufficient at 4 months old. The goals we are talking about and setting are lofty BUT doable with God.

We are praying for God to continue to bring us people to connect with the Life in Christ. That’s what we’re about. We didn’t go overboard on our budget by any means, but we didn’t hold back either. We sat down and piece by piece said “What would we like to see here?” We came out in the end “inches” from where we needed to be. So a few adjustments here and there and we’re almost done.

Doing the budget this week has been so time consuming but it’s been necessary. We needed to get it done to have an idea of where we’re going to be on our own.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : budget, church life, church planting, finances

Full Day…

10 12 2007

Offering this week was $2200 or roughly that. I left the exact # on my office desk and can’t remember but it was close to that. lol

Adam and I met for our weekly Monday morning PP time. Planning and Prayer. We’ve reduced that and called it pp. Each Monday morning at 9 am we meet to start the week with prayer. If any prayer requests are given on the connection cards we specifically pray for them. We also pray for the week, Element Church and the great people God has sent us. We struggled early on to give proper time for prayer so we literally made it a calendared event on Monday mornings. We’ve made it an appointment that we won’t miss. We feel it’s that important. We typically spend a good amount of time talking about the previous day. What needs to change for the next week. We evaluate how the day went, if we missed anything, etc. We’re just getting to the place now where we are getting comfortable with how the Sundays go (based on how we did personally) and don’t have to tweak as much stuff. We then spend a good amount of time talking about the upcoming Sunday and what needs to be done.

In staff meeting today we debriefed The Tour and were REALLY critiquing how we can make it better. For our first Tour yesterday it ended up being really good. There are definitely some things that we feel we can do better to make it a more pleasant experience for all. Some things that we didn’t like happened outside our control. Others we felt we could just do better. Our first group at The Tour was GREAT! They were MORE than patient and were very responsive and appreciative. Thanks to all who came and made it a great event.

THEN we took on the challenge (as a reaction to the Colorado shootings) to develop and evacuation plan for our e:kidz area were something horrible to happen at Element Church, as it did at New Life and YWAM. We understand that we cannot control everything but we recognized that we didn’t have ANY plan in place so we developed that. We are also going to take some measures to try and insure some more security to our morning. It’s sad we have to devote 45 minutes of our staff meeting to talking about that, but we feel it’s necessary. Our prayers go out to those involved in the shootings.

Finally, for the remainder of the day, Adam and I worked on budget stuff. We have been blessed to be supported in part by High Plains Church, in Gillette, and by our Denomination. That funding will end come February 1st which means we will be a self-sufficient church plant. SO, we spent the final three hours of hour day hashing out budget stuff. I HATE IT! I hate budgets but I know they are necessary. They are scary, challenging, convicting and down right ANNOYING. We trust that God is going to provide EVERYTHING we need to exist as a full and thriving church. These are just some of the details that are not the most enjoyable part of the process.

That was our day in a GIANT nut shell. Monday is MEETING day at Element Church.


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Categories : budget, church life, church planting, updates