I am celebrating the incredible spiritual growth that’s happening right now at The Connection Church. There is a definite wave of the momentum of God’s Spirit at work through us, even more than we’ve seen in many, many months. For example, financially, we’re displaying more generosity than we have in a long time. The month of February is a great example. We met and even exceeded our budget by over $3,400! I can’t let that pass up without saying: Go TCC! Way To Go!!! Woohoo!!!
Since our wallets are such a big indicator of deeper spiritual issues, this is a clear sign of our growth.
Thinking back on when we started as a church, when our in-house receipts were just made up of my family’s tithe, through our initial explosive growth to the point where we became fully self-funded, we were consistently taking ground in the area of giving. But around the time of the talk of recession in our economy, it seems that we became fearful and were not willing to give as quickly or faithfully. As a result of our lean giving over the previous 18 months or so, we have steadily cut back on our budget needs to the point where we have gotten to the very essentials of what we have to do (not that there was that much more added in before).
I know that times have been tough, and there are many people who have struggled financially. At the same time, there’s no better chance for us as a church family to demonstrate total faith that we know God is our source by trusting Him with our finances. We also have a better chance to make a difference as we show God’s love to our community during these times.
Since the start of 2010, I can see that we are ready to step out and do more than ever before. So again, I want to applaud our success in February! And March has started off strong too!
Just FYI, we made an initial payment of $15,000 on our new location that takes care of the months while we’re building it out. In July, our monthly payments will start up and by that time, our budget will need to have risen from $27,848 a month to $35,847. We’re stepping out in faith because we know that God can do ANYTHING! And He’s called us to follow Him boldly through the doors He has opened for us.