Praying for God's Provision
Dear Calvary Family,
I’d like to be super real with you. I want to pay our staff better. We don’t pay our people enough. And my request right now is for you to pray with me about it.
We have an incredible team that I love and I know that you love so much too. We had four key staff members leave Calvary in the last year because they had to move out of state due to the high cost of living here - which I know is something your wallets are feeling as well. Our Trustees review our compensation structure in comparison to other similar churches and local school districts and have concluded that we need to improve our salaries. So let’s have a family conversation.
One option is to reduce our staff more and pay the remaining staff better. But I really don’t want to do that. Again, I love our team and I love how they serve you, our community, our missionaries around the world, and primarily the Lord. This would also mean a reduction in the service and ministry we can offer. We have already avoided replacing some staff who have moved or retired, but inflation and cost-of-living are increasing at a far more rapid pace.
Another option would be to see our giving increase so that we can pay our people a fair wage for living in Orange County. Giving might be a totally foreign concept to you or you just have never even thought of it. So let’s start to pray about it together. This isn’t some “ask” where the church wants more money all the time. I just want our staff to be able to afford to live in the place where they serve.
We let you know at the Annual Meeting last Sunday that we are about $100,000 behind in our General Fund for church ministry and about $100,000 behind in our Reach Fund for local and global missions. This deficit makes it difficult from a purely practical perspective to increase our budget and give raises to our staff, with all of our increased operating and repair costs.
That’s why I’m asking each one of us to pray. To pray and ask the God who owns it all to provide for our church—to bring an increase in attenders, in resources, in salvations for Jesus, and in dependence on the Lord. Pray for God to provide and pray for how you can be part of that provision.
I know many of you are dealing with inflation and the high cost of living in your own lives as well. So I’m praying for this provision for you as well.
God is the creator of all things and owns everything. God has entrusted us as stewards of a certain portion of what he owns. He has then given us instructions for how to use that portion. Part of that is providing and caring for our family, but he says the firstfruits of that should go back to him. I believe the main place that goes is to the local church to which you belong, but that can also go to the many great ministries and non-profits that come alongside the church to do Kingdom work. The firstfruits could be a 10% tithe – biblically it’s likely even more than that – but what’s most important is that you prayerfully submit to God and give as he directs you to give.
Learn how you can grow in financial discipleship, developing a generous life that honors God and blesses others at CalvaryLife.org/Generous.
Explore biblical principles for giving at CalvaryLife.org/Giving.
Give to Calvary's General Church Ministry or Reach Missions Fund at CalvaryLife.org/Give.
And, thank you to many in our church family who are giving faithfully and generously to further the work of ministry here in Orange County and around the world. You can see the 9-month fiscal update we referenced in the meeting on Sunday at CalvaryLife.org/Update.
I hope you hear my heart in this email. We are absolutely NOT in this for the money, but money does fuel ministry in many ways. Money is just one of the many tools we use in this work we all do together, but it does require all of us to jump in and bring our firstfruits to the Lord.
May the Lord bless you and keep you,
Eric