Here's a snapshot of yesterday's (6/28/09) meeting. Our finance team proposed a very ambitious
budget which would require an extra $60,000 dollars in giving in the next twelve months. The majority of this new spending is guaranteeing salaries for Lois and Cindy and paying Robert $1000/month out of the MERCYhouse offering in addition to his own fund raising. For the ten years of our church's short history, staff have been responsible for raising their salaries from outside donors.
In addition to this challenging jump, it was also proposed that starting in September, we should designate all giving that is coming from the South Hadley church planting team (about $16,000 / year) to be used for South Hadley church planting expenses. These expenses would include the salary of Ryan McCullah, the church planting pastor, as well as other costs associated with the church plant (rental, equipment, advertising . . .).
Instead of only having a few minutes to consider this, we decided as a church to spend the next month in prayer for the purpose of discerning whether or not we should go ahead with this plan and to consider how we will be giving toward the goal of this new budget.
If you have questions or comments, contact
Steve who is the leader of our finance team.
Read on to see the detailed minutes from this meeting:
VOLUNTEERS - Meet us at 6pm behind the Umass Stadium
This Summer, Robert (our lead pastor) is doing some leadership training for anyone who is interested. It's at 5:30pm on Wednesday evenings in our main building. If you can't make it, you can read the content from the teaching time. See below.
If you are interested in joining in with one of our small groups, summer is a great time to do so. See this link for details! 
There is only one worship service on Sundays in the summer. We're combining our services into 1 that will be gathering at 10am. Come by for sugar and caffeine at 9:30am. Hope to see you there! 