An Update from Scott
Elders Leading Worship
Over the last few months we have had Ruling Elders leading during our worship services more frequently, and our plan is about once a month for an elder to assist on Sunday mornings. There are lots of good reasons for this, some of which include the opportunity for these elders to be known by our growing church family while giving our pastors (Teaching Elders) an opportunity to worship in the pews. Additionally, since the Session of our church is responsible for the oversight of worship, it makes sense for our elders to have opportunities to lead us in the prayers and confession and assurance of the gospel and other elements of the worship service. And, after the service, the elder who is leading will be available to meet you in the back of the sanctuary. Take that opportunity to say “Hi” or ask for prayer. Any of them would love the opportunity to get to know you!
Building Update
Since our building opened in 2022, there have been consistent efforts to understand how our building is being used and make changes that allow our building to be used more effectively for the work of gospel ministry. Some of those changes have included converting spaces into meeting rooms to facilitate prayer and other small gatherings, adding signage to be clearer to our guests how to navigate around the building, and the welcome/information kiosk in our lobby to foster easy access for anyone who has questions or needs direction on Sunday mornings. This Sunday in our sanctuary there will be a change that you may not notice, because hopefully it will look natural and “like it’s always been there.” We are adding new lighting this week to the sanctuary to bring extra clarity to the platform, which in addition to weekly worship will benefit weddings and funerals, concerts, church-wide events, and almost anything we do in the sanctuary. This new lighting is also the first phase in addressing some of the concerns we have heard about the wooden wall backdrop causing some disorientation for some of our members and guests. The hope is that the additional focus and clarity this lighting brings to our platform will reduce some of the disorienting affect in the background. Please let us know what you think!
Financial Update
We now have financial information from the first quarter of 2026, so we wanted to go ahead and start sharing with you how our giving and expenses are progressing this year through March 31, 2026. We will also be including this information on a monthly basis in our bulletin on Sundays.
Our 2026 budget, which includes all ministry expenses plus our debt service for our building and parking lot loans is $4.2 million. Through March 31, 2026, we have received $735,388 in general giving, which is about $35,000 more than we had received at this time last year. Continuing at this level of giving for the rest of the year would mean we would need about $1.5 million in December to meet our 2026 budget. As we shared with you in January, December is normally our largest giving month, and in December 2025 we received a record-high $1.28 million. We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of our church family, and are hopeful that over time our giving might increase throughout the year so that December won’t be such a big lift. We also trust that the Lord will provide in his timing, as he always has throughout our 22 year history!
We are continuing to make monthly payments on our building and parking lot loans. The annual debt service for these two properties total $794,000, which is about 19% of our annual budget. We believe this is a reasonable amount of debt, but we are working on ways to pay this off more quickly. Imagine if we had an extra $800,000 a year to fund ministry activities in Greenville and around the world! Thanks to additional giving last year towards the Parking Lot Fund, we were able to make a $500,000 payment on our parking lot principal last month, taking that loan down to $4.25 million (from a purchase price of $6,500,000, we have made significant progress already!). Our building loan is currently at $6.86 million, making our total debt around $11.1 million. Please consider how you might contribute towards our Parking Lot and Building Funds.
Please reach out to me if you have any questions or would like to discuss anything shared in this update, or anything else. I always welcome the opportunity to hear from our church family about what’s on your mind. May God continue to show his favor to our church family and its work as we seek to connect every avenue of Greenville with the good news and love it well!
Executive for Church Leadership