What’s Brewing, June 16, 2022

16 June 2022, Greetings Yorkshire Church!

What a great week at Yorkshire Church as we cross the midpoint of June! We are in the “summer” season of the church when things typically slow down a bit, but this is not the case here! Here is a summary of the exciting things happening within our church and our ministries.

On Monday evening, our Children’s ministry team met to continue discussions on programs to enhance our children’s Sunday School programs. An idea that was tossed around a few weeks ago by this same team was to consider a “VBS-type” format for the Children’s Church (9:15 – 10AM) and the Sunday School hour (10:15- 11AM), combining those time periods into one, two-hour session which would ultimately be run as a VBS-style format. This would include teaching times, crafts, snacks, music, media and various activity stations located around the designated rooms in the Education wing. Activities would begin at 9AM and continue through 11AM allowing parents to attend both 9AM worship and Sunday School, while their children are receiving Christian education and enrichment through a fun and interactive program! The name for our new program will be “CLIMB,” Children Learning Important Messages from the Bible. We hope other children in our community will become involved as well! Thanks to Rick Focht, our Education Team Chair and those involved with teaching, leading and participating in our Children’s Ministry programs! (Barb Snare, Rachel Fry, Lexi Morrow, Kristin Berman, Laurie Mink, Julie Mann, Laura Blackwood, Debra Why).

On Tuesday evening, our Joyful Noise Christian Preschool (JNCP) Board of Directors held their quarterly scheduled meeting. Discussions were held regarding the very successful 2021-22 school year, which was validated by several survey response forms submitted by parents of the students. One of the core values that was discussed was the focus on the Word of God in the teaching curriculum. A recognized value of JNCP is the Christian, Bible-based teaching focus, small class size and affordable tuition. Our students benefit from a highly professional and dedicated staff who are dedicated to each student’s growth over the course of the year. As a ministry of Yorkshire Church, JNCP continues to share the Gospel message of Jesus Christ with the young folks of our community 5 days a week, and next year, the Preschool is planning on offering a summer session as our outreach continues to grow. We celebrate this ministry of the church and the difference it is making in the lives of our students and their families! (Our Preschool Board of Directors are: Barb Snare, Chair, Rick Focht, Vice-Chair, Laurie Mink, Secretary, Julie Mann, Preschool Director, Carol Hightman, Suzanne Robertson, Tara Winter, and Dave Kominsky, Pastor).

Also, on Monday evening, a sub-group from our Finance Team met to review and select the Financing Proposals from 5 local banks for our Fellowship Hall Repair and Renovation project. All of the financing institutions offered us very positive proposals which was an indication of their desire to partner with Yorkshire Church. The review team (Doug Berman, Charlie Hoffman, Elke Yingling, and Jim Valentine) considered each proposal carefully and Traditions Bank was selected as our finance partner for the project. With this decision, our project is ready to move forward. Steve Spangler, our Fellowship Hall Renovation Project Leader has scheduled a kick-off meeting with the various construction contractors (Keller Construction, Dietz & Naumann, and Spangler & Boyer) on Wednesday, June 29th and construction will begin shortly after that! It has been a long process to get to this point but it has been a very good one. As Yorkshire Church, we are blessed to have the leaders that we do, and their commitment to our fellowship is so appreciated!

In the area of our church finances, the good news is that through the month of May, 2022, we are operating in a manner that has allowed us to pay all of our bills and expenses with the income that we have received. But we can see that our income vs our expenses is tightening up significantly.

Jan through the end of May 2022 for Yorkshire Church & Joyful Noise Christian Preschool:

Income: $197,430

Expenses: 197,303

Net: 127

In this number, our monthly offerings have increased over the same period last year by only $531 while our expenses have risen by $22,746. This is made up of many areas, I’ll highlight a few.

Electric: +2,000

Natural Gas: +6,100

Building Maint: +9,979

Other areas of increase were budgeted which include Missions, Staffing (Additional Preschool teachers, Music positions, cost of living increases), but were offset by areas of cost reduction by design. So you can see that of the $22,746 dollars of increased expenses, energy and fixing our building accounted for the majority of it.

With the commencement of our Fellowship Hall project, we anticipate the debt service to be in the vicinity of $2,000 per month which will ramp up through the end of the year as construction expenses are received and paid for. We do anticipate significantly lower natural gas expenses over the next several months as we won’t be heating the church as well as we are hopeful that we have a significant reduction in maintenance and repair expenses through the end of the year (we have an aging facility…).

So, I share this information with you to let you know that our Administrative, Finance, and Trustee teams continue to manage our finances and facility in a manner that we are operating well within the means of the blessings that we receive, even while we expand our ministries and grow as a church. But we are facing significantly higher expenses in categories that we are somewhat unable to control as far as what is going on in our general economy with the levels of inflation that we are experiencing. We will continue to manage our resources in a prayerful and discerning manner and I am tremendously confident in the leadership and expertise that God has blessed Yorkshire with!

With all of these things in mind, I would also ask that you continue to pray and discern about your continuing support of the church and our ministries through your ongoing gifts and contributions. It is our hope that even in our difficult economic times, that we can continue to grow in our ministry and our outreach to those in our community, while maintaining our facilities in an effective, yet efficient manner.

We have so much to be thankful for as the fellowship of Yorkshire Church. God
is blessing us with new ministries, new opportunities and an overwhelming Spirit of Joy in all that we do while bringing new people into our fold. As always, if
you have any questions about the content or information that has been provided
in this letter, please feel free to reach out. I am thankful to be a part of the ministry and fellowship that we are being called to as Christ’s body, in fellowship with Him, and in communion with the Holy Spirit!

Have a great day and a great week! Peace and Blessings!

-pastor dave.

dkominsky@susumc.org

717-858-5870

125 Edgewood Road, York, PA 17402 • (717)755-4952 • www.yorkshirechurch.org