Welcome to the Yorkshire Church Blog

12 May 2022, Good Day Yorkshire Church!

I am happy to be writing my first What’s Brewing in over a month! The last few weeks have been very eventful. Since my last “brew” we have celebrated Holy Week, Easter Sunday and had a sending celebration for Pastor Megan. We began the Joyful Noise Preschool participation in the Healthy Kids Running Series at Springettsbury Park, hired a new Preschool teacher for next year and have been working through recruiting and hiring a new Director of Youth and Family Ministries position. Finally, we have had several meetings, two charge conferences, and a Townhall meeting to launch our Fellowship Hall renovation and facility access program!

These are the things that keep us busy, but we must also celebrate our worship, as well. Over the past few months our music ministries and Choir have hit new strides and we continue to grow in these areas. Our attendance trends remain very positive and as of the end of March, our financial picture remains healthy, as well. Here is a summary of the first quarter:

Offerings, Gifts, and Giving’s: Expenses and Outreach: Balance:

120,578 117,583 2,995

In these numbers, we can celebrate that we are able to pay our bills and support our ministries. During this time, we have also spent over $7,000.00 on our facility- primarily a continuing process of repair and remediation for our fellowship hall and associated expenses. We are looking forward to getting the final renovation process underway.

As you may know, the church voted unanimously at a Charge Conference held on May 2nd to move forward with a Fellowship Hall renovation project that will include a ramp, new bathrooms, and a restored Fellowship Hall space which will allow improved ADA access. The projected expense is $275,000.00 which will be managed through a loan from a local bank. The drawings have been submitted to Springettsbury Township as a part of the permitting process and final bids have been received from two local contractors. Steve Spangler is the project lead on the construction side and Doug Berman is working with the banks on the financial side. The next few weeks will be very busy as the final decisions, contractor and bank selections are made. Then the real fun will begin with the construction!

During the last few months, many have asked if we would be having a Capital Campaign to raise the funds for this project and/or how they could contribute to it. We have not officially launched a “campaign” nor is it in our plans specifically, but we encourage the fellowship of Yorkshire to donate to this necessary cause within our church. We are anticipating our debt service for the loan to be in the vicinity of $26,000 per year with an additional fundraising goal equal to this amount during the payback period. If we can increase our contributions to the building fund, while maintaining our general giving, then we can continue to finance and invest in what it is we are called to as a church, and that is ministry.

To contribute to our Fellowship Hall renovation process, you can simply designate “Building Fund” on your gift. It is our hope to pay for all of our expenses in this area out of this fund, which includes the loan debt service. Our building is aging and we are also incurring regular expenses in other areas of required

maintenance. It is our hope that we can fully fund this project from your gifts to the “Building Fund,” and not from our general operating budget. We are currently considering 10- and 15-year loan terms to help spread the costs out so that the expenses do not provide a burden to our church. But we would love to retire the debt as quickly as possible! Your support of this project is greatly appreciated and we are certain that this project will allow us to better serve our community, as well!

If you currently use the On-line giving, you will notice that the giving categories have changed in the past few weeks. This is to better align our financial management systems to our ministry focus. You will notice the following options when you go into the On-line giving portal on our website:

General: Preschool Tuition: Preschool:

Missions:

This is for general offerings that simply go into our operating account to pay the weekly, monthly and annual operating expenses for the church.
This is new for 2022 which allows our Preschool Families to pay their tuition on line

which has been an ongoing request from a majority of our Preschool Community.
This is for donations specific to our Preschool Ministry. Joyful Noise Christian Preschool is a mission of the church and we count on your support to be
able to fully fund our growth and operating expenses. This allows us to maintain quality programming, small class sizes and a highly qualified teaching staff, all at competitive tuition rates for our community.

This is where we would like to grow in our support of our missionaries. We currently support 3 mission programs: Micah Ruch, Cru, West Chester State University; Henry Hauser, Literacy for All, North Africa, and Rebecca Jacobs, Time Ministries, Dominican Republic. Your gifts to this fund allow us to continue to grow in our support of these folks who have been called to “go” into places of the world, including our local communities, with the Gospel Message.

This is the account that is mentioned above from which we fund our renovations, building maintenance, and other ongoing facility and grounds improvements.

Building Fund:
NOTE: You do not need to utilize the On-line Giving program to utilize these funds. Simply designate on

your check or your envelope the fund that you would like to support, and it will be allocated accordingly.

These are the general categories that we will be utilizing and reporting on as we provide our monthly and quarterly financial data to you. Our Finance Team has been working hard over the past year to restructure our financial platforms to make it more effective while streamlining the ways and the categories in which we give. If you choose not to “designate” a fund, your gifts simply go into our General giving category which can be utilized to support any of the funds. But it is our hope that as we grow as a church, that our giving community may find an area of our ministries which they are specifically passionate about and prayerfully consider providing additional support to that particular area.

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