- Letter from Warden
- Mission Statement and Vision
- Parish Survey
- Strengths and Challenges
- Financials
- Capital Campaign
Letter from Warden
Welcome to St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church,
On its website St. Barnabas’ describes itself as a “A Welcoming Community of Faith.” While the feeling of being a community rests within the congregation itself — with its members participating in meaningful worship services, musical events and the numerous, wide ranging ministries from Acolytes to Stephen Ministers — it is through the “welcoming” that we relate to the wider world around us. As Senior Warden, I have heard visitors say how beautiful the church is and how meaningful the service is. I remember a grieving funeral attendee saying how they “felt the warmth of the church.” A parent of a new Scout who, having helped with a service project, told me how “everyone is so friendly and inviting.” And I have received the heartfelt thanks of a member who has received a helping hand during a difficult period. It’s through involvement with people such as these that the “community” demonstrates the Christian qualities of love and care which lie at the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching. We would truly like to welcome you to our“Community of Faith”.
George K. McDowell, Senior Warden
Mission Statement and Vision
Our Vision:
We are called by God to see Christ in all persons, grow in faith and live in joyful fellowship with one another.
Our Mission:
St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church is a welcoming community of faith, with many opportunities to worship and grow spiritually. We enjoy worship, music, the participation of children, and we share a deep desire to grow spiritually.
Parish Survey
Demographics (based on survey done in Fall 2019): See also bar graph
- 69% Female 31% Male
- 60% is age 65 or older; 19% is age 55-64; 21% is age 54 or under
- 15% to 20% of the congregation has children at home
- We are well educated with 81% of the congregation having graduated from college
- Faithful in our attendance, 65% of the congregation attends church almost every week
- 62% of our congregation has attended St. Barnabas’ for 16 years or more
Worship
- We hope for a Rector who can INSPIRE us and CONNECT us to God’s Word
- We are theologically diverse
- Our music is important to us but we are looking to expand our musical offerings
- We are strongly spiritual
Ministries and Outreach
- We are involved in many wonderful ministries but need some help bringing them all together
- Pastoral Care is very important to us
- We are a very welcoming community
- We are eager to learn and would like to see improvements in our Christian Education offerings
Strengths and Challenges
STRENGTHS:
- Welcoming and energetic congregation with a strong faith foundation
- Dedicated, caring and well-educated population with time and energy for a wide variety of ministries and outreach
- Resilient and strong lay leadership that has sustained our parish through challenging times
- Many pastoral care resources including Pastoral Care Committee, Lay Eucharistic Visitors, an active and recently expanded Stephen Ministry, Being with Grief Support Group and the monthly Prayer and Praise Chain
- Invite, Welcome and Connect Program that is putting renewed emphasis on attracting new members
- Newly remodeled sanctuary and sound system with a new organ soon to be installed
CHALLENGES:
- Our strength that is also a challenge: many ministries have been led by dedicated members who are now looking for new opportunities to serve
- Expanding our programming to attract and meet the needs of new members and families
- Finding innovative ways to engage younger and/or newer members
- Focusing and integrating our energy to work more effectively and communally, even if it means letting go of some ministries/outreach
- Exploring approaches to bring vitality and inspiration to our worship and music while keeping a balance of tradition and innovation
- Enriching our Christian Education programs for adults and children of all ages
- Supporting our youth group programming
Financials Download Financials as PDF
St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church Financials (year end 2019)
St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church is in very solid financial position. We are generally in balance between income and expenses. We have a solid Endowment Fund of $650k that is growing and only periodically used to fund any expense gaps in the annual operation. We have held a successful Capital Campaign in 2018-2020 that raised about $230k for sanctuary upgrades to the floor, sound system and a new organ. Our balance sheet is solid, with about $200k of cash assets on the books, although portions of the assets are for designated uses such as Memorial Fund, outreach, and maintenance reserves. We have a very active lay-led Finance Committee that manages the church finances in concert with the Vestry.
2019 Income and Expenses summary:
Figure 1 shows a pie chart of the 2019 actual income sources. Our primary income is from parishioner annual pledge and weekly plate offering. We also have an externally operated day care (Stepping Stones Child Care) that is run in our church and provides a steady rent stream. In addition, we rent the church great hall or lounge facilities out to other organizations such as N.A., cheerleaders, and Scouts. Currently, the rectory is rented out since the past rectors did not have a need for the rectory use. We also have separate altar flower donations that typically offset our flower expenses.
Figure 2 shows a pie chart of the 2019 actual expenses. As expected, the primary expense is for personnel. The church staff consists of the rector (currently an interim rector), music director, parish administrator, pastoral assistant, and sexton. We have church volunteers to provide office assistance, along with a volunteer treasurer and assistant treasurers.
The next highest single expenditure is our diocesan accceptance to the Episcopal Church in Delaware. The church operation expenses include our utilities, office and housekeeping expenses and insurance premiums.
Church maintenance is for the building and grounds budget to cover routine church/rectory repairs as well as snow removal and lawn service. We also fund, annually, our major maintenance reserves to build up reserves on the balance sheet to cover larger ticket items like HVAC, roof repairs, lighting upgrades etc. Currently our major maintenance and HVAC maintenance reserves are over $25k in our balance sheet.
We have 3 outstanding loans, totaling about $110k in debt, that were from an earlier (2006-2009) Capital Campaign to significantly expand the church offices and lounge spaces. These loans result in about $23k of mortgage principal and interest expenses annually and will be satisfied by the end of 2025.
The remaining expense items are for worship expenses which includes flowers, music costs and pastoral care. We also have costs for Evangelism and Parish Life Committee and Christian Education.
Figure 3 provides the 2020 budget for income and expenses, as well as the past 2 years of actual expenses. Income has been relatively flat over the past couple of years, not including any Endowment draws. We have periodically drawn between $10k and $15k from the Endowment Fund of interest earned, to pay for annual operating expenses or to build up maintenance reserves in anticipation of larger maintenance projects. If income and costs are relatively balanced at the end of the year, the Finance Committee may defer or cancel any endowment draw.
The annual costs have also been relatively consistent year over year, except for personnel expenses in 2019 which dipped due to the transition from a permanent rector to an interim rector. The projected 2020 mortgage expenses decreased due to a reduction of the loan principal from recent Capital Campaign donations towards debt reduction. The miscellaneous expense increase in 2020 is due to budgeted rector search costs for 2020 and 2021. In general, actual costs are slightly less than budgeted each year, resulting in a small surplus. The last line of Figure 3 shows the annual surplus.
Below Figure 4 shows a summary of the balance sheet for year end 2019 and 2018.The assets are held primarily in checking and money market accounts. The liability table shows how the assets are designated. The operating fund is the checking account balance and carry forward surplus from prior years. The maintenance reserves are savings for projected large maintenance projects such as the roof, HVAC systems, lights etc. The outreach fund consists of balances from outreach fundraising activities. Note that our outreach fundraising is kept separate from the annual church income and expenses accounting. There is a large increase in the outreach fund due to a large contribution from a single donor to provide housing assistance to the community. Prepaid pledges balance also increased significantly in 2019 due to specific parishioner giving patterns.
Figure 4: Balance Sheet Summary
Capital Campaign
See our public Capital Campaign page.