A WORD FROM PASTOR BILL (april, 11TH 2022)

An Update On Our Church Finances

For months, we anticipated that eventually our church giving would adjust to our drop in worship attendance. During COVID, many that had moved out of Boston continued to worship with us online and  continued their financial giving. Now that former Cornerstone attendees are able to attend in-person worship, we have seen a drop in giving to Cornerstone.

 

Brandon Chuang (Leadership Team chair) and Pastor Bill met with a small task force to analyze the situation.

 

We project that if current trends continue into the next fiscal year without a change to our budget, our budget will exceed our giving by approximately $190,000. While this is a rather significant change in our church finances, it is not a reason for panic.

  1. Throughout the last 7 years we have developed a healthy spreadsheet with some surplus giving

  2. Our church continues to be healthy and growing

  3. We have been spending considerably below our budget this ministry year, essentially matching giving changes.

 

What We Are Doing

  1. We have created an ongoing Financial Health Task Force. This team will monitor giving real-time, seek creative new revenue streams (i.e. matching giving possibilities), attend to donor care to encourage generosity in our church, and make recommendations to the Leadership Team.

  2. We are preparing a modestly reduced ministry budget for our next budget year. Please note, this still calls for faith while also anticipating spending down some of our reserve funds. 

  3. While we project some level of deficit spending for the next 2-3 years as we revitalize our church, we are not afraid. Our faith is not in our finances. Our faith is in our God - and we are confident in His sovereignty over Cornerstone.


What You Can Do About It

  1. Please pray for our church's financial situation asking God to provide for all our needs from his riches.

  2. Please prayerfully consider increasing your giving to Cornerstone so we can not just sustain, but actually, advance our mission to engage and love and equip and bless next generations to live lives of faith in God, mission with Christ, and beauty in the Holy Spirit.  


We will keep you informed going forward together from here.


Love Always,

Pastor Bill

Brandon Chuang (Chair of our Leadership Team)


a wORD FROM PASTOR bILL (mARCH, 28TH 2022)

Three Important Updates!


Greetings Cornerstone Church Family!


As I shared in the ENews 2 weeks ago, I will occasionally use this space to communicate church news.

Today I have three important updates for your prayers for our church.


First, while we have not made a church wide-announcement many of you already know I will take a 3-month Sabbatical from April 24-July 24. Our denomination encourages all ordained clergy to take sabbaticals every 6-7 years to step away from the constant rhythms and demands of pastoral life to connect with family and friends and with God in renewed and deeper and different ways. Pastor’s HoJin and Danny took 3-month sabbaticals 2 and 3 years ago and my own was scheduled last year but was postponed due to COVID. I hope you will miss me some while I am away, but I also hope you will not miss me very much as our church mission and vision and community life continues to grow as we reach our friends and influence Boston and beyond for Christ There will be some changes in church rhythms, but Cornerstone is a vibrant community, and I pray Cornerstone will find new ways to love and enjoy God and each other and our mission while I am away. Pray for me to disconnect from all I am supposed to disconnect from, and to connect and reconnect how God wants me to over those 3 months. If you know me, you know I’m not a pastor because it is my job, I’m a pastor because it’s my holy calling. Stepping away from my pastoral role, I hope to deepen and enrich my holy calling as a shepherd who loves, enjoys, and cares deeply for the family of God. Thank you for your love and prayers, and before I

leave we will have prayer time in a worship service to send me off.


Second, I want to announce that Pastor Danny has prayerfully decided to become half time at Cornerstone as he resigns as our College Pastor effective Aug 31. Pastor Danny will continue as our

Worship Pastor and will continue to be an active part of our pastoral team and our preaching rotation. This has been a prayerful process of discernment for a number of months and I believe it is an extraordinarily healthy decision for Pastor Danny and his family. Pastor Danny is perfectly willing to share with you the reasons for his decision so feel free to reach out to him. And please pray for him to discover how new rhythms in his life can deepen his connection with God, with his own soul, with his

family and friends, and with Cornerstone.


Third, our church Leadership Team has voted to launch a nation-wide pastoral search for our next college pastor and the search team is already being formed. If you have a passion for GenZ and

would like to be part of either the search process or part of the College Ministry Core Team, please let me know at bill@cornerstoneboston.org. While our hope is to find a full-time college pastor by September, our backup plan is to concurrently seek a part time interim college director. Please pray for our college ministry with this transition, pray for the full-time college pastor search, and pray for an interim director (if needed). The pastor search post will be live on cornertoneboston.org within the next week or two so send people to our website who might be candidates or who might help us find God’s next anointed Cornerstone College Pastor.


If you have any questions about any of these announcements send me and email, ok?


Love Always,

Pastor Bill



new mask guidelines


March, 20th 2022

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