Pastor’s eNote: Weekly Update

Our church budget (fiscal) year closed at the end of August. Our Finance Team Chairperson Josh Meier along with our Executive Pastor Tim Root, shared the results at our Town Hall meeting on September 20. I want to share some of that same news with you here for those of you who could not attend the Town Hall.

Our 2024-2025 fiscal year ended with good news. We exceeded our projected contributions by $93,597.40. Thanks be to God for the generous spirit at FFMC. Your continued commitment helped our church advance its ministry and mission in new ways. We continue to see new growth in our church’s giving throughout the year.

Contributions only tell us one part of the story since they only make up a portion of our ONE Ministry Fund Budget. Even with the shortfall of income from facility usage, our budget income was $31,020 more than we planned. Our expenses were $81,735 less than expected as well.

Over year ago, we planned the 2024-2025 budget to include a deficit of $249,707. We actually ended the year with a $136,952 deficit. While this is still a deficit situation, we are thankful that great progress has been made toward balancing our budget. Just three years ago our deficit exceeded $300,000!

Our staff, Finance Team, and Leadership Team are carefully focused on effective budget management in the 2025-2026 budget to reduce the planned deficit for this year as much as possible without sacrificing our most effective ministries. To be sure, we are keenly aware that our budget deficit still exists and are hopeful about a balanced budget sooner than planned.

Thank you for your commitment to Christ and his church. We are making great strides in our financial stewardship. Continue to pray with me and all our leadership so that our stewardship might deepen further in the new fiscal year which started on September 1.

If you have questions or would like more information, you can always reach out to our Executive Pastor Tim Root by sending him a message via our website: https://ffmc.org/about/#staff.

Grace to You All,

Pastor Craig Brown
(September 30, 2025