IAC is growing! And like all living things, our structures need to grow to support that increased life. Over the next few weeks, we’re publishing updates from our All-Church Gathering about how our structures are growing in several key areas: Generosity, Facility, Staffing, the Discipleship Pathway, and Conflict Response. We hope these give you insight into how our structures are strengthening: and how you can help!
From Pastor Ken:
IAC has always been an extremely generous church. During my eleven years here, we have always met our income goals for General Fund, and often exceeded them. And that doesn’t even count the overflow of generosity to Rwanda, Church Planting, and Local Mission!
This generosity exploded last year in our first Capital Campaign. As this chart shows, the total amount given to all IAC funds grew significantly as people gave to the Facility Fund. Praise God, and thank you!
A year out from the Capital Campaign, however, we are noticing a new reality in our General Fund.
IAC is sustaining, but not thriving.
Let me explain. IAC’s General Fund is sustaining because we can sustainably support our current ministries and staffing. We’re not in financial danger or trouble in any way. We can stay as we are and do everything we’re doing - and even make some incremental gains - on our current path.
But we’re not thriving financially: we’re not yet ready to get where we’re going.
For example, many IAC’ers have noticed our staffing is stretched. There are numbers to back up that intuition. According to typical metrics, even once we fill our currently available positions, we’ll still be about 1.5 FTE (i.e. 1 full-time + 1 half-time role) understaffed. That translates to lost possibilities for presence and ministry multiplication.
We’re also not financially ready to move into our own facility. While donations and pledges to the Facility Fund increase our capacity for a down payment, our General Fund will have to absorb our new mortgage. We currently have capacity to absorb a mortgage that is perhaps ⅔ of what will be needed for the project, but we’re not there yet.
We estimate the current gap between sustaining and thriving is roughly $300,000 a year. This amount would help us close both the staffing gap and the future mortgage gap.
You have a part to play in helping IAC move from Sustaining to Thriving! No matter where you currently are in your giving at IAC, there is a next step you can take.
It’s all of us, taking that simple next step, that makes all the difference.
I know this is true, because it’s the way it’s always worked at IAC.
Fun fact: Not a single person at IAC gives over 3% of our budget. It’s a whole bunch of people giving generously of what they have, even if it doesn’t feel like a lot. But gathered up in the Father’s hands, those gifts enable us to profoundly and joyfully “receive and release the gospel that heals - together.”
However, to get where we’re going, we also need the types of givers who can make larger dents in the spreadsheets that banks love to read!
Therefore, we are asking God to give us more Benefactors: people who are gifted at making money and generously giving money to invest in the kingdom.
At IAC, we currently define that level of giving at about 1.5% of General Fund, which is $30,000/year.
Some of you reading this note are called to that level of giving and investment.
Others are definitely not: you’re called and gifted in other ways.
Please hear this clearly: there’s nothing better about someone being gifted as a Benefactor. There’s also nothing “lesser” about that gift than other gifts. If I’m honest, at IAC we’ve too often ignored the particular gift of giving in larger amounts and undervalued it. So we want to do better, clearly naming the dignity and value of this calling.
If you want to know more about becoming a Benefactor at IAC, simply email us at connect@springsiac.org. And if you know that’s not your calling: pray! In the same way we might pray for missionaries to be sent to an unreached people group, or for folks to invest their time in a certain ministry here in COS, or for a new staff member to be hired: pray for God to raise up people with these Benefactor gifts. As IAC grows, we need this portion of the body of Christ to really thrive!
There’s so many things we don’t know about what’s next, but we do know this:
Join us in what God’s up to through your next best step.
In expectancy for all that’s to come,
Pastor Ken (for IAC’s whole Church Council)
P.S. The easiest way to give is through springsiac.org/give or the Church Center App, but you can also use the offering plate or mail gifts to PO Box 8210, Colorado Springs, CO 80933.