Been thinking about church budgetting for some times, last nite’s Focus Team about Giving has prompted me to write on this issue, apparently I am not the first one as Victor has just made en entry on this.

Say if we view church as just like any other companies/organisations, then what is our position in the company or are we the consumer who get service from the church. If we are the customer then giving can be seen as we “pay” for the service that church has provided. However the biblical model of us being a church member is that we are partners in the gospel, thus using the illustration that church being a company, we are the stockholders, we invest our money (among other things) in hoping that the kingdom will be furthered in this world.

This leads me to the next point, if I am a stockholder in IUC (or CBS), am I happy with the performance of the church financially? To be honest, no, I am not, it’s kinda discouraging, to be hearing budget deficits over and over again, I guess with IUC is sort of expected (as I am well aware of the student giving pattern..) but with CBS, it’s just come out of the nowhere.. suddenly being hit by a letter, emails and a phone call asking for support.. Is it really that bad and why there is “suddenly” a deficit (or it’s just me who isn’t aware of the situation til now), is this deficit was expected before (as with the case of IUC) or not?

I cannot help to think that maybe the staffs need to bugdet “wiser”?? Or do we need to hire an independet accounting team to have a look at IUC/CBS’s finance?? Or maybe we can cut cost at some things??

Surely the printed outline is the first thing that we can do without (although I am not sure whether it costs a lot to print outlines), I mean students take notes on their own sheets right? And there are many people not taking notes during sermon as well, so putting the outline on the OHP might be sufficient.

IUC is planning to at least bring aboard three fulltime workers in the future, one for women ministry, one for indonesian ministry and one for the cantonese ministry. I truly see the enormous need of having these three ministers in our church, but I am now getting more skeptical in our ability to support them.. I would expect rigourous fund raising campaigns are needed..

Ohh.. I don’t know, I suppose God will provide.. but just frustating, you increase your giving, but the budget is also increasing, therefore deficit is just expected to carry on.. but until when? When would we have a budget surplus for IUC? Or maybe a budget surplus is not good as that means we are not expanding (being passive).. One thing for sure, I don’t ever want to be the church treasurer (sorry Arnold :)), it must be very stressful job to have..

Maybe the partners in the church should think on what we can do about the financial situation? Or maybe, we just need to buy more “stocks” to keep the our company floating..

Huh, very dissapointing oz idol tonite, how can Ricki Lee out while she’s probably the most deserving person to win the competition.. Grrr.. I think Anthony will win this comp, but who can tell what the oz public think.. oh my oh my, this is a scandal indeed..

Was discouraged by some of the things happening in church lately. The biggest dissapointment would be because I took a leadership of a group on a term that we had agreed upon, but I found out that my the term is actually no longer like what I thought it would be. I am disspointed because I myself am chocked with the worries of this life, that I can’t concentrate on the group, can’t take care of the people there enough, should’ve do more preparation.. I am dissapointed because of the lack of support from the coleaders, I was so excited about the group as there were some newcomers but now why I don’t feel the same excitement, oh God please rekindle the fire, I do thakn you Lord as you have comforted me so many time, and encouraging me to continue to serve you, and I am sorry if I have dissapointed you a lot too, especially with my inability to lead and care the flock well…
On the different not, two workmates don’t want to go to church anymore because they’ve been dissapointed by the people on their church. I want to comment on that.. later..

Ok, I have just to make an entry for it, in the last nite’s show, the contestants were given the freedom to choose their own song. The best performance of the night is undoubtedly belong to Anthony, he sang Andrea Bocelli’s song (I don’t know the title), I am still bewildered on how he has kept his powerful voice hidden till yesterday.. Casey was also really good too, she’s the 2nd best after Anthony and then the third one is of course the ever consistent Ricky Lee, I just love her power voice and enthusiasm.
Now Australia, this is my prediction on how’s go
a be on the bottom three tonite: Marty, Haylie, Cha
el. Marty gave an ok performance last nite, but the competition is not about giving an ok performance but oustanding performance, given that he has failed to deliver for so many weeks already (and regardless how much I love the rock genre), I think he deserved to go this week.
Daniel and Courtney gave an average performance too.. I grew tired of Daniel actually..
I am betting for Anthoy and Ricky Lee for the top two, and Ricky Lee to win the competition, she’s got the complete package of a star.