Town Hall: Churches Finances
We are Forefront Church.
That's all of us under this one roof, in person and virtually. You who attend in person and those watching online. The pastors to the congregation. All of us. Almost 11 years after our opening in 2012, we are still here. And we remain committed together in this project. What is this project exactly?
Forefront started out as a humble church plant trying to bring a fresh and more urban experience of the Christian faith to Brooklyn. But then something wonderful and terrifying happened in this spiritual home that we were building. We were called forth to grow beyond being just another church. We were called to live out God’s love in ways far more authentic, far more just and far more generous than we had ever planned on.
We felt called to be actively anti-racist. We felt called to include all of God's children fully, no matter who they are, where they came from or whom they love. We felt called to honor the diversity of all our expressions of worship, whether traditional, modern or yet to be devised. We felt called to bring all to worship, to serve and to lead one another together under one roof. Full stop.
Reimagined worship. Uncommon kinship. Radical equity. These are the three values–the three imperatives–of our church community. In living out these values, we are at the forefront of an ever-growing coalition of people of faith ushering in the next 500 years of Christianity.
Now, we have weathered our fair share of storms within the challenging climate of our times. Becoming fully inclusive of our LGBTQIA+ siblings in Christ was very costly. Rising up to meet the urgency of anti-racism and gender equity work so all of God’s children could enjoy full equity in our society was very costly. Losing so many beloved members of our community who were displaced by the economic hardships and personal losses of the COVID-19 pandemic was also very costly. But lest we be disheartened by challenges, let’s remind ourselves that our community has its fair share of resilience. After all, look around. We are still here.
For almost 11 years, this crossroads of the world that we call Brooklyn NYC, the borough of churches, has been a strong foundation to cultivate our community here and virtually around the world. Our inclusiveness, our diversity, our open-mindedness, and our love for others as self–all of these are true, sturdy and reliable pillars of strength for our church.
So why this email today? Well, we need to talk about the “roof”. Our foundation and our pillars may be strong, but the roof–our financial canopy that covers us on sunny as well as stormy days–is quite weatherworn.
We as a Leadership Team want to let you know that we have worked closely with the Executive Council to take measures to ensure that Forefront continues to be a real spiritual home where all of us can gather and serve under one roof.
For the last 20 months, revenue from giving has been in consistent decline.
As you may recall Rev. Josh and Pastor Mak shared in a video at the end of 2022 that while we had approximately $100,000 in savings as the pandemic waned, giving overall was still deeply impacted by, among other things, population changes, economic losses, inflationary increases, and other consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The giving amounts that we needed to preserve these rainy day funds to restore our financial roof did not come through to the extent we required. Now, giving is trending reliably about $5,000 a month below what we absolutely need to keep our church surviving on a barebones budget.
As a result, among other budget cuts, we’ve needed to negotiate what we hope will be temporary reductions in salaries to tide us over.
Rev. Josh and Rev. Venida are taking a 20% salary reduction.
Pastor Mak’s role is being reduced from full-time to part-time at 25 hours a week.
Our Worship Pastor Angela is taking a 10% salary reduction.
Our Technical Director Robbie has been reduced to under 10 hours a week from 20.
While we are confident that we can continue to operate with a leaky “roof” over our heads in the very short term, to keep this church, to keep our community, we are all going to have to pitch in somehow best we can to help repair and restore this roof to much needed resilience within the year.
What we need from YOU
Find out if your workplace does matching gifts
Consider starting a recurring donation or increasing it by 10-25%
Share ideas or connections of alternate meeting place venues here
Fundraising Team needs volunteers and specifically people who have experience in grant writing. Email Rev. Josh
A lot of parents are grateful their adult children are even in church - even if it is a progressive church. Maybe consider asking Parents to support Forefront monthly or with a one-time gift.
Volunteer as we need to move towards balance in being both a staff- and volunteer-run church.
Email fundraiser ideas, questions, and venue recommendations here
