Terra Community:

Please take the time read this report, which the elders consider an important piece of communication for this Church body.  The annual report is our way of regularly pausing to reflect on what God has done.  We celebrate and give thanks for His steadfast provision.  We reinforce that which we believe is core to who we are.  We share where we envision God leading us.  Our hope is that this report would be useful and encouraging for you and honoring of God’s continual grace.

If you have any questions, please feel free to message me here on the City.

This past Sunday, we continued in our Spiritual Discipline Series as we looked at the Stewardship of our Time and Money. (Listen to the teaching HERE). I put Terra Nova’s Stewardship Pastor, Paul Gordon, in front of a camera and asked him to share his heart on Financial Stewardship. This video was shown in the middle of the teaching on this topic yesterday.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I also asked Paul to pull together some statistics from Terra Nova Church’s giving patterns. I only had time to share a couple of them on Sunday during the teaching time, but here is the rest of what Paul’s research on the giving patterns at Terra Nova showed. I know that some of you are bored as soon as you hear the word “statistic”, while others eat this stuff up. If you would ever like to learn more about how Terra’s Finance Team works, how we do budgeting, auditing etc. don’t hesitate to email Paul Gordon.

Terra Nova specific stats::

63% OF HOUSEHOLDS SUPPORT TERRA FINANCIALLY

37% OF THE HOUSEHOLDS AT TERRA DO NOT GIVE.

Of these:
The top 10% of households comprise 53% of the operating budget.
The top 20% of households comprise 74% of the operating budget.

The top 10% of giving households comprise 42% of the operating budget.
The top 20% of giving households comprise 61% of the operating budget.

The average giving household gives about $2,500 per year    or   $48 per week   or   $215 per month.

The median giving household gives about $1,220 per year    or   $23 per week   or   $106 per month.

Stats from America in general::

·       70% of people in America live paycheck to paycheck.
- The Wall Street Journal

·       17% of Americans do not have enough savings to cover 1 week without a paycheck
- USA Today

·       The estimated average credit-card debt per US card-holding households is $9,312.
- Time Magazine

·       The personal savings rate in the US has now fallen to -2.2% – meaning people are spending more than they make — the lowest in 60 years.  – The Department of Commerce

·       The average American has 2.7 bank credit cards, 3.8 retail credit cards and 1.1 debit cards, for a total of 7.6 cards per cardholder.  – CardWeb.com

General Stats from American Churches::

·       Overspending: 40 percent of church members say they overspend monthly; also, 40 percent of church members pay more than $2,000 a year in interest, not including their mortgage.  – The United Methodist Foundation

·       Christian Wealth and World Poverty:  On average, American Christians enjoy an annual household income of $42,409, while 1.2 billion of the world’s poorest people must survive on $1 a day.  – Sider, Ronald. The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. Books and Culture

·       Giving Not a Priority: It is estimated that Christians worldwide have personal incomes totaling more than 16 trillion but give only 2 percent, to Christian causes.  – International Bulletin of Missionary Research

·       A Reachable Goal: “According to the Borgen Project, annual expenditures of $19 billion between now and 2015 could eliminate global starvation and malnutrition.  Another $12 billion per year over that same time period could provide education for every child on earth.  And an additional $15 billion each year could provide universal access to clean water and sanitation.”  – Stanford Social Innovation Review

Thanks to Brandon Balkenbush at Living Stones Church in Reno, NV for sending me these stats.

409 River Street Troy, NY tonight Fri 4-30-2010 5-9pm.

This past Sunday Terra Nova Church launched its newest initiative, The Eden Project. The Eden Project is a joint effort between EXTERNAL:Community Extension and INTERNAL:Stewardship here at Terra Nova. The underlying vision for the Eden Project is to seek after how mankind should demonstrate proper dominion over God’s creation as commissioned by God in Genesis Chapter 1.

To this end, we launched Eden Project [version 1.0], which consisted of a recycling and a ride sharing initiative.  Discussions are ongoing as to where the Eden Project is headed and what [version 2.0] will look like. Some early thoughts include the following:

• transition the power supply for Terra Nova’s office space to a sustainable energy provider.
• lobbying efforts to aid the City of Troy in developing a commercial recycling program city wide.
• targeting, and partnering with local non-profits engaged already in various local environmental initiatives

We are looking to you, the Terra Nova community to share your ideas for [version 2.0] of the Eden Project as well. Please feel free to post comments with your thoughts about various initiatives that you can envision. If you know of good work being done by local groups that we could partner with as well, please feel to share that as well in a post below or contact Paul Gordon.

Thanks to all of you – lets engage in our part to allow God’s creation to continue to reveal his wonders to all.