New Elders

Last September, all church members were invited to nominate men for the elder board. Twenty-nine nominations were received nominating a total of 15 men. Five men met the initial qualifications and were ready to continue the process. The Elder Nomination Committee (lay elders Brian Gensel and John Matthiesen, pastoral elder Jon Nitta, and

Leadership Structure & Ministry Teams

The transition to a team-based leadership model for increased accountability, shared responsibility, and increased cross-ministry communication and cooperation has been very successful.

Although there are boxes around each ministry and operational team here, the staff networks extensively to do ministry and grow disciples.

Attendance & Giving

It’s essential for you to know that every number, whether it’s a budget figure or an attendance number, represent real people. Our average attendance went up again in 2019 after a dip in 2018. It’s not uncommon for a church to lose as much as 10% of attenders during an upheaval such a building project or major staffing change.

Giving has continued to increase and for that we thank you. Please note the fine print, which indicates that giving is over budget and spending is under budget thanks to our focus on being creatively frugal.

General Budget

The overall budget for 2020 is being increased by only modestly. As the Even More project comes to a close and our church takes on a new mortgage to complete payment for the building, it seemed wisest to the Finance Committee to to keep budget growth cautious.

The main areas of the budget breakdown are missions, staffing, ministry, and operations. The operations budget has grown because we are now in a new phase of needed to manage and operate a larger facility with all of the attendant costs. As shared at the August Family Meeting, we are staff-heavy for a church of our size, and the elders opted to address this issue through attrition and church growth. As staff members have moved on to new opportunities, their responsibilities have been absorbed by others and by volunteers, who are taking an even more active role in church life.

Even More Expansion Project

At the end of the fundraising portion of the project, we had $4.9 million come in for Even More. That’s over the pledged amount promised in 2017 and so close to our $5 million goal that we think we might still make it as some families have indicated they’ll continue giving to the project or have plans to give. Continued giving toward Even More will go toward the building project and the mortgage.

Costs for the project have come out to just over $8 million. This number is right in line with where original estimates put the cost as our building project team and the architectural firm and general contractors have worked together to keep costs manageable.

We will need a mortgage of about $3.3 million, which when combined with our current mortgage, gives us a total mortgage of $5.1 million. This is well within the healthy range for a church of our size, and our elders have set a goal to retire the entire mortgage in 10 years.

Somewhere around November of last year, we stopped giving specific completion dates. Construction has delays; that’s just part of the process as we’ve learned only too well! The Chapel of Hope is the last portion of the project to be completed and you can see it progressing a little more every week.

Local Outreach

Our local partners are organizations either based in Valparaiso and Northwest Indiana or with local chapters that we have a made long-term commitment to support financially and through service. With our partners, we’re ministering to families and single people who are homeless, mentoring young people, supporting foster and adoptive families as well as Court Appointed Special Advocates who advocate for children in the family court system, caring for immigrant and refugee families, and so much more.

We’re listening to what the community is saying it needs and responding through networks of people and organizations that are equipped to help.

Learn more about each of these partners and how you can serve in the community on our Local Outreach page or find us on Facebook at Calvary Outreach.

Global Outreach

For Global Outreach, we have a 2 pronged mission to care for orphans and orphan-vulnerable children and families and to plant churches. This 2-handed approach - providing care and spreading the gospel - is not only biblical, it’s also strategic. We are inundated by requests for help and thanks to a clear mission trajectory and a thoughtful approach to choosing partners, we’re able to meet the needs that God has set before US to meet.

We’re excited about some church planting news from different parts of the world. In Rwanda, the church we planted with Nairobi Chapel has reached the point of independence is about to be released from Nairobi Chapel’s program to function on its own. That’s great news!

In India, we’re preparing to support 3 recent theology degree graduates who are returning to their Santhal tribe to literally bring the gospel to the unreached, people who have not only never heard of the salvation of Jesus Christ but also practice a religion with multiple gods.

How to Pray for Outreach

To end the evening, we spent some time in prayer either individually or as part of a group. Lynette said, “Prayer opens doors in missions. So many conversations with our partners go something like this: ‘We have no idea how we’re can do this, but we have to.’ And they do because people are praying.”

Click on the prayer guide and use it to help guide your prayers as you join the church around the world in praying that God’s name would be known in every tribe and nation.