2025 Mission Spending Plan

As we come to the end of the calendar year, your SOJOY Leadership Team has been hard at work planning for the year ahead of us.

2025 Summary Budget, which we will vote on on December 8.

What is a Mission Spending Plan?

Sometimes, we can get bogged down in the line items and details and dollar figures. But the line items and budgets are more than just that.

• We don’t just have an electric bill. We have a preschool ministry, worship, recovery groups and more happen in the building when the lights are on and the AC is turned down.
• We don’t just pay salaries. We pay salaries that allow us to have Bible Studies and resources to grow in faith.
• We don’t just have expenses for electronics. We have a high-quality worship live stream that allows us to worship with people all around the world.
• We don’t just have office supplies. We have 60+ children in this building learning every day about God and the world that God has made.

The language of Mission Spending reminds us that these funds aren’t just the bills we receive. They are the mission that we share in Jesus’ name.

2025 Mission Spending Highlights

The proposed budget for 2025 is — for the first time since before the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic — a balanced budget!

We are growing.
This is the biggest single change in our budget over the last 5 years. In 2022 – our first full year back in the building following COVID and the Winter Storm – our average in-person Sunday attendance was 35 people. Our average in 2024 has been 72 people, and is only continuing to grow.

This is a great thing! And also, more people and more programs means more expenses. Add to that the inflation that we are all experiencing in our personal lives, and the bottom line expenses have increased by $70,000 from 2024 to 2025.

These increased expenses are primarily from: staffing costs, rising insurance costs, and building maintenance.

In 2025, we hope to add a new, very part time person to help with media: bulletins, newsletters, worship slides, and similar materials.

We are generous. 
As our worship attendance has grown, so has our generosity as a congregation.

2024 saw a sizeable increase in our regular offerings – what began as a deficit budget for the year will likely finish well in the black. In fact, the increase in our giving has been more than the percentage increase in worship attendance!

With more income, we have also been able to be more generous with our partner ministries. We have been able to increase our support of our synod, through which we participate in new congregations, campus ministries, outdoor ministries, and more. We have also stepped up to help with disaster response throughout the year.

If you would like to see a line-by-line version of this budget, please contact Pastor David.

Joyful people really do live generously!