2025 Financial Narrative

1st Quarter, 2025

Welcome to the quarterly Money Matters – where we hope to share with you the way that your giving – giving of time, resources, and money – impacts the ministries we do here at Elk Grove UMC. Every dollar is connected to ministry. Every volunteer gives their time and their spiritual gifts to support ministries relationally. In essence, we would not be able to be the hands and feet of Jesus without you! We hope this helps you to continue to prayerfully consider your gifts to EGUMC.

Here you will find a brief narrative of the First Quarter of 2025 (January-March) with a few items that are also present in the Second Quarter (April-June). Please look for a Quarter 2 narrative in August.

In May, we got our first “Money Talks” report during worship. Here are a few things to note from that report:

• Our general fund giving is under our general fund expenses. This is normal, and slightly higher than this time last year. Regular monthly giving is our primary revenue stream as we do not receive any monies from the Annual Conference (upper levels of the United Methodist denomination) but rather give money to the Annual Conference as part of our connectional nature.
• We anticipate utilizing reserve funding to balance our 2025 budget due to increased costs and focusing our funds on our Church Council goals.
• Because of a large bequest from a member that passed, we have been able to do some much needed maintenance and upgrades on the building (in 2024, we sanded and painted the poarches and began work on the library. So far, in 2025, we are finishing the library/office work, began a re-roof project to be completed early June, updated the front office, and continue to work on other safety maintenance items around the church.
• With the large bequest, we have also begun a legacy funding investment account where you can do planned giving through your own bequest, or give at any time, including stocks if applicable.
• We are in the process of reviewing our financial policies and procedures as we look to the retirement of our treasurer, Mary Popish, later this year. Some of her regular duties will be given to staff, and some duties will be left to other treasurer volunteers. We are still on the lookout a backup/assistant Treasurer and backup/assistant Financial Secretary.

Additionally, since the beginning of 2025, we have chosen to focus what we call “loose plate offering”, which is any cash given without designation that in the past would have been “loose” at the bottom of the offering plate. This giving is often what we might call a second mile giving, giving on top of your regular monthly general fund giving. Each month we share a ministry of our church that is the focus for this giving. You will find a list of all special giving, from loose plate as well as fundraising, later in this newsletter.

One final thing that took place starting in Quarter 2 was our Saving Grace Financial Wellbeing Class. This class shared a Wesleyan way of looking at money – giving, saving, dealing with debt, and more. We plan to share this class again in 2026, so keep your eyes on the lookout for more information.

If you have any questions or comments about this information, please feel free to contact Theresa Badley, Finance Chair, Mary Popish, Treasurer, or myself. Finance Committee meetings are open to the rest of the Church Congregation and are generally held in the Rainbow Room on the 3^rd Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

Blessings,
Pastor April

EGUMC Mission

To spread God’s unconditional love and Jesus’ teaching to love our neighbors through our faith and work in the Elk Grove community.

Missional Area Highlights in THIS narrative

Children, Youth, and Families

This area continues to be a focal area of our church as we have goals of growing our church young. What does this mean? By focusing on young people and families, we are focusing on the whole church, thriving and growing into the future.

In this First Quarter (Jan-Mar) there are many ministries that were active and grew.

Our youth groups (Acolytes for children/youth in 1st-6th grade and Youth group for 6th-12th grades) have grown in membership. The youth group worked on several art projects that raised money for mission trips as well as took some time to learn and volunteer at a local non-profit – Hands and Hoofs. Looking forward, we are planning a youth leadership group to organize and lead projects for the youth group as well as a youth band in the fall.

The Children’s Choir was active each month, often collaborating intergenerationally with our Adult Choir for special songs. This will only grow and evolve in the fall! Thank you to Gayle and all the music volunteers that have made this a priority.

In January, we began a Parent’s Collaborative made up of parents and families from Elk Grove UMC and Uplift People of Elk Grove. What began with only 3 participating families has grown to over 10 participating families, with 7 families participating in our last meal planning event. This program is 100% grant funded and will run out of funding by the end of the year, so we are in need of support and thoughts on how to keep the momentum going.

In this area, we raised over $5,000 to help send youth to Sierra Service Project and received a $5,000 grant to provide childcare for the Parent’s Collaborative.

Pictured: Left – Youth art day in April, Middle – Parent’s Collaborative meal prep in March, Right – Youth tech event in March.

Community Outreach

Community Outreach is more than just serving those who are unhoused or food insecure, it is meeting the many needs of the community, including loneliness. Through our Shower Ministry, we are able to provide clean hot water for showers as well as other toiletries that people may need. Our Meals Ministry currently serves only on Saturday Mornings, and sees a variety of people from all economic backgrounds. This is truly a community meal, as no one is turned away, and we strive to connect people to a place of belonging through feeding – feeding of mind, body, and soul. Through our Congregational Health and Care Committee, we lead a Caregiver’s Coffee Group once a month, where those who are caregivers can connect, share ideas, and support one another. Whether the caregiving is for a relative, or as a career, it can be emotionally depleting and lonely work, and this group offers a glimmer of hope. Finally, Community Outreach may look like our Paws and Prayers ministry, where people with their pets can join in some spiritual love and connection. This fresh expression of worship meet once a month and has been doing so for a full year now!

Special giving in the area of Community Outreach saw the following gifts:
Meals Ministry – $1987.75 and over 216 volunteer hours for January-March
Shower Ministry – $706.30 and over 400 volunteer hours for January-March
Congregational Health & Care – $389.57

Pictured – Paws and Prayers in March 2025

LGBTQIA+ Outreach

Our Qmunity group began with a holiday mixer in December and has taken off! The mission of this group is to create a kinder, just, and inclusive faith community for LGBTQIA+ individuals, families, and allies.

Qmunity is a queer-led group within EGUMC focused on local LGBTQIA+ advocacy, support and celebration. Qmunity represents our commitment to expanding our impact in Elk Grove and surrounding areas through intentional collaboration. At this time of escalating challenges and rollbacks nationwide of LGBTQIA+ rights and protections, particularly for our trans siblings, fostering local solidarity feels both urgent and sacred. Too often, faith is misused to justify the oppression and exclusion of queer and trans people; Qmunity exists to reclaim it as a source of hope, belonging and tangible support. We believe everyone is inherently worthy of love and dignity.

Qmunity has committed to sponsoring and supporting our local bookstore, A Seat at the Table, with their Drag Story Hour events, which promote diversity and understanding in fun and meaningful ways. Qmunity is also a SHINE sponsor for this year’s Elk Grove Pride, which will take place on June 21st from 5-9 p.m. at Laguna Town Hall and is an all ages event!

Qmunity Giving since January 2025 is $1805.67, and Qmunity is the designated ministry for loose plate offering in June, 2025.

Pictured – Drag Story Hour – March 2025

Connectional Ministries

As a connectional church, we know that we do not stand alone but rather are connected denominationally to our churches in the Sacramento and California area as well as the United States and the world. Through the giving and spending in Connectional Ministries, we give to organizations like United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) that provides supplies and volunteers for disasters around the world. UMCOR is usually one of the first boots on the ground and always the last to leave. This year, several people from the Cal-Nev annual conference, including members of Elk Grove UMC, went to Southern California to help with the aftermath of the fires.

Giving to UMCOR since January 2025 were $2666.10.

Through our Covenant Missionary, we are supporting mission work in the country of Nepal. We dedicate special giving every year to give to Katherine Parker, who works on life giving projects including clean water initiatives and healthy mother and child needs. Our commitment is based on a formula that is $10/member, so for 2024-2025 year, we have committed to $2100 in giving through United Methodist Global Ministries for Katherine Parker’s work. Since January 2025, we have raised $1147.57 for this work, so as you can see, we are a little under our goal. If you find that you have an extra $20, $50, or $100 to give to this important connectional ministry, please help us out by giving today.

It has been stated many times that we do not have a church in the sky that gifts us with funds to help us do the important work we do. Instead, we actually give back to the larger denomination 10% of all our giving. This goes to helping other connectional work by the church – giving to work that is done through the California-Nevada region, the United States, and the world. In 2024, we gave 100% of our commitment, and we are on track to do that again.