2021 Budget Surplus Proposal

$31,581 | Gospel Partners Outside of High Pointe (10%)
  1. Emmaus Church, Georgetown - $20,000
  2. HP Missions Sending Fund - $6,000
  3. Austin Baptist Association - $5,581

$100,000 | Emergency Building Maintenance Fund

$184,231 | Reserve Fund
 
As Juan mentioned last night during our State of the Church Address, God blessed High Pointe abundantly in 2021. Through the faithful, sacrificial generosity of HPBC members, we had a budget surplus of $315,812! We pray this leads you to join us in praising the Lord for his kindness toward us.

Because of this, the elders are bringing a proposal to you for the use of the budget surplus. Why are the elders proposing these three items in particular? Let’s start with the first category.

Gospel Partners Outside of High Pointe

Long before I arrived, High Pointe made the commitment to send the first 10% of all funds that we receive to missions or gospel partners outside our church. This is reflected in our budget. Every year we send at least 10% (approximately 12% for 2022), and we hope to see this number increase. There are a couple of reasons we made this commitment. First, we want to recognize that all we receive comes from the Lord. Second, we want to model joyful, sacrificial, generosity to you, High Pointe. While the New Testament does not require a tithe, it does call us to joyful, sacrificial, generous giving. Each of us is to give as unto the Lord, and what we give is between us and the Lord. Still, we must prayerfully consider where to start. We started at 10% because, as Randy Alcorn suggests, that is the training wheels of giving.

As a church, then, we want to model faithfulness through our budget, and at times like this, with our managing of the budget surplus. To that end, we are proposing we distribute this first category of funds to gospel partners outside of High Pointe in 3 ways. First, Pastor Marshall plans to lead a core team from High Pointe to plant a church in Georgetown – Emmaus Church, Georgetown – and they expect to launch in October 2022. We are joyfully setting aside $20,000 to assist them so they can hit the ground running. Remember to pray for our church plant and for the gospel to flourish in Georgetown!

Second, it’s time for HPBC to get serious about mobilization for missions. In 2022, we have planned 3 short-term mission trips. We will take one trip to Fujairah, located in the UAE, another trip to Mexico, and finally, a trip to an undisclosed location in the Middle East. To show you how serious we are about mobilizing High Pointe, and to encourage you to go, we are committing to provide the first $500 for members wanting to go on a HPBC approved trip. To that end, we are setting aside $6,000 in a High Pointe Missions Sending Fund. Keep in mind, while we hope these funds will be an encouragement to High Pointe members, the purpose of these trips is to encourage our gospel partners around the world, and to support their ministries while we are with them. Remember to pray for our short-term trips and for the Lord to raise up people who will go on these trips in 2022.

And third, the Austin Baptist Association has blessed our congregation in a number of ways over the years, and most recently by helping Emmaus Church, Georgetown to secure funding from the SBTC and from NAMB. We want to show our appreciation and honor the ABA through a gift of $5,581. Remember to pray for the ABA, led by David Smith, and for more gospel churches to be planted and strengthened in the Austin Area through their efforts. Now, let’s move on to the second category.

Emergency Building Maintenance Fund

We have deferred maintenance on our building for years, and one of our primary goals is to be prepared in the event that we need to provide significant repairs on one or more of our A/C units. We recently received a quote for informational purposes, and it would cost approximately $53,000 to replace one A/C unit. In fact, we were told that our second unit would be more expensive to replace. It’s important that we be prepared for such a large expense, and that’s why we’re setting aside $100,000 for this purpose. Remember to pray that we will be good stewards of the building and resources the Lord has entrusted to High Pointe.

Reserve Fund

Our final proposed category is HPBC’s Reserve Fund. We have been working to build our reserves over the last number of years, and by God’s grace, we have been able to make some progress. Still, even with over $100,000 in our reserves right now, we have a long way to go to reach our goal of saving 3-6 months of expenses. Based on a budget of $1.5 million (last year’s budget), we would need $375,000 to have 3 months expenses saved. Setting aside $184,231 helps us get closer to reaching that goal. Remember to give thanks to God for blessing High Pointe and providing for our needs and pray that High Pointe members will continue to give regularly, joyfully, and even sacrificially.

High Pointe, thanks to your generosity, we had the joy of putting together this proposal for the budget surplus. We are proposing this to you now so that you have time to ask questions and provide feedback before our next Members’ Meeting on Sunday, February 27. We will have a Q&A on Sunday, February 13 at 4pm in the East Training Room (upstairs), so please join us if you have questions. You can also email me your questions at davey@highpointeaustin.org. On Sunday, February 27 we will simply vote on this proposal during our Members’ Meeting.

We hope that you will join us in praising the Lord for what He has done through His people this past year. And we ask you to join us in praying that High Pointe will continue to be faithful in 2022. We are excited to see what the Lord has in store for High Pointe Baptist Church!

Grace and peace,
Pastor Davey

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