Here We Go!

1. The budget represents the principle that the buck stops in the local church, i.e., that resources and responsibility should be kept as close to the local church as possible. Our vision and purpose statement clearly locates the center of the new conference in the local church. That is where the neighborhood enters the church and the church enters the neighborhood. Therefore, the Council on Finance and Administration (CFA) asked that a budget be built on the assumption that local ministry shares would remain at the same level in 2011 as they'd been in 2010. This keeps more dollars local.
    
2. The budget also seeks to balance the "givens" and the "yet to be received." As with local church and even family budgets, the conference budget contains many "givens" or fixed costs that won't vary as new ministries emerge. At the same time, many of the ministries we will want to at least begin in 2011 aren't defined as yet. Two funds are envisioned to resource these "yet to be received" ministries. The first is a fund called the "Mandated Ministry Areas Start- Up Fund" which contains dollars to be used to develop the structures (i.e., teams) needed to undergird ministries areas mandated by the Discipline but not yet up and running. Ministries like Discipleship and Global Ministries. This fund will allow us to begin gathering people and organizing UNYAC's ministry teams. A second fund, called the "Emerging Ministries Fund," is proposed to fund the development and launching of ministries not prescribed by the Discipline but emerging out of our sense of purpose and vision. These will be new ministries and initiatives.