As the end of the year approaches, everyone at South Main is accustomed to seeing what we call “the Christmas tree” email—the one that pops up in your inbox on a weekly basis throughout December and informs you about how much is needed to make our annual budget by December 31. This year, we also want to show you something we might call, “The Upside-Down Christmas Tree.”
Take a look—the graphic reflects our giving for just the last two weeks of 2022.
What the graphic reveals is that last year, in the last two weeks of the year, very much like the year before that and the year before that—it takes all of us to make our budget. If you think we make the church budget each year because just a very few members of our congregation swoop in at the last moment to supply the deficit with a giant check, that is simply not the case. While I deeply appreciate those who are not only blessed, but choose to sacrificially give the figures which show up at the bottom of the graphic, as you see, it takes generous giving from all of us at all sorts of levels to make our budget.
More fast facts about the graphic and our giving: in the last two weeks of 2022, there were 396 gifts totaling a little over one million dollars, with 31% of those gifts in the $100 to $500 range. If you group the gifts from $10 to $1,000, this figure is an astounding 65%, which means two-thirds of the gifts came from folks giving $1,000 or less.
I show you this to encourage you as clearly as I can that, at whatever level you are able to give, your generosity makes not just a difference, but the difference, in whether we successfully make our budget commitments this year or not. As you receive and look at the forthcoming Christmas tree emails, remember what this “Upside-Down Christmas Tree” so cogently reveals. It’s going to take all of us contributing in the days ahead.
