Reunion Family,

 I love these people and I love this church! What an incredible community of Jesus followers this is. I have continually been surprised by the deep, compassionate, and gifted people in and around our community. From our small origins, I knew God was building deep and missional friendships. Thank God. Thank you for your commitment to the Reunion Family; your serving, hospitality, and Christlikeness make us a community following Jesus seeking the good of our city.

 This past Sunday I shared a teaching called The Good and Beautiful Church (you can catch up on Spotify or Youtube). I shared principles on how the early church was marked by… 1. Radical Outward Inclusivity. 2. Inward Service to One Another. 3. Abandoning Trust in the Holy Spirit. Jesus worked beautifully through the Spirit-empowered people of the early church. I believe this is our continued calling as a local church. To thrive into the future, we must unleash more of the giftings around us, deepen our interdependence on God and one another, and increase our generosity.

You’ve likely heard me talk about becoming “self-supporting and self-sustaining”. Our planting organization the Orchard Group and the model they have set us up with has served us well. They have provided us with external management and connections to churches that could help fund our work until we could become self-supporting. Over the next 12 months, we want to continue the process of letting external leadership exit and internal leadership enter. You can be praying for this process as we invite internal individuals onto our management team and train at least 6 deacons over the next 5 months.

 On Sunday, I shared some stats…

• About 110 people call Reunion their church.

• 71% of our church is in a Community Group (currently 79 registered)

• 144 first-time guests since July 1st

• 49% are serving on a Sunday morning team

• Giving away 10% of our offering

• Incredible development of our worship and children’s ministries

There’s an old stat that floats around churches that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. While this is not true of our church I believe participation with Christ and the local body is our call. One area this is important in is in our generosity. Our model alongside the Orchard Group has been a 5-year plan of external funding (heavy up front) and over that time to ween off the external and onto an internal financial model. The basics of our finances are that we are running a monthly budget deficit. We hold the cash on hand to sustain this for a while but in the long run, our current model will not be sustained by our current giving. One way of putting it: Mom is not footing the bill forever! While we are starting to see some positive shifts, it is still true that 7 Giving Units make up 45% of our internal budget. We need greater participation in terms of generosity.

This is not written to induce fear, anxiety, or worry. Rather we want to raise awareness about our current position. We have been wise with our finances, generous as a church, and always within the approved budget. Going forward we can and will shift our budgets to meet the vision God has for us. We are actively cutting some expenses and will build the 2025-2026 budget to align with our values and beliefs around what God wants us to do. This will be realistic but also done in faith as we serve a God of abundance.

If you are newer to Reunion, I invite you to jump in! Participate! Click the links below to start serving on a team or get into a community group.

If Reunion is your church, I want to ask you to tithe to Reunion. Give your money away! Increase your generosity. Jesus says, “It is better to give than to receive.” I know many of you are already doing this. Thank you! If you are not, please consider setting up a recurring gift or increasing your offering.

If you have questions or I can support/encourage you in any way please do not hesitate to reach out.

Grace and Peace,

Russel Rader russel@reunionnyc.com