Spirit & Life 2018 Ministry Report

The mission of Spirit & Life Church is the help others authentically encounter Jesus Christ through worship and small groups for lives of service. As we end 2018 we are asking you to consider what financial commitment you can make to Spirit & Life for the upcoming year. It’s only fair for us to give equal consideration to how we fulfilled our mission in 2018 as we ask you to support our mission in 2019. 

In this document you’ll find two infographics. Taken together they give a full picture of where we stand as a church. We hope to provide some narrative commentary around this information in the hope of providing a full, transparent picture of what God is doing at Spirit & Life and how God is moving in our midst.


The first infographic looks at the degree to which we accomplished our mission thus far in 2018. The first part of our mission talks about “helping others encounter Jesus.” If we are about helping others encounter Jesus then our mission is outwardly driven: it’s about reaching new people! Are we seeing new people come through our doors? Are the new people that are coming encountering Jesus and being discipled at Spirit & Life? Since April we have begun intentionally tracking the number of visitors we have in worship and the number of new people who become a part of the Spirit & Life family. We continue to see new visitors each week and we have seen quite a great number of them stay with us.
Next we turn to our ministry areas: worship, small groups, and service. The graphic depicts how we have lived into our mission in our ministry areas. We remain committed to our vision for small groups as places where people grow in connection to God and to one another. We seek to reguarly start new Sunday morning small groups to draw new people into the small group experience while seeing weekday small groups as a place of deep and intimate connection to God and others. And we seek to be in ministry both within our church and to community. The information provided in this graphic shows what we have done in our chosen ministry areas.

The second graphic tells the story of our church finances. Our mission statement talks about helping others encounter Jesus through different ministry areas. The ministry areas are on us to pull off; encountering Jesus is up to God and His Holy Spirit. Our financial situation shows an equal reliance in God’s Spirit to provide growth and sustain us so we might fully become the church God is calling us to be.

In this infographic what you’ll see is that we have consistently, and for some time now, not had a monthly income that covers our expenses. We have been covering the overages through cash reserves from prior grants, but those funds are being spent down at an unsustainable rate. We have worked to trim our budget such that our expenses are going towards ministries and initiatives that will help us accomplish our mission.

Our mission is outwardly oriented and as such we have a growth mindset. We believe that our financial self-sustainability will come through growth just as fulfilling our mission will result in new people being discipled through the ministries of Spirit & Life. As such our average monthly expenses in 2018 have been $17,604. Our average monthly income has been $14,876. We currently have just over $25,000 in available cash reserves.

We believe the first infographic depicts a living, vital, thriving church. We know that God is here. And we are confident that God will sustain us! However, we also know that there are serious challenges facing us in the near term. How can you help contribute to our growth? Whom can you invite to Spirit & Life? Can you lead an outreach event or get involved in our ongoing outreach ministries? How can you help newcomers connect to small groups, ministry teams, and the larger Spirit & Life family?

We are hopeful that the God who has given life to the ministries of this church will act and breakthrough and see that they grow to self-sufficiency. We ask that you consider how you might be part of the way God plans to sustain and grow this church.