Giddings-Lovejoy Transitional Presbytery Leader
Rev. Dr. Craig Howard
choward@glpby.org
Doing Something Right
In his book, The One Minute Manager, Kenneth Blanchard writes, “Help people reach their full potential, catch them doing something right.” This applies to organizations too! In my first week as your Presbytery Leader (ok, I’m supposed to put “Transitional” on the front of that but you know I’m transitional and I know I’m transitional so I’m dropping it for now!) I have been sitting in a lot of meetings, listening, participating, and taking in a lot of information. I have studied the wonderful history of Giddings-Lovejoy and learned about the recent trials the presbytery has endured. I could fill this column with the number of changes and challenges the presbytery has overcome this past year alone. But I would rather talk about something we are doing right. I’d prefer sharing some good news with the presbytery.
Here it is. We have a balanced budget for 2017!
I know for some this isn’t exciting or spicy enough to warrant celebration. But if you have lived through the financial roller coaster Giddings-Lovejoy has endured these past years, or if you only knew how close we came to financial calamity, you too would be doing a step, a jig, or a poor attempt at a moon walk! Imagine, we do not have to worry about paying our bills or how we are going to meet our obligations this year. This financial strength is a gift that we plan to build upon.
The finance team is developing a strategy to keep the budget balanced and add to the financial foundation we now have. This means living within our means, creating an investment strategy that will allow our endowed funds to grow, and managing all the accounts in the presbytery to maximize value. We are committed to being good stewards of our funds, investments, per-capita, and mission dollars. Our goal is to live into a vision of financial excellence, and become an organization and presbytery that people and congregations want to invest in.
Now, that is doing something right!
Rev. Craig M. Howard
