April 2015


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FLORIS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH PREPARED FOR: Church Council PREPARED BY: Executive Director DATE: 04/20/15 APRIL 2015 COUNCIL REPORT

MEMBERSHIP & ATTENDANCE In the month of March, worship attendance patterns remained increased over the prior year with unique attenders up significantly (+272). The Lenten sermon series, Mess, was a popular series and had significant engagement. Holy Week and Easter Sunday services in early April were up significantly over last year in terms of attendance. Those numbers will be detailed in the May report. MEMBERSHIP AND ATTENDANCE STATISTICS MARCH MARCH 2015 2014 Weekly Worship 1384 1347 Attendance (MAR average) New Members YTD New Members (through MAR) First Time Guests UNIQUE Attenders YTD Average Weekly Worship Attendance (through MAR)

12 48

36 47

43

33

2361

2089

1377

1265

KEY ACTIVITIES & EVENTS BY MINISTRY AREA Worship Ministries  Holy Week and Easter were extremely full weeks for the worship team in the amount of work to be done but more importantly in the opportunity for spiritual renewal and transformation. Ward and Yoon worked tirelessly to produce worship experiences that allowed the congregation to enter into the season and walk from Palm Sunday though Holy Thursday, Good Friday and then to the joy of Easter. All went well and we received very positive feedback from the congregation.  We baptized 17 people on Easter Eve and had a few whole families come to know Jesus as their Savior. 1



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We sorted through multiple resumes for the Contemporary Worship Leader position, conducted phone interviews with 5 candidates and interviewed three in person. We will have these three persons lead worship on a Sunday night as a next step in the interview process. We are committed to taking the time necessary to find the very best candidate to fill this key position. Ward’s tenure has been extended part-time through the month of May. He will work 20 hours per week and handle the morning services. We continue to evaluate our worship services to determine what, if anything, needs to be changed or updated.

Grow Ministries For all Grow Ministries areas the focus was the Easter story. The Floris annual Easter Festival was a major focus of time and effort. Collaboration across multiple ministry areas contributed to a successful event that hosted approximately 1,200 visitors from our community. April and May will be months of planning for upcoming summer activities, camps and mission trips. We continue our efforts to fully align the Preschool with the larger mission of the church and work toward greater collaboration between the Preschool and other ministry areas, particularly Children and Student Ministries. Preschool  English as a second language is a new area of focus for the Preschool. We have several nonEnglish speaking children enrolled in the Preschool this year. We are exploring the possibility of a daytime ESOL program that might benefit not only the children in the Preschool, but their families as well.  We held our annual Pizza-for-Pop event where we invited all of our Preschool dads to join us for lunch during the first two weeks of March. The children made gifts for their dads and enjoyed pizza and lemonade. Despite having to reschedule two of the days because of snow, we had over 90% of our dads participate.  Currently the Preschool has filled 164 of 172 spaces for the coming school year. Additionally, we have a long list of families who want class times that don’t match openings. This is a major accomplishment during this year of transition to a new director.  We are in the planning phase for the first ever Summer Camp to be offered to our current and newly enrolled children. The camp will be held during the first two weeks of June and will offer a different experience than the Vacation Bible School summer camp offered by Children’s Ministries in late June. Children’s Ministries  The Floris Family Easter Festival was held on Saturday, March 21. Over 1,200 people attended and enjoyed Easter egg hunts, inflatables, games, crafts, snacks and an outpouring of hospitality. The event was well coordinated and was the church’s largest community event.  In March our monthly theme for Kid Nation was “The Easter Story.” We discussed what happened during Holy Week and how each event was pivotal and led up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Our monthly theme for April will be a continuance of the Easter story ending with the road to Emmaus and Paul’s conversion.  Our FISH (Fifth In Service for Him) event in March was our Family March Madness Event. Fifth graders brought their parents and siblings and together we worked on and completed 6 different service projects. Some projects benefitted organizations locally such as the Embry Rucker Shelter and staff at Floris UMC. Another project benefitted the Veteran’s Hospital in Tulsa, OK, while another benefitted the upcoming Student Ministry mission trip to Costa Rica. 2

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Everyone learned about the different organizations and how their actions could impact the world locally, nationally and internationally. We cut 130 crosses and helped in the distribution, collection and hanging of the beautifully decorated crosses in the Gathering Space. FISH and Kid Nation classrooms helped decorate and tell the Easter story through their crosses. In looking ahead, April will be a less hectic month, but we still have so much to offer our families: o Our Parenting With Heart seminar took place Saturday, April 11. Various speakers shared information for parents of children grades K-12. Afternoon sessions were available for teens in grades 6-12. o Our FISH Movie Night and Parent Meeting will be held Friday, April 24. Fifth graders will watch the movie The Perfect Game while parents will meet with the Middle School Program Director, Navarone Frank, to learn more about Student Ministry and what they can expect in the fall. Parents will also learn about writing a blessing for their 5th grader, which will be prayed about at our May FISH Celebration. o Our Spring Art Day will be held Sunday, April 26, in the afternoon. Students in grades K-5 will learn about art that relates to the themes of spring and/or Bible stories.

Middle School  Confirmation small groups had their final meetings just prior to Holy Week and both students and leaders are now looking forward to the second retreat that will take place near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, just after Easter. Additionally, students and mentors continue to work together on various self-selected service projects. Many chose to volunteer at the Floris Easter Festival.  The Middle School Retreat was held at the Rockbridge Retreat Center in Lexington, VA. Twentynine middle school students and 7 leaders enjoyed a faith and fun-filled weekend.  Sunday morning middle school small groups participated in and completed the church wide Lenten study. Students explored the “mess” in their own lives and discussed how God calls them to respond each day. High School  Our high school service group, FaithWorks!, set up, organized and facilitated KREW’s participation in the Easter Basket packet assembly project. Nearly 50 students helped assemble more than 900 Easter Basket packets, which were then distributed to the congregation as part of the Floris Easter Basket collection.  Students and leaders have been enjoying "Open Hangar” on Sunday evenings when there is no regularly scheduled KREW. This is an opportunity for those who are available to come to the Hangar and enjoy a fun evening connecting with other students and leaders while playing games and enjoying music.  Costa Rica team members and volunteers prepared and then served a wonderful dinner buffet to the congregation on March 18. The dinner consisted of many Costa Rican dishes and was well received. Donations collected cover a portion of the cost of construction materials and VBS supplies the team will use during their mission week in July.  Students and leaders enjoyed an exciting night of fellowship and hockey fun as they cheered the Washington Capitals on to a victory over the Buffalo Sabres.  Two high school small groups participated in the Lenten church wide study during the month of March. The study initiated thoughtful discussion and a deeper understanding of how God calls us to deal with sin in our lives. 3

Adult Ministries  Short-term small groups were offered as a way to keep newly formed Lenten study groups together. Results were mixed with Alpha and Contemplative Prayer groups being postponed due to low interest. We had two new weekday groups continue on after Lent and several groups were successful in the retention of new small group participants who remained with their groups for a future study.  Revival, Adam Hamilton’s newest study on the life of John Wesley complete with DVD’s shot in England, is being offered in two of our small groups. A new compilation of Tom’s Israel Pilgrimage trip is also being offered in a new Wednesday night group and will include sermonettes taped at various scenes within the Holy Land.  Floris Softball started and we are currently fielding co-ed and men’s teams to participate in the Fairfax County league.  The Grow Ministries team participated in the hosting of the Washington Episcopal Diocese to discuss ministry strategy and nuts and bolts management of program development across the various ministry areas.

Serve Ministries  Floris held its annual Easter Basket Ministry in March and collected approximately 900 Easter Baskets for children in shelters, transitional housing and social service programs.  The North County Hypothermia program ended in late March. Each Tuesday from December through March, Floris provided volunteers and hot meals to homeless persons.  These are upcoming ministries and programs: o Empty Bowls o Sandy and Cuba Missions o Rebuilding Together o Camp Hutchison o Hutchison Book Drive

Serve Ministries by the Numbers - March: Ministry Activity

Dates

Volunteers

Volunteer Hours

People Served

Grace Ministries

3/6 & 7

110

325.5

578

Embry Rucker

3/21 & 28

7

21

170

FACETS

3/3

12

55

100

SOME

3/21

6

24

300

ESL

3/3, 10, 17, 24 & 31

22

176.50

140

Hutchison PALS

DAILY

35

101

70

NC Hypothermia

3/3, 10, 27, 24 & 31

39

112.50

125

231

815.50

1483

Totals

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Connections Ministries  Coffee with the Pastors was held on March 10 with a total 27 participants.  We provided logistical and event support for the Arlington district clergy meeting on March 11 and the clergy and layperson training for the Episcopal Diocese on March 19.  We collaborated with Kid Nation to host the Family Easter Festival. Floris utilized 80 volunteers and 15 staff members to help with set-up, event support and operations, and post event cleanup.

Diversity Ministry  In his efforts to reach and build relationships with new persons in the community, Associate Pastor Nadeem Khokhar planned the first ever Good Friday afternoon service at Floris. This event was advertised in the community by word of mouth and postcard distribution. Nadeem distributed postcards at Lotte, the Asian grocery store, as well as in his neighborhood community. The postcards advertised all of the Floris Holy Week and Easter services.  Efforts to build relationships with the existing South Asian families in our Floris community have been fruitful and resulted in five young adults taking responsibility for the music at the afternoon Good Friday service. Nadeem will continue his efforts to keep these young adults engaged in the life of Floris.

Communications Ministry Herndon Campus  The Communications Team spent the month of March focused on the Lenten sermon series, Mess, and the Easter Festival. Website statistics indicate successful engagement of the congregation around these initiatives, as there were 976 page views of the Easter Festival and 744 page views of the Mess Sermon Series.  Livestream was integral in connecting and engaging families during a very snowy Lenten sermon series. On Sunday, February 22, we hosted a record 532 viewers online. Over the course of Lent, the average registered livestream attendance was 242.  It was exciting to see people engage in the 40 Days of Mess photo challenge. We posted pictures daily to the Floris Instagram account and had a number of people posting along with us. Our daily likes on Instagram averaged 12 -15 per day and our Instagram audience grew.  Facebook engagement was high this month with six posts reaching more than 1,000 people. Two of the posts were related to the 40 Days of Mess photo challenge (Kindness, a Wesley quote “Do all the good you can…” with 1,800 and Abundance, a picture of the Easter Basket collection with 1,400), two were blogs posts (Restoration Update by Tim Ward and Pray by Kelly Johnson), one was news that the SingStrong event was moved to Floris UMC due to South Lakes High School closure and one was a video clip of the Morell’s update from Africa.  eNote open rates are up 3% over last month. Click through rates remain steady. Interest was high on the Spiritual Disciplines tips page, the Easter Festival video and The Connection Newspaper article about the donation to Cornerstones (formerly Reston Interfaith).

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Reston Campus  The Restoration Facebook community loved the time change video that Tim and Amy created, with 309 click-throughs and 61 likes. It reached 1,200 people!  The link from the eNote to the Spiritual Practices tips was very popular with 36 people clicking through.  Restoration had 573 visits in March with 1,740 page views. Local Press Coverage  The Connections Newspaper ran an article about our Christmas Eve Offering donation to Cornerstones.  The Advocate, the Virginia Annual Conference’s monthly magazine, ran a story on Restoration.  Rebuilding Together reprinted an article written by one of our writers for use in their monthly newsletter. Upcoming initiatives  Continue to work on a mobile friendly eNote design that better matches our new website.  Plans are underway to increase Social Media engagement over the summer.  Working with The Connection newspaper on an article about Restoration.

FINANCIAL OPERATIONS March receipts were decreased 3.21% from the same period last year. Year-to-date receipts are decreased 3.42% from last year. The weekly average receipts needed to support the budget are approximately $76,500 and the actual weekly average receipts are $70,900. The delta between the budgeted and actual weekly receipts is currently averaging around $5,600 per week. The continued decrease in negative delta between budgeted and actual weekly receipts each month remains a positive financial indicator, among others. One of the most consistently reliable revenue projection tools we use each year is the Monthly Historical Receipts Model. As of March 31, the model is projecting annual revenue of just under $4M, as shown below:

PROJECTED ANNUAL RECEIPTS RECEIPTS OVER HISTORICAL % BUDGET

3,980,196 70,859

Each year, we use three to four different financial models to project annual revenue. Through the end of the first quarter, three out of the four models are in alignment with annual revenue projections of over $3.9M. Prior to the mid-year expense budget reforecast, expenses are running at 97% of budget. Actual expenses for the year are projected to be at 98% of budgeted expenses and less than $3.9M. All ministry areas will begin working on their mid-year expense budget reforecasts in mid-May and the final reforecast will be presented to the Finance Committee in early July.

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MARCH 2015 FINANCIAL DATA MARCH MARCH 2015 2014 General Fund $364,091 $376,174 Receipts (MAR) Building Fund $77,530 $55,682 Receipts (MAR) Reserves 1.66 months 2.84 months Indebtedness $8,315,000 $9,640,000 YTD Net ($30,197) $225,542 Income (through MAR)

IMAGINE CAMPAIGN STRATEGIC INITIATIVES Restoration Church  Easter was an exciting day for Restoration. We held two worship services and had almost 200 persons in attendance. This was an increase of about 80 people over our average Sunday attendance. Tim Ward’s multi-site coach has indicated that reaching, and in our case exceeding, a 50% increase in worship attendance on Easter is something to celebrate and demonstrates that we are moving in a very positive direction. After the second worship service we had a community egg hunt where 100 children enjoyed searching for eggs, face painting, a moon bounce obstacle course and popcorn.  Through our connection to the Reston Chamber of Commerce, we received an invitation to participate in the Police/Fire Fighter games happening in Reston in June. We hope to serve in many different capacities during these free events so that we can connect with the large numbers of persons in attendance.  We are supporting a young woman and her children through our work with the Cornerstones Rapid Rehousing Program. Floris generously donated additional funds to help this family purchase home essentials as we helped relocate them into their transitional housing. The Rapid Rehousing Program has been a great first outreach program around which Restoration has rallied.  We launched a new long-term life group at Restoration. We will continue our Wednesday evening group that meets at La Madeleine in hopes that by meeting in a public place, new people might feel encouraged to join us.

Hutchison Afterschool Programs  A tentative timeline for beginning afterschool programs has been developed by key leaders and volunteers. Afterschool programs are slated to begin in October 2015.  Meetings with the development team in April, May and June will focus on developing a proposal process, outcomes and resource sustainability. Young Adult Initiative  Approximately 40 young adults participated in the March dinner for young adults. 7

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Pam Piester and Jake McGlothin are registered for The Fellows Initiative Annual Conference in late April to learn more about this exciting program that reaches young adults. Additional dinners for young adults are scheduled for April, May and June.

OPERATIONS/ADMINISTRATION  As we worked through the bond release in 2014, VDOT surprised us near the end of the year with the requirement of a guardrail installation along the entrance lane into the property. The guardrail was recently installed and the VDOT punch list is complete. We currently await the completion of both the VDOT and Fairfax County final inspections in hopes of obtaining the bond release on the property in the near future.  Plans and specifications for the Bennett Rill Memorial Basketball Court are being finalized and should be ready by the end of April. The hope is to have the court completed by early June. The court will be located at the bottom of the hill on the north side of the building.

90-Day Program/Events Outlook May        

Saturday Evening Confirmation Service: May 2, 5 p.m. Sunday Confirmation Services: May 3, all services Kid’s Kingdom-Kid’s Night Out: May 8, 5 p.m. West Liberty College Concert (Scott Glysson, Director): May 12, 7:30 p.m. Coffee with the Pastors: May 13, 7 p.m. UMVIM Training/Recertification: May 16, 9 a.m. Young Adult Dinner: May 29, 6:30 p.m. FISH Celebration: May 31, 12:30 p.m.

June   

Latino Ministry Praise Group: June 13, 6:30 p.m. Young Adult Dinner: June 19, 6:30 p.m. Vacation Bible School: June 22-26, 1-4 p.m.

July     

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Camp Hutchison: July 13-31 Sacred Threads Exhibition: July 8-26 Kids Kingdom Kids Night Out: July 10, 5 p.m. Latino Ministry Praise Group: July 11, 6:30 p.m. Summer Kids Quest: July 13, 21 and 29, 8:45 a.m.