August 2015

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FLORIS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH PREPARED FOR: Church Council PREPARED BY: Executive Director DATE: 08/21/15 AUGUST 2015 COUNCIL REPORT

MEMBERSHIP & ATTENDANCE In the month of July, summer worship attendance decreased by 22 persons compared to last year. Yearto-date worship attendance has increased by 53 persons over last year.

Sunday 07/05/15 07/12/15 07/19/15 07/26/15 08/02/15 08/09/15 08/16/15

WORSHIP ATTENDANCE COMPARISON Change from Prior Year Comment +138 4th of July weekend -77 -90 -59 +65 +59 +30

MEMBERSHIP AND ATTENDANCE STATISTICS JULY JULY 2015 2014 Weekly Worship 1084 1106 Attendance (JULY average) New Members YTD New Members (through JULY) First Time Guests UNIQUE Attenders YTD Average Weekly Worship Attendance (through JULY)

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5 157

2 151

21

31

1865

1782

1311

1258

KEY ACTIVITIES & EVENTS BY MINISTRY AREA Worship Ministries  The worship team is evaluating the 9:15 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday services to find new and fresh ways to offer the best possible worship experience at these times.  We continue to work toward completion of the 2015 sermon schedule and are working on the 2016 schedule as well.  Our A/V Technical Director, Alexis Doty, has resigned. After much discernment, Alexis decided this job required more time than she was able to give. She will continue to work as a volunteer in the A/V area and is excited to have found a church home for her family. Alexis will work fulltime through the end of August and is willing to work on a part-time basis after that, if needed. We are in the process of searching for her replacement. Charlie Kendall, Mike Rhodes and Andy Smith are assisting us in our search.  Worship and Children’s Ministries collaborated on worship programming for children who were present in worship during the month of July when Sunday school programming was not offered. We are currently evaluating the month from both Worship and Children’s Ministry perspectives.  We are in the midst of planning for the Advent and Christmas season.  We continue to work on increasing diversity in all aspects of worship.

Grow Ministries During the month of July, planning took center stage in most of the Grow ministry areas, with a focus on program development and curriculum planning for the fall launch. Floris Preschool While the Preschool was closed during the month of July, personnel and program planning continued during the month. 

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Kelly Krow, a long time teacher in the Preschool, was offered and accepted the position of Administrative Assistant, filling the void left by Laura Kiel’s departure in May. Kelly brings a wealth of computer and data skills to the position, as well as great cultural understanding of the philosophy and operation of the Floris Preschool. The Preschool is attracting more non-English speaking children than ever, and the number is increasing each year. Initial contacts were made with the Northern Virginia ESOL program coordinator for Fairfax County. We will be working with both Diversity and Serve Ministry areas to create an ESL offering for the parents of some of our preschool children. Based on the recommendation of the coordinator, we will first target the parents with the ESOL program as we concurrently begin to develop an in-house program for the preschoolers.

Children’s Ministries During the month of July, we gave our teachers and staff a break and invited the children to worship with their families. We spent our time on our Summer Kid’s Quest program and planning for the upcoming September Kid Nation fall kick-off, which includes an exciting new curriculum for the children in Sunday school.

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In July we held three sessions of Summer Kid’s Quest. Our three themes were Candy Land, Under the Sea and Bugs Galore! Over twenty children grades K-5 attended each session and had fun with science, exploration, crafts and snacks. Children’s Ministries provided Activity Guides for the summer sermon series The Game of Life. Each week during the services students enjoyed puzzles, fun facts and Bible games that related to the games discussed in the sermons. In August we will be painting one of the big rooms in the nursery before fall kick-off to freshen up the room and make it more appealing to both children and their parents. Colored carpet squares will be placed on one of the walls to help protect the wall and give children a kinesthetic material to enjoy. We will transform one of the hallways on the second floor into Main Street USA with painted shops, stores, restaurants and more. This hallway theme will connect with our Route 66 Curriculum theme for the 2015-2016 school year. This is an exciting new curriculum that we hope will deeply engage both the children and their parents. Upcoming events for Children’s Ministries include: o Kid Nation Volunteer Training: August 23 o Kid Nation fall kick-off: September 13 o FISH (Fifth In Service for Him) Ice Cream Social/Parent Meeting: September 20 o MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) begins: September 21 o Bible Sunday and Bible Blast for 3rd graders: September 27

Student Ministries Student Ministries was very busy during the month of July with coordinating large numbers of students and parent volunteers who participated in summer mission trips. The September launch of new programing for the school year remains a strategic initiative for August.  

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Thirteen Rising 8th grade students and their leaders held a lock-in at Floris. This fellowship event for students helped strengthen relationships between students and between the students and their leaders. In early July, Floris sent off its first student mission team to Boston. Twenty-four high school students and seven leaders embarked on a journey of inner-city mission. Team members experienced a day in the life of a person affected by homelessness, served in food banks and soup kitchens, participated in summer enrichment programs and experienced different aspects of the rich history of the city. Additionally in July, a team of 35 students and 6 leaders traveled to Alajuela, Costa Rica to work on the construction of a concrete wall around the local Methodist Church and the renovation of benches for the Methodist Retreat Center. The restoration of these benches inspired the bishop so much that he immediately had the chapel floor renovated as well. Through their efforts in Vacation Bible School, students and leaders became relational ministers to local children. The team also participated in a daily prayer walk during which the team prayed in the homes of the local village people and distributed rice and beans.

Adult Ministries Administrative support for the ministry was a major focus in July. Room reservations, leader recruitment and curriculum review and development were the main activities.  3

Familiarity with the Bible and time constraints are two of the top reasons we often hear as challenges to joining a small group. With these factors in mind, we worked with Tom Berlin to

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offer “The Bible in 4 Hours,” a two-part series specifically geared to persons who have not participated in a small group. We will be encouraging sign-ups for ALPHA and Disciple 1 at the two sessions. We have identified over 300 adults who have participated in service activities at Floris but have not yet joined a small group. We believe it is a strategic opportunity to invite these persons to the Bible overview in 4 hours and will send each person an online invitation to attend the sessions. We began planning for our Adult Leader training to take place in August, as well as the group kick-off activities. We finalized plans to have Dr. Kendall Soulen reprise his marriage talk from the Virginia Annual Conference in June. Dr. Soulen will visit Floris in September and speak on the purpose, history and meaning of marriage.

Serve Ministries  Camp Hutchison Discovery was held in the afternoons over a three-week period at Hutchison Elementary School. More than 50 volunteers served 104 students by teaching them about science and character education.  Floris has partnered with civic leaders and other faith communities in Herndon and Reston to hold a convocation on school partnerships in October. Floris staff members are currently meeting with interested clergy and principals of local schools.  These are upcoming ministries and programs for Serve Ministries: o Help Hungry Kids Packaging Event o ESL Ministry o Hutchison PALS Serve Ministries by the Numbers - July: Ministry Activity

Dates

Volunteers

Volunteer Hours

People Served

Grace Ministries

7/3 & 4

41

123.00

356

FACETS

7/7

13

50.50

70

Embry Rucker

7/18 & 25

6

21.00

115

SOME

7/18

6

24.00

300

CAMP HUTCHISON

7/13-31 weekdays

54

1511.00

104

120

1729.50

945

Totals

Connections Ministries  Connections Ministries is utilizing member data from FellowshipOne for a new volunteer recruitment strategy. This strategy includes targeted volunteer recruitment, newly written materials and a requested minimum volunteer commitment. In the area of Sunday hospitality, this strategy yielded four new ushers and three new greeters. For events, the same strategy 4

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resulted in the launch of a specialized group of volunteers and connectional floaters to act as hospitality liaisons at church wide events. Multiple meetings have been held with the pastors and the communications team to update the objective, presentation and written materials used at Coffee with the Pastors (CWP). The focus of this initiative is to connect new persons into Floris community life shortly after attending CWP. Connections is working on the following upcoming events: o Coffee with the Pastors o Food Truck Sunday o Floris Annual Church Picnic o Trunk-Or-Treat

Communications Ministry Herndon Campus  The website had an average of 3,200 hits in July. The top viewed pages in July included the current sermon series, live stream, service times, staff directory, calendar, preschool, locations (how you switch to the Restoration website), My Floris and the media library.  Eight new Facebook posts reached over 1,000 persons each.  Tom Berlin’s thoughts on social media reaction to recent events such as the shooting in Charleston had 32 shares, 120 likes and 10 comments reaching 7,200 people.  Our summer Facebook engagement campaign continued in July. We boosted three posts, one reached almost 1,400, and two posts engaged more than 3,000 persons.  Twitter continues to capture the attention of our younger members. Two of the most clicked tweets were blog posts: “A touching tribute to Bennett Rill and his new basketball court,” and “I got to know the staff, these people I looked up to, as co-workers, and saw them on a different level.”  A redesigned, mobile friendly eNote was released on July 23. We have already seen increases in the open rate, with 44% the first week and 50% the second week.  Blog readership saw the highest readership of the year in July with 3,670 readers, mostly due to the Costa Rica mission trip blogs.  The design for the “New Movers” mailer was finalized this month. Beginning in mid-August, families who have recently moved into the 20171 zip code area will receive these invitations to come check out Floris.  The bulletin was redesigned into a slightly smaller format in an effort to save on waste, reduce printing costs and engage readership.  The design of a Floris UMC app is complete and in the test phase. We hope to release it by midSeptember.  Current social media stats: o Facebook: 1,731 likes o Twitter: 575 followers o Instagram: 166 followers Reston Campus  The Restoration Facebook has 506 followers. The most engaging post was a picture of Restoration Ralph at Royals Stadium, reaching 647 persons.  The Restoration website had 363 visits in July. Summer Camp and The Game of Life were the top viewed pages. 5

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With 12 communication projects lined up, summer has been a very busy season at Restoration.

Upcoming Initiatives  Support fall ramp-up of activity at both campuses  “I Love My Church” Sunday at Floris  The fall annual stewardship campaign FINANCIAL OPERATIONS July receipts were decreased 10.50% from the same period last year. Year-to-date receipts are decreased 3.34% from last year. Cash reserves, not including designated fund reserves, fluctuate on a weekly basis but are holding steady around 1.5 months of operating expense reserve. The month of July has historically been the fourth best receipts month of the year, but this year it was the second worst month of the year for receipts. Online giving is holding steady at 46%, which typically normalizes summer giving patterns. July worship attendance was decreased slightly compared to last year, but this does not explain the significant deviation in the historical receipts pattern. Receipts rebounded in early August and are on track with two weeks remaining in the month. An additional $80,000 in principal debt reduction occurred in the first week of August and lowered the total building debt to $7,998,000. The mid-year budget reforecast was completed in late June, and the total projected expense budget for 2015 decreased by $15,938 to $3,959,776. We are beginning to work on the fall stewardship campaign, which will begin in October. Our general operating fund stewardship goal for 2016 is $4,000,000. Through July 31, we have posted a net loss of $109,249 for the year. The three models for receipts projections we use each year are still in alignment, indicating receipts for the year will be in the $3,850,000-$3,900,000 range. Utilizing historical data on budget vs. actual expenses for the year, we are currently projecting a $40-45K net loss for the year. Our net income/loss projections for the year begin to take shape in early August and will become predictably more reliable in the next two months. We have completed a three-year Profit and Loss Projection model that will initiate a series of financial discussions by both the Finance Committee and the Church Council beginning in late August.

JULY 2015 FINANCIAL DATA JULY JULY 2015 2014 General Fund $274,355 $306,530 Receipts (JULY) Building Fund $83,053 $253,211 Receipts (JULY) Reserves 1.58 months 1.65 months Indebtedness $8,078,000 $9,440,000 YTD Net ($109,249) $201,002 Income (through JULY)

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IMAGINE CAMPAIGN STRATEGIC INITIATIVE UPDATE Restoration Church  We assisted with the lunch feeding program at Cedar Ridge Community Center during the month of July.  For the coming school year, Forest Edge Elementary was assigned a new principal, Leona SmithVance, and a new assistant principal, Rochelle Proctor (previously at Hutchison Elementary). Tim has already met with the principal several times, and it appears that she is excited to have Restoration meeting at the school and involved in volunteering with school events and activities.  We had a great scavenger hunt throughout Reston called Locate Reston. This was not only a great opportunity for Restoration folks to learn more about Reston, but it was also a great opportunity for people in the community to meet people from Restoration.  We participated in the summer school program at Forest Edge by reading with the kindergarten students.  We are currently engaged in conversations with Eve Thompson (owner of the Lake Anne Coffee House) about office/group space above the coffee house. Eve has verbally committed to offer this space to Restoration at a very low monthly cost, while reimbursing the church for that cost each month. This will provide Restoration a physical address in Reston.  Even with lower summer attendance patterns, Restoration had over 30 new persons attend during the month of July. Hutchison After-school Programs  Due to recent changes in the Hutchison Elementary School administration, planning for afterschool programs at Hutchison have been put on hold until we can gain greater clarity and understanding around the new administration’s desire for these programs in the future. Young Adult Initiative  The Young Adult dinner was held on July 31 with 32 participants. The monthly dinners will experience a two to three month hiatus as summer events, such as Food Truck Sunday, aim to involve regularly attending young adults in a volunteer capacity.

OPERATIONS/ADMINISTRATION Bond Release Update All final bond release inspections are complete and approved. The final paperwork to release the bond will be submitted in the next 30 days. Once we have the bond release, we will send the original Letter of Credit (LOC) filed with Fairfax County on behalf of Cardinal Bank (the lienholder on our property) to the bank for release of the LOC. The release of the LOC with Cardinal Bank will result in a $9,000 annual savings for the church. Reserves Study update   7

We selected the firm of Design Management Associates from Richmond, Virginia, to conduct the reserves study. The Trustees, Finance Chair and Director of Facilities had an initial meeting with the vendor that

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concluded with a building walkthrough. The next step is for Floris to provide the vendor with an inventory of assets to be included in the reserves study. The completion goal for this task is four to six weeks.

Staffing Update  

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Megan Gumabay joined us full-time in July as the new Contemporary Worship Leader responsible for the 9:15 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday services, as well as all other contemporary music needs. Sydney Morgan, who has been serving in Communications Ministries in an interim capacity for several months, started a fulltime position as Communications Coordinator on August 19. Among other things, Sydney will assume responsibility for the Floris social media strategy currently managed by Susan Ward. We have an open position on staff for a part-time Graphics Design Specialist. This position will replace the graphics duties and responsibilities held by Susan Ward upon her departure sometime in the fall. We have an opening for the replacement of the A/V Technical Director position that will be vacated by Alexis Doty in late August.

90-Day Program/Events Outlook September  The Bible in 4 Hours with Tom Berlin: August 25 and September 2, 7-9 p.m.  Group Life Kick-Off: September 6, all services  Kids Kingdom-Kids Night Out: September 11, 5 p.m.  Latino Ministry Praise Group: September 12, 6:30 p.m.  South Asian Get Together: September 12, 7 p.m.  Church Picnic: September 13, 12 p.m.  Boundaries Workshop: September 17, 7 p.m.  Middle School Road Rules: September 18, 6 p.m.  FISH Ice Cream Social: September 20  Marriage in the Methodist Church: September 23, 7 p.m.  Older Adult Seminar: September 24, 6:30 p.m.  High School Outing to Georgetown: September 26  Third Grade Bible Sunday and Bible Blast: September 27, morning services October  Wesley Speaker-Dr. Southi Clark: October 3, 7 p.m.  South Asian Get Together: October 10, 7 p.m.  Wesley Speaker Event-Paul’s Travels: October 13, 7 p.m.  Coffee with the Pastors: October 14, 7 p.m.  FISH Bunco Night: October 16, 6:30 p.m.  Clean Out Challenge: October 17, 1-4 p.m.  Just Ask-Human Trafficking Speaker: October 18, 7 p.m.  Trunk-or-Treat: October 31, 6:30 p.m. 8

November  FISH Scavenger Hunt: November 6, 6:30 p.m.  Mom2Mom-Father/Daughter Dance: November 7, 7 p.m.  Kid’s Kingdom-Kid’s Night Out: November 13, 5 p.m.  Latino Ministry Praise Group: November 14, 6:30 p.m.  South Asian Get Together: November 14, 7 p.m.  Advent Giving: November 15 and November 22, all services  Student Mission Trip Registration Opens: November 17, 12 p.m.  Parenting the Gifted Child: November 18, 7 p.m.  Annual Charge Conference: November 19, 7 p.m.  Advent Family Event: November 29  Celebrate the Season: November 29

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