May 2015


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FLORIS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH PREPARED FOR: Church Council PREPARED BY: Executive Director DATE: 05/14/15 MAY 2015 COUNCIL REPORT

MEMBERSHIP & ATTENDANCE Worship attendance for the year remains strong and is increased by 102 persons year-to-date compared to last year. Holy Week and Easter were a great celebration this year with the increased number of persons who joined us for worship. The chart below shows the new services we added in the past year and the effect this had on worship attendance.

HOLY WEEK AND EASTER ATTENDANCE PREVIOUS YEAR(S) COMPARISON SERVICE Holy Thursday Holy Thursday Live Stream Good Friday Afternoon Good Friday Evening Good Friday Livestream

2015 466

Easter Eve Sunrise 8:00 9:15 11:00 5:00 Latino Restoration 9:15 Restoration 10:00 Registered Livestream

266 120 310 728 1051 126

TOTAL:

4366

1

57 123 712 96

2014 425

2013 378

2012 363

649

622

643

228 102 479 788 1,037 146 74

370 120 435 679 922 223 71

189 111 438 873 911 188 72

3928

3820

3788

58 131 165

MEMBERSHIP AND ATTENDANCE STATISTICS APRIL APRIL 2015 2014 Weekly Worship 1629 1558 Attendance (APR average) New Members YTD New Members (through APR) First Time Guests UNIQUE Attenders YTD Average Weekly Worship Attendance (through APR)

31 79

67 114

37

36

2675

2549

1436

1334

KEY ACTIVITIES & EVENTS BY MINISTRY AREA Worship Ministries  We are in the process of hiring a Contemporary Worship Leader. We have three excellent candidates and hope to have a final decision by May 18.  Tom, Tim and Barbara are working on finalizing a sermon series schedule for the next 12 months.  Our A/V team had an in-house workshop with a professional sound person to work on improving the quality of our sound both during the service and on livestream.  The Worship team and Children’s Ministries are working collaboratively to create a summer series that includes children in worship during the month of July.  One octave of our bells was refurbished this month. This is part of regular maintenance and preserves the quality of the bells.

Grow Ministries April marked a winding down from Easter, preparations for the end of the school year and preparations for the 2015-16 kick-off of another programmatic year of discipleship, education, serving and connection opportunities within Grow Ministries. Recruitment is a major focus for the entire ministry area.

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Floris UMC Preschool April was a month filled with planning for the return of teachers in the fall. Currently, all positions but one are filled. Debbie Lane will be retiring from our school after many years of service. Additionally, we have an administrative position open and a review of the current position description will be completed prior to posting. Strategic changes in structure and operational decision-making were under consideration in April and planning began for the transition from a “board” structure to a “PTA” structure.   



Mother’s Day Teas were celebrated during the week before Mother’s Day and the children enjoyed over 95% participation from their mothers and one father. Book Fair event planning was in full gear. The Book Fair is a major fund raising event for the Preschool. The event will take place the week of May 4-8. End of the year programing was in the final stages of planning: o Bridging Program: Friday, May 22, 9:30 a.m. in the Sanctuary. All 4 year-olds will be “bridging” to Kindergarten. o School Wide Family Picnic at Frying Pan Park: Friday, May 22, 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. All families are invited to bring a picnic lunch and enjoy fun and games with Peter McCrory, the One-Man-Band. First ever Preschool summer camps will be held June 1-5 and June 8-12.

Children’s Ministries In April our focus in Kid Nation was the resurrection. Planning for the 2015-16 school year started with the early recruitment of returning teachers and SIMs from our current rosters. Recruitment Sunday is set for Sunday, May 17, in the Gathering Space. 

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In April our monthly theme for Kid Nation was finishing “The Easter Story.” We learned about Jesus revealing himself to the disciples on the road to Emmaus as well as Paul’s conversion. We also talked about the incredible “soaring” feeling we have when we truly believe and trust in Jesus. Students decorated kites, which are hanging in the second floor hallway. Our monthly Kid Nation theme for May will be “Miracles,” and we will be talking about some of the miracles Jesus performed, including the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus turning water into wine, Jesus walks on water and the large catch of fish. Our 5th grade F.I.S.H. (Fifth In Service for Him) event in April was our Movie Night and Parent Meeting. Fifth graders watched the movie The Perfect Game while parents met with Navarone Frank, our Middle School Director, and learned about writing a blessing for their child. On April 26 we held our Spring Art Day. Students in grades K-5 learned about art related to spring themes. The children explored collages, painting and 3-D art and had a great time producing some incredible works of art. In looking ahead, May 31 will be our last day of Kid Nation for the school year. Beginning June 7, we will move to a large group format. Preschool students will continue to meet on the first floor in self-contained classrooms with students in grades K-1 meeting in rooms 223-224 and students in grades 3-5 meeting in the Hangar. Our Vacation Bible School (VBS) will be held June 22-26. We are expecting almost 350 children, supported by 75 volunteers, who will be learning about Everest and the power God has to heal, comfort, provide, forgive and love us forever. The Children’s Ministries summer intern, Sarah Heier, starts May 18.

Student Ministries Completion of confirmation and transitioning our rising 8th graders from CrossRoads to KREW was a major focus for the month of April. Additionally, the students are fully immersed in the Feed A Child campaign, which is a student led initiative designed to raise funds and awareness for Helping Children Worldwide (HCW). Middle School:  The 2015 Confirmation program completed its penultimate component with its second retreat at Manidokan Camp and Retreat Center in Knoxville, MD. The students spent the weekend processing all they had learned over the last four months as well as using the time to deepen the bonds they had formed since starting together in January.  Sunday night programming continued to promote adult leadership as our adult volunteers shared their gifts and insights with our students by leading our core evening messages.  Middle school students kicked off their portion of the Feed A Child campaign by starting Penny Wars. This initiative is designed to have the students engage in the Feed A Child campaign by collecting loose change while competing as one grade against the other. High School:  On April 12 our high school students kicked off the 2015 Feed A Child Fundraising Campaign to raise money to help support HCW. Students will be sponsoring various events throughout the community over the next month. More than $800 has already been raised through bake sales and donations. There will also be restaurant nights at local eateries such as Chipotle and Silver Diner. The final event of the campaign will be a talent show featuring musicians, drama, an a capella group and more.  Both middle school and high school small groups started a new Bible study series focusing on important figures of the Bible. The series will run through the end of the program year on June 14. The focus is to highlight the feats and challenges of critical biblical figures while exploring how our students would react in these same scenarios.  High school students participating in KREW are excited to welcome our newly confirmed 8th grade students to the Sunday night program on May 17. The 8th grade students will have the opportunity to attend KREW for the remainder of the school year and will look forward to returning to the KREW program in the fall.

Adult Ministries The focus for Adult Ministries in April was the post Easter Lenten leader survey, which was completed and the results currently being compiled. Additionally, the focus is now on curriculum development for new groups in the fall. The idea is to combine the best of Alpha with Making Sense of the Bible and offer a four week complete Bible overview for persons who believe they “don’t know enough” to join a small group or Bible study. The program will feature two weeks in the Hebrew Bible and two weeks in the New Testament. 

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We hosted the first Parenting with Heart Seminar/Workshop on April 11. Thirty persons attended six different workshops over the course of the day. Feedback was very positive and we are developing a once every other month evening program that will cover subjects such as Talking to Your Kids About Sex, Punishment vs. Discipline, Sibling Rivalry and How to Create Calm.



We have begun to review sexual education curriculum and will be working with Rev. Rob Vaughn from Community of Faith UMC to offer one comprehensive program designed for grades 5-7 and another program for grades 7-12. We are looking to combine a student and adult focus on social justice issues related to the issue of sex trafficking of minors.

Serve Ministries  The Giving Circle of Hope held their annual Empty Bowls fundraising event to benefit Food for Others. A record $36,000 was raised to benefit one of Northern Virginia’s largest food banks.  Floris’ annual participation in National Rebuilding Together Day occurred in late April, with nearly 40 volunteers working on two homes in Chantilly.  Floris has accepted $2,800 in donations on behalf of UMCOR for earthquake relief in Nepal.  Upcoming ministries and programs for Serve Ministries: o Sandy and Cuba Missions o Camp Hutchison o Hutchison Book Drive o ESOL and PALS Year-End Celebrations Serve Ministries by the Numbers – April: Ministry Activity

Dates

Volunteers

Volunteer Hours

People Served

Grace Ministries

4/3 & 4

48

148.00

512

Embry Rucker

4/18 & 25

10

30.00

150

FACETS

4/7

10

55.00

80

SOME

4/18

7

28.00

315

ESL

4/7, 14, 21 & 28

20

155.50

140

Hutchison PALS

APRIL DAILY

35

109.00

70

Rebuilding Together

4/25

38

304.00

168

829.50

Totals

1267

Connections Ministries  At the end of April, the Events and Connections Coordinator took over all duties associated with shuttle bus driver coordination and recruited a new volunteer greeter coordinator for the 9:15 a.m. service.  We began planning for the remainder of special events in 2015, including the church picnic and Trunk-or-Treat. We are working on a new event for late August, Food Truck Sunday.  We are currently updating the guest communications process. Multiple meetings have been held with communications staff to update letters, gifts and other correspondence with guests that visit Floris.

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Upcoming programs and events for Connections Ministries: o Coffee with the Pastors o Food Truck Sunday

Diversity Ministry  This year, for the first time ever, Floris offered a Good Friday afternoon service. The service was well attended by 123 persons. It was a two-hour service during which seven different speakers reflected on the last seven words Christ spoke on the cross. South Asian young adults led the worship and music and songs were sung in both Hindi and English.  Diversity Ministry arranged a lecture on the similarities and differences between Christianity and other religions, such as Islam and Hinduism. This event was advertised through word of mouth and flyer distribution. About 80 persons attended the event and many of them were new to Floris. Nadeem Khokhar is working on follow-up connections with those that attended.  One of Nadeem’s goals for Diversity Ministry is to start a monthly worship service for South Asians in the Floris community. The worship service will be followed by a potluck dinner. The goal is to provide opportunities for existing members to invite their friends and neighbors for fellowship. The first worship service will be on Saturday May 16 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. We hope to offer families opportunities to host these services in their homes to connect with more people who are invited by the host families.  Nadeem has started home visits by the pastor, which are significant in the South Asian culture. The goal is for these visits to help Nadeem connect with people on a more personal level so that they may feel more connected with the pastor and the church. Communications Ministry Herndon Campus  The website had 9,032 site visits this month. The top ten pages include: Livestream, Worship Service Times, Search, Meet the Staff, Current Series, Media Library, My Floris, Preschool (About Us) and Upcoming Events.  Facebook engagement was high this month with eight posts reaching more than 1,000 people– two more than last month. Four of the posts were related to the Imagine No Malaria initiative and the lemonade stands, two were related to Holy Week/Easter, one was a post calling for folks to pray along with the children of the CRC (the CRC held a service the day before the children returned to school) and one was the sermon the week after Easter.  Seventeen families (28 students) accepted the challenge to host a lemonade stand on World Malaria Day. These students, along with five families from Restoration, raised $2,080 for the Imagine No Malaria initiative.  Social Media stats: Facebook - 1,697 likes, Twitter - 549 followers, Instagram - 146 followers. We have been more intentional about driving traffic from social media to the website. Below is the site traffic for the first quarter: From Facebook From Twitter

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2015 308 47

2014 213 22

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We did not promote livestream for Holy Week however, livestream registered attendance was still significant. Attendance for Holy Thursday was 57, for Good Friday it was 96 and for Easter it was 165. Coffee with the Pastor registration is now online. This allows us to collect better data on those interested in joining Floris. Below is the answer to the question, “How did you find Floris?” Friend Website Drove by Other

60% 17% 14% 7%

Reston Campus  The Restoration Facebook has 483 followers. The most engaging post this month was a post about World Malaria Day and lemonade stands.  The Restoration website had 513 visits in April. Top pages include Worship & Location, God Won’t Give You More and About Us. Upcoming initiatives  Continue to work on a mobile friendly eNote design that better matches our new website.  Increase Social Media engagement over the summer.  Update the style guide and create a cheat sheet for staff.  Develop guidelines for determining communication priorities. FINANCIAL OPERATIONS April receipts were decreased 6.09% from the same period last year. Year-to-date receipts are decreased 4.12% from last year. The weekly average receipts needed to support the budget are approximately $4,000 higher than actual weekly average receipts through the month of April. This number is declining each month and is projected to be flat to positive in Q4. At 46% of total giving, the online giving percentage is historically high, which becomes significant during the summer months when a decline in revenue tends to track with a decline in worship attendance. The Imagine Campaign building fund is averaging $15,500 in weekly receipts and we are paying down between $50,000 and $80,000 in principal debt on the building each month. The current loan balance is $8,257,000 as compared to $9,440,000 last year at this time. APRIL 2015 FINANCIAL DATA APRIL APRIL 2015 2014 General Fund $315,365 $335,808 Receipts (APR) Building Fund $54,271 $95,090 Receipts (APR) Reserves 1.72 months 2.11 months Indebtedness $8,257,000 $9,440,000 YTD Net ($65,844) $200,328 Income (through APR) 7

IMAGINE CAMPAIGN STRATEGIC INITIATIVES Restoration Church  We were asked by the PTA to provide breakfast and volunteers for teacher appreciation week at Forest Edge. We were able to provide most of the food and volunteers for the breakfast.  We launched an additional life group at Restoration at the end of April. Mary Ann Kral is leading the group which includes new people at Restoration. The Wednesday night group is studying the book of Acts to look at the early church and think about all we can do to reach new people.  We have been granted approval to hold a one-week summer camp at Forest Edge Elementary for the second week in August. We will invite the local students in the community as well as those who are currently attending Restoration.  Tim was asked to do the opening prayer and invocation at the Best of Reston event in April. There were between 800 and 1000 people in attendance and the introduction included an opportunity to talk about Restoration and what it is doing for the community of Reston.  Amy Cox, our worship leader, has started volunteering at the Reston Museum to meet more people in Reston. Additionally, she is working with the Farmer’s Market to see if she can play live music at the market. We have requested a table for one day per month at the market to be present and meet people in the community.  We are working to redesign our Welcome area on Sunday mornings. The new Welcome area will be rolled out on Sunday, June 28, which is an “I love my church day.” The goal of this day is to have each family bring a friend. We are excited to see what this produces.  We recently launched a prayer team with Restoration. We went from having three people praying over prayer requests to thirteen people praying each week. We have also added a feature on the website for people to place prayer requests. Lynn Leggett will be leading this effort.

Hutchison Afterschool Programs  A “Request for Proposal” document and application process is in development.  Meetings with the development team in June and July will focus on refining the proposal process and resource sustainability. Young Adult Initiative  Approximately 58 young adults participated in the April dinner for young adults.  Pam Piester and Jake McGlothin attended the Fellows Initiative Conference in late April. Plans regarding next steps will be available soon.  Additional dinners for young adults are scheduled for May and June.

OPERATIONS/ADMINISTRATION VDOT has completed their inspection and signed off on all inspection list items. Fairfax County has provided a list of additional items that must be completed before the final bond release on the property. The list includes additional clearing of the storm drainage system and the planting of four new trees and the removal of two dead trees at the back of the upper parking lot. The Bennett Rill memorial basketball court is in the final stages of completion and should be ready by Memorial Day weekend. 8

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

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Camp Hutchison: July 13-31 Sacred Threads Exhibition: July 9-26 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. High School Harpers Ferry Outing: July 22

Latino Ministry Praise Group: August 8, 6:30 p.m. High School Outing Nationals Game: August 13 Middle School Splash: August 18 Coffee with the Pastors: August 18, 7 p.m. Help Hungry Kids Packaging Event: August 23, 4 p.m. Food Truck Sunday: August 23, 6:15 p.m. Group Life Kick-Off: August 30, all services