Today at CoFA

I know.  If you are looking at the title to this post you are wondering "what the heck is 'CoFA' "?

The Council of Finance and Administration.

In other words, time in Denver talking about money.  Talking about United Methodist Money. 

The good news.  We had hoped (prayed?) for a revenue for 2009 of about $5.2M for the operation of the HQ for all the United Methodist Churches in Utah and Colorado, and most of them in Wyoming.  The better news.  We got in over $5.6M and close to being able to round up to $5.7M.  AND maybe even better news, we only spent $5.0M instead of $5.2M. 

So what can the bad news be?  I am actually not sure. 

We had dug ourselves a $1M (that is M for MILLION) hole over the last five to six years with spending more than we took in.  Nod if you think that sounds like the Federal Government since say, 1933 or so?  We had lost our line of credit (long story) and we had no where else to go but a more responsible fiscal policy:  cut spending and raise revenue. 

We did both in 2009. 

We targeted spending to be cut from $6.05M to $5.25M and we spent even less than that.  Wow.

We attempted to raise revenue from a previous year of $4.5M to $5.2 and we got even more than that.  Dare I say wow again? 

Wow, wow. 

And we did this in an economic downturn. 

Wow, wow, wow! 

I think part of what happened is that people listened to us in June when we talked, and they said "that makes sense, we can abide by what they are doing" e.g, lowering spending, raising revenue. 

I think another part of it is they, the 270 local United Methodist Churches in Utah, Colorado and most of Wyoming, have trust and faith in our Bishop ... Bishop Elaine.  If optimism is infectious, we catch it from her.  I know I do ...

Is there a third part? 

I don't know .....