Dedicated Funds Letter

 Dear St John Members:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Hope you and yours continue to be safe and healthy during this time.  

At our Council meeting on August 10th, a member sent a letter wanting to know why when there are repairs or projects to be done around the church, why we don’t use funds that are in the Dedicated Funds list to do the projects.  When someone is called home to heaven, family members may decide to give memorial money in their memory and they designate it for a certain project or fund.  We are always going to satisfy their wishes and designate that money for the purpose that they desired and nothing else.  If the church were to spend the money on some repair or project that they want, then people in the future will not be inclined to give memorial money because they will feel that the church is going to use it for whatever they want and not for what they designate it for.  Even if a family were to give memorial money for something that may never develop, the church will still not use it for anything else.   As an example, someone once gave money to start a handbell fund hoping that someday St. John would have a handbell choir.  Some have said we will probably never have a handbell choir, and that may be true but we still are not going to use the money for something else.  If the family who gave the memorial money would come to the Council and tell the Council that they could use the money for something else, then we would do that but that would be the only way it would be used for something else.