The audit of the Minnesota Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Minnesota Conference Association of Seventh-day Adventists, Inc. for December 31, 2008

was recently completed. We are pleased to report that we received an unqualified opinion from the General Conference Auditing Service and that our financial statements, “present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of [the conference].”

A brief summary of our operating fund balance sheet shows that we have current assets of $4,162,138; current liabilities of $945,230; and total net assets of $3,216,908. In that, raw numbers in and of themselves do not show the true picture without comparing them to other numbers, a graph of the change in net assets from 2007 to 2008 is included (graph 1).

 

 

The administration and executive committee have been intentionally spending down some of our net assets that were allocated in previous years for specific projects. A couple of examples include our Renew Community Church plant project in Shakopee, and our Hmong Ministries project in St. Paul. Thus, the net assets in 2008 were down $264,804.
 

Looking at our income and expense pictures: total unrestricted revenues were $7,272,346. total expenses were $7,522,628. This shows a net decrease from income and expense operations of $250,282 (graph 2 & 3).

 

 

 

 

The intentional spend down for the Renew and Hmong projects accounted for $125,000 of the decrease. In addition, we spent $16,000 on our triennial constituency session. The other major area of challenge was in our non-tithe fund. Our non-tithe funds decreased by $148,000 during the year. This doesn’t sound good, but it actually beat our budgeted loss by $58,000. The challenge is that our only sources of non- tithe income are donations, unrestricted offerings, interest income, and matured wills and trusts (on which we do not budget). Our non-tithe fund supports North Star Camp operations, church school and academy operations, trust services and administrative legal expenses, and our parsonages around the state. We are actively taking steps to move the non-tithe fund toward a balance of zero. Your generosity in remembering the conference’s needs in giving offering and in leaving unrestricted wills and trusts to the conference does help us balance this side of the operation.

There are a couple of highlights that we would like to point out. First, our Minnesota Advance offerings increased by 45 percent during 2008. After flat lining for eight straight years at around $130,000, The Minnesota Advance offerings increased to almost $190,000 in 2008 (graph 4). 

 

 

As a reminder, Minnesota Advance is used for evangelism, academies, church schools, North Star Camp, communications, church buildings, Maplewood Academy buildings - in that order. We would also like to remind you of our goal – that everyone give 1 percent of their increase to Minnesota Advance. When that happens we will have $620,000 for Minnesota Advance and all of those ministries listed above will benefit tremendously.
 

A second area of excitement is in evangelism. Our financial report shows that 37 of our churches in Minnesota received some level of assistance with funding for evangelism efforts during 2008. While the total amount spent for evangelism was down somewhat, the number of participating churches increased.

Most of all, we would like to praise the Lord and thank you for your faithfulness and generosity. Even during a year when economic uncertainty swept across our country, the members of the Minnesota Conference increased their giving! In addition to the increase in Minnesota Advance, our tithe increased by 3.52 percent. So, thank you, and praise God from whom all blessings flow!
 

Finally, as always, our doors and books are open if you would like more information.