My church barely gets by on the contributions of the entire parish.
The pastor and clergy barely make enough money to survive while the church building itself has desperately needed improvement and renovations for the past 10 years at least.
Aside from a new roof, the church needs new floors, a new kitchen, new windows, and new climate control. The roof was the first part of the renovation project announced by the pastor last month. They received a few unexpected large donations from anonymous parishioners, enough to get started on the improvements. When the new roof was completed, they replaced the leaking windows that were starting to rot out from constant rain water. Before putting in a new kitchen in back of the church, they’re going to replace the climate control systems throughout. The first step is getting a new air conditioner for the entire building, which is going to happen after hours sometime next week. Hopefully the new air conditioner will make the indoor air a lot cooler during church services. But unfortunately, our region also gets extremely cold during the autumn and winter seasons. Instead of getting a new fan forced furnace, they’re going to install radiant heated flooring throughout. I can’t wait for the new radiant floors, especially since we’re getting to the end of November and the snow is not far away. Unfortunately, installing the radiant heated flooring is going to take the entire week to finish the project. I fear we’re going to have to skip a week of church service before the floors are finished.