God's Unbreakable Promises Set Our Mission Course
December 15, 2022
The theme for the recent NWBC Annual Meeting was Promise. Our world is littered by broken promises, but praise God our faith is founded on His unbreakable promises.
The NWBC is a missions organization. It exists to facilitate missions for cooperating churches. Key to our work is encouraging and supporting pastors. 2022 saw strong involvement from pastors in Shepherd to Shepherd meetings, the Oasis Retreat, and Church Planter Retreats. Many also benefited from personalized counsel and soul care. Healthy churches have healthy pastors and serving pastors is key to our mission.
Worshiping in six different languages, 21 new churches began their work since November 2021. Four worship in English, 11 in Spanish, 2 in Vietnamese, and 1 each in Tagalog, Korean, and Marshallese. From 2103 to the present we have had 188 new church starts in 18 different languages.
New NWBC Office Building Nearing Completion
In August 2021 we completed the sale of our previous 36,000 square foot office building for $9,138,000, netting $8,424,924 after commissions, taxes and rent of temporary offices. The new 11,800 square foot office building is nearing completion, with a mid-December target date, at a cost of $5,504,476. This new building will greatly reduce the cost of maintenance and operations, while housing NWBC, NWBF, and Gateway Seminary offices. This transition to a smaller facility also enables Northwest Baptists to invest approximately $2.9 million for ministry in the Northwest
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NWBC 2022 and 2023 Ministry Budgets
By the grace of God, the NWBC entered 2022 in a strong financial position, and we will end the year strong, with several months of cash reserves in our budget account. Over the past decade our churches have increased Cooperative Program and Northwest Missions giving, while we have managed over $2,000,000 in reductions from our national SBC partners NAMB and Lifeway. These reductions have been painful, but we have continued to grow the number of churches cooperating with the NWBC, provide evangelism resources to every church that requests them, and start a record number of churches. Remarkably, our cash reserves have also grown, and we have not had to lay off one staff member in all these years. We have utilized planned retirements to reduce fulltime staff to match income.
The 2023 budget reflects an increase in Cooperative Program and Mission Northwest giving of $90,000, for a total of $2,990,000. For the first time, the 2023 ministry budget includes a line item for the giving of churches that designate to the NWBC, and possibly to some entities of the SBC, rather than give undesignated through the Cooperative Program. We have an increasing number of churches that designate their mission support, and we are reflecting that in the budget.
Voluntary networks like the NWBC rely on trust and goodwill to advance our mission. We value your participation in the work of our mission network because your church is the body of Christ. Every church matters and every person matters, to the glory of God. It is a good day to serve the Lord in the Northwest!