WHAT ARE ‘TIER 1’ AND ‘TIER 2’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS?

PLEASE HELP US WITH AN IMMEDIATE URGENT NEED!

We stand in an IMMEDIATE, URGENT NEED of offerings for our GENERAL FUND!  I know you have heard that before, but it was true before – and it is still true now.

I hope you will bear with me while I explain WHERE WE ARE, WHAT WE NEED, WHY WE NEED IT, and WHAT EACH OF US CAN DO TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS GREAT MISSION ENDEAVOR!

HOW OUR OFFERINGS WORK – WHAT THEY DO

First of all, you know that ALL OF THE COMMITMENTS WE MAKE TO OUR MISSIONARIES COME FROM OUR GENERAL FUND.  We make the same equitable commitments to every one of our 12 missionary families.  Those commitments include the standard disbursements we make to them each month [salary, standard housing and ministry expense allowances, hospitalization premiums, Mission Sheets printing and distribution for their monthly updates and reports], and also the other benefits we provide for them throughout the year when they are due or needed [support services, furlough transportation, children’s education assistance allowances, etc].  All of these disbursements come from your offerings to the General Fund.

The offerings you designate for their special projects and requests are not used for the standard commitments we have made to them.  You have already ‘pre-addressed’ your designated offerings for those specific projects, and we forward them on to the missionaries per your designation.

WHERE GENERAL FUND MONIES COME FROM

Second, we have two sources for GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS.  [1] We have the MONTHLY OFFERINGS YOU GIVE FOR THE GENERAL FUND.  [2] We also use the annual THANKSGIVING OFFERING to make GENERAL FUND disbursements throughout the year.

HOW THESE OFFERINGS ARE ALLOCATED

Now – let me explain again HOW WE DIVIDE THOSE GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS INTO TWO CATEGORIES OR ‘TIERS’ [as we call them].  We have ‘TIER 1’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS and ‘TIER 2’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS.

‘TIER 1’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS [AND SUPPLIES]

We also call these ‘TIER 1’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS by another name.  We call them ‘EMT’ DISBURSEMENTS.  In our common usage, ‘EMT’ stands for ‘Emergency Medical Technician’.  When you need life-saving or life-sustaining services, you call the ‘EMT’.  So, we call the most essential sustaining services we provide for our missionaries ‘Essential Maintenance Transactions’.  These are the monthly transactions that keep our missionaries going…provide for their essential needs to keep them functioning daily on their fields of service.

These TIER 1 [EMT] disbursements are:  [1] salaries:  currently $20,426.00 per month;  [2] standard housing and ministry expenses allowances:  currently $10,950.00 per month;  [3] hospitalization premiums:  currently $11,918.11 per month;  [4] Mission Sheets printing and distribution:  currently $1722.50 per month.  These are the monthly standard disbursements we make to our missionaries FROM THE GENERAL FUND each month just to maintain them and keep them functioning.

‘MONTHLY GENERAL FUND SOLVENCY’

You have frequently heard us appeal for funds to make our MONTHLY GENERAL FUND SOLVENT.  Here’s what we mean by that, and how that works:  the current monthly total for the above EMT disbursements is $45.016.61.  These TIER 1 [EMT] disbursements must be supplied from our monthly GENERAL FUND offerings.  This is what we mean by ‘MONTHLY GENERAL FUND SOLVENCY’.

PLEASE NOTE:  If our monthly GENERAL FUND offerings don’t meet these needs, then we have no other option but to PROPORTIONATELY DEDUCT A PORTION FROM EACH MISSIONARY’S MONTHLY DEPOSIT TO MAKE THESE TIER ONE [EMT] DISBURSEMENTS BALANCE WITH THAT MONTH’S GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS.  We just cannot ask them to add that additional sacrifice to the sacrifices they are already making!

Here’s the exception to that rule:  if some month’s GENERAL FUND offerings EXCEED that month’s ‘EMT’ disbursements, then we carry over that excess, and it will supply that much deficit we may incur in another month.  Our missionaries will receive the benefit of ALL MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS, either in the month they are given, or in another month when they are needed to make up that month’s deficit.

‘TIER 2’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS [AND SUPPLIES]

Now, the other GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS which are not included in the TIER 1 [EMT] are called ‘TIER 2’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS.  We give them also another name.  We call them ‘PRN’ DISBURSEMENTS.  ‘PRN’ is another medical term which means ‘AS NEEDED’.  We make these ‘PRN’ GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS as they are needed throughout the year.

For example:  furlough transportation expenses, children’s education assistance allowances, providing and maintaining a furlough house in Lexington, subsidizing 60% of their personal hospitalization deductible, and all the other support services we provide to take care of their needs.

THESE ‘TIER 2’ [PRN] GENERAL FUND DISBURSEMENTS COME FROM THE THANKSGIVING OFFERING.  When we have a generous Thanksgiving Offering, we can supply these commitments.  If our THANKSGIVING OFFERING does not supply those commitments over the course of the year, then we won’t have the funds to make those disbursements.

WHERE WE ARE

Now, that brings us to WHERE WE ARE right now.  We have just completed the first quarter of 2011.  We have already made some significant disbursements from the Thanksgiving Offering we have given.  We have given $60,000.00 toward our 2010-11 Thanksgiving Offering.   [Just by way of immediate comparison, we gave $92,000.00 for our 2009-10 Thanksgiving Offering.  This year’s offering is obviously 35% less than last year’s.]

So far this year, we have already disbursed $9500.00 toward furlough transportation expenses, and we will disburse more before 2011 is over.  We have disbursed $4000.00 toward our missionaries’ children’s education assistance allowances.  We have disbursed already $2400.00 toward hospitalization personal deductible reimbursements.  Those items alone already total $16,000.00, and there have also been additional monthly ‘PRN’ GENERAL FUND disbursements we have made from the current Thanksgiving Offering.  AT THE CURRENT RATE OF DISBURSEMENT, THE THANKSGIVING OFFERING ‘TIER 2’ SUPPLIES WILL NOT CARRY US THROUGH THE REST OF THE YEAR.  In fact, to be precise, we have already disbursed $25,600.00 of that $60,000.00 Thanksgiving Offering during this first quarter of 2011.  [Last year, our total TIER 2 General Fund disbursements was $87,962.34.]

WHAT WE NEED

[1] We need an IMMEDIATE, URGENT offering from each one of us to AT LEAST replenish these funds we have already disbursed.  We need AT LEAST that much to help us make the remaining funds last through the next three quarters of the year.  And – WE WILL NEED ADDITIONAL OFFERINGS TO SUPPLY THE REMAINING ‘TIER 2’ DISBURSEMENTS UNTIL THE NEXT THANKSGIVING OFFERING.

[2] We need an IMMEDIATE, URGENT increase in our MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS.  Our missionaries’ TIER 1 [ESSENTIAL MAINTENANCE TRANSACTIONS] require consistently-increased MONTHLY GENERAL FUND OFFERINGS to balance these standard monthly disbursements SO WE WON’T HAVE TO MAKE THOSE DEDUCTIONS FROM THEIR MONTHLY DEPOSITS!

WHAT EACH OF US CAN DO

I must thank each one of our Giving Friends for the offerings you have given…and are giving.  YOUR GIVING TO THE CURRENT THANKSGIVING OFFERINGS – AND YOUR MONTHLY OFFERINGS TO THE GENERAL FUND IS WHAT KEEPS US GOING AND SUPPLIES OUR MISSIONARIES’ MINISTRY NEEDS.  We can’t thank each of you enough.  We lay out your offerings each month before God and thank Him for each of you.

But, here’s what EACH ONE OF US CAN DO IMMEDIATELY!  Will you make a commitment right now that beginning this month, YOU WILL GIVE AN ADDITIONAL $10 OFFERING TO THE GENERAL FUND?  I know that many of you are already giving very generously and sacrificially.  We bless God for you.  Will you make a personal $10 increase in your offerings?

IF YOU ARE NOT GIVING A MONTHLY PERSONAL OFFERING TO OUR GENERAL FUND, WILL YOU BEGIN WITH A COMMITMENT OF A MONTHLY $10 PERSONAL OFFERING TO THE GENERAL FUND?

[1] If your church is sending offerings to the BFM GENERAL FUND, you can give it through your church’s offering and ask your church’s treasurer to add it to the existing offering.

[2] You can send it directly to our BFM Treasurer: Pastor George Sledd  |  PO Box 471280  |  Lake Monroe FL 32747-1280.

[3] You can go to our website www.baptistfaithmissions.org and contribute via check.

You will not find more faithful, productive, and effective missionaries than these 12 missionary families whose financial support are administered through Baptist Faith Missions.  EACH OF OUR MISSIONARIES SERVES BY THE AUTHORITY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE SENDING CHURCHES – and they are establishing Baptist churches among the nations of the world.

• GIVE in obedience to Jesus Christ to ‘GO INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE’.  Matthew 24.14  |  2 Corinthians 9.13

• GIVE to supply our missionaries’ ministry needs.  2 Corinthians 9.12

• GIVE to increase many more thanks to be given to God.  2 Corinthians 9.15

• GIVE for the salvation of many more.  Philippians 4.17  |  Romans 15.15-24

• GIVE because you love Jesus Christ.  2 Corinthians 8.8, 24

• GIVE TO THE GLORY OF GOD.  2 Corinthians 9.13

1 Samuel 25.17:  Now, therefore, KNOW and CONSIDER WHAT YOU WILL DO…


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