“Lighting the Way to Christ; Living our lives through Stewardship”
As part of our strategi plan efforts, here is a snapshot of our stewardship efforts of 2023-24, organized into three categories: Prayer, Talent and Treasure.
The first section of Prayer covers the last five fiscal years, from FY 20 to FY 24. Listed out are the numbers for baptisms, First Holy Communions, confirmations, weddings, funerals and new registrations in the parish.
As of today, we have 548 registered family units in the parish, for a total of 1,244 individual parishioners. There is also data regarding our Perpetual Adoration program, Bible studies, and OCIA (formerly RCIA).
Time and Talent – By The Numbers
We highlighted the different parish ministries and the many, many parishioners who donate so much of their time and talent to our church and school. Our parish would not be what it is without our generous volunteers. Thank you for giving of yourself and your talents for the church and school.
Stewardship of Treasure – By the Numbers
The below graph shows our profit and loss for each fiscal year over the last 5 years. It includes our regular Sunday collections, total income for both the school and church, total expenses for the school and church, the net income, and the percentage of the weekly collections that are going back to St. John’s for support.
Our Diocese of Lincoln has created a goal for each parish supporting one or more schools (St. John the Baptist and Lourdes Central Catholic for us) to not be paying a subsidy for school support that is more than 80% of regular Sunday collections. Some parishes in our diocese have been over 100% of their weekly collections with school subsidy. That is obviously unsustainable. Thankfully, we are not in that situation. Over the last five years, we have stayed very close to that 80% goal, and that is a testament to your generous stewardship as well as fiscal responsibility from the school expense side. There has also been a net income every year for the last five fiscal years. Thank you for your consistent financial support to the church and school!
St. John the Baptist School Summary – By the Numbers
The above graph shows the income from St. John’s (tuition, fundraisers, endowment distributions, et al), the expenses from school (salaries, health and property insurance, utilities, etc.), and the assessment that we pay for our central Catholic high school towards Lourdes in Nebraska City. We are working toward, and making progress on, closing the gap between school income and expenses. We need to be able to both support our Catholic schools from the church side, with the help of the parents paying tuition, but at the same time, not break the back of the parish as a whole, as there are other ministries that we would also like to financially support now and in the future. The projects in our Strategic Plan have been developed to assist us with this task. It is important for us to continue to strongly support Catholic schools; they are an investment for the future of the Faith. On behalf of the parish children who benefit from your generosity, thank you for your dedication to Catholic education.
Parish Overview – By the Numbers
The below graph is the best news of all: the parish debt is coming down significantly! In June of 2020, the debt was more than a half a million dollars. Today it is less than $170,000! Parishioners and donors have been incredibly dedicated to seeing to it that our debt continues to decrease, and hopefully in a year or little more, the entire debt will be eliminated! Well done, Church of the Holy Spirit!
Contributions to Diocesan Giving Programs
These final graphs show our contributions in the last three years to the diocesan appeals for Charity and Stewardship in the Spring, and Bishop’s Appeal for Vocations in the Fall. The total pledges for CSA have decreased since 2022, and while the number of pledges has decreased for the BAV, the total amount collected and pledged so far is exceeding the totals from ’22 and ’23.
Thank you to our Parish and school community rep is moving in a positive direction.
