Answered Prayer!

It shouldn't surprise me when God answers prayer and yet it still does. Let me tell you about the amazing answer to prayer that our church as seen in the last few months.

Cornerstone faced an extreme financial shortfall during the months of August and September. Our expenses exceeded our income by a little more than $10,000 during these two months. The little amount that we had in reserve was quickly used up and we would not be able to endure another month in the red. We had adopted a new "bigger and better" budget that we began operating under in September that only made matters look worse.

Our Trustees met early in October with a desperate need to do something to correct our negative cash flow. The usual suspect was named as the scapegoat to remedy our problem--"let's cut missions giving!" Thankfully, the remedy that was chosen was to seek the God of Heaven for relief. I asked the Trustees to pray...I asked the leadership to pray...I asked the church to pray!

Here is the result of our prayer. Budget income for the final quarter of 2006 was simply amazing! We saw a 35% increase over the previous quarter and a 38% increase over the same quarter one year ago. Our new larger budget for the months of September through December calls for $105,080 in income! Get this—budget giving for the same period of time totals $104,348.86! But it gets even better…in addition to record budget income we have also received an enormous amount of designated gifts. In the past three months we have received $5,781.00 for the building, $8,864.50 for missions, $5,735.24 in various love offerings, $1,134.00 for AWANA, and $1,500 for computer improvements. This has been an amazing three months financially for our church!

God has certainly opened the windows of heaven for us and has poured out an overflowing blessing (Malachi 3:10). May God alone be praised!