Cornerstone, which operates many community outreach ministries including food, clothing and other essentials, medical care and laundry for the homeless, is continuing to serve by accessing savings, creatively cutting costs and forgoing staff salary increases.
Instead of meatloaf, the church is serving more spaghetti and stew in its free meals. Instead of name brands, generic products are sought. The church watches for sales. Its longstanding educational outreach through Shalom Finance is teaching members to streamline budgets and be more financially astute. Property owners faced with higher taxes are learning to challenge property rate assessments and benefit from all discount programs available.
The feeding program designed to serve the homeless is attracting others who might get a meal to supplement their food budget, with attendance at the soup kitchen increasing 15-18 percent since January, Simmons said. At the church’s baby boutique store, those receiving diapers increased from an average of 975 to month to 1,367 in March.
“It’s gotten really challenging,” he said. “We’ve tried to be creative in mitigating all of these challenging times to really stretch those dollars, realizing that the need is even greater than it was before. We all have got to make sacrifices to get through this. It is really across the board impacting congregants and community. It’s a very, very difficult time.”
At Orangecrest, where the average membership age is the early 30s, the rise in housing costs is especially challenging, particularly for those trying to buy homes. Those who have remained as faithful ministry supporters are committed to the sacrifices involved, De La Rosa said.
The church, which De Ra Rosa describes as portable, launched a two-year capital campaign in February 2020 to establish its first church campus on a 5.3-acre site. The first phase, purchasing and renovating a facility, was estimated to cost $1.8 million, with the second phase including constructing an auditorium estimated to cost more than $5 million.
“We exceeded our pledged amounts over that campaign over two years, actual sacrificial giving through the pandemic,” he said. “And we saw an increase in our general giving in that time as well. … Our people just have this steady commitment to sacrifice to see us plant our roots here.”
Observing community outreach month in May, the church is supporting four nonprofit organizations, including a pregnancy support center assisting mothers considering abortion. Inflation has created more opportunities to reach people in need, who feel more pressure to survive.
“We actually have seen an increase in outreach effectiveness right now,” he said. Community outreaches have driven attendance that exceeds 600 on average, with the 818 attendance at Easter the highest in the church’s 15-year history.
“Its’ challenging young families to get creative on how they steward and spend, how they save and I think even how they prioritize giving and generosity to just sort of live on that faith edge,” De La Rosa said, “trusting the Lord rather than what we can see.”
This article originally appeared on BaptistPress.com.
