Perpetual Offerings
Zion finished 2024 in the black! And this, after starting 2024 expecting a $34,000 shortfall! Thanks be to God.
Why did Zion end 2024 with a balanced budget? Thanks to perpetual offerings and lower-than-expected expenses. Zion started 2025 with roughly $1,000 of seed money for this year’s ministry, because of perpetual offerings and lower-than-expected expenses.
Why were expenses lower than expected? One big reason and two smaller reasons. The big reason, Pastor Janine Johnson left Zion’s staff in August. We’re sad (and proud!) to see her leave and live into her pastoral calling. And a smaller staff means lower costs. This was the largest unexpected savings by far.
The other two? Food rescuers and the new boilers. The new boilers are smaller and more efficient and much less expensive to operate.
Food rescuers are people who “rescue” food from local retailers. This is food that would otherwise go in the garbage because it’s near its expiration date. But it’s still safe to eat! So, having cultivated relationships with the retailers, food rescuers take the food to pantries, who share the food with people who need it.
Zion’s pantry receives weekly food rescue deliveries. Sometimes, we get more than we can give away at the pantry! It’s hard to estimate the total value of the food rescue deliveries, but Zion’s pantry did save $6,000 in 2024. The retail price of the rescued food would’ve been much higher. Without a doubt Zion didn’t need to purchase nearly as much food from Riverbend Food Bank.
But unexpected savings are just half of the story. The rest? Perpetual offerings.
What are perpetual offerings? They’re what Harriet Ebeling gave—a significant financial gift that is never to be spent. Instead, the earnings gained on the investment becomes an annual gift year.
When she died, Harriet left Zion $100,000. Her will insisted this principle be preserved forever and the interest be invested in Zion’s general fund. Like an offering.
Love really is stronger than the grave.
Now this “perpetual offering” isn’t guaranteed. It depends on the markets in which Zion invested the original gift. So some years, there will be gain; in others, loss. But overall, over the years, the net will surely be gain.
In two years, Harriet’s $100,000 became roughly $118,000. At the end of 2024, Zion’s council transferred $13,000 to the general fund—Harriet’s 2024 offering—and left $105,000—the original principle plus what inflation would’ve taken away to ensure the value of Harriet’s gift remained constant.
This is a perpetual offering. It’s a powerful kind of offering, whether the dollar amount is higher or lower than what Harriet gave. Like Harriet, many of us are able to be more generous after our deaths than we can be week-to-week in life.
Imagine growing Zion’s “perpetual offering fund.” Imagine how Zion’s ministry might grow.
Harriet’s was not the only perpetual offering in 2024. Zion’s council chose to invest the interest from Zion’s Legacy Fund in the general fund too. So all those saints in the cloud of witnesses whose gifts are bundled into the Legacy Fund made a 2024 offering with Harriet. Saints like David Feeney and others I never got to meet. Offerings of over $20,000.
And since the Legacy Fund bought the new boilers, we could say the $4,000 Zion saved on utilities in 2024 is also a perpetual offering.
We’re not alone. This is the beauty of perpetual offerings. They’re concrete reminders of great gifts of love we have received, reminders of the ones whose love has made us who we are. They’re cause for hope, sources of strength.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us… (Hebrews 12)
Some perpetual offerings have nothing to do with money. Thank God for all of them.
Pastor Clark Olson-Smith