Annual Meeting 2011

Brooklyn Presbyterian ChurchAnnual MeetingCallahan Center, St. Francis CollegeApril 13, 2011 7:30 pm

Park Slope Presbyterian ChurchResurrection Presbyterian Church, WilliamsburgFlatbush Community ChurchBrooklyn Church Project

www.brooklynpresbyterianchurch.com

Highlighting the Collegiate Model Welcome to the Annual Meeting of Brooklyn Presbyterian Church,

Our church started in 2004 with the goal of planting and nurtur-ing neighborhood congregations that celebrate, in word and deed, the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our borough.

In the early years the pastoral staff and Temporary Session con-sidered various ways to accomplish this lofty goal and concluded that one church, existing in multiple congregations, would be the most effective means of embodying God’s Kingdom in Brooklyn. If you are new to one of our congregations, you may be vaguely familiar with our “collegiate” structure, so I want to highlight some ways this model is enabling us to be a faithful presence for “God’s favorite borough.”

Loving NeighborsMost importantly, the collegiate model cultivates love for particu-lar neighborhoods without excluding the rest of the borough. It’s easy and natural for all of us to focus our attention on our im-mediate environment and we want to be a church that serves the neighborhoods in which we live. But Brooklyn has significant needs that affect all of us and the collegiate model connects us to congregations and needs in multiple neighborhoods. When we pray for each other, worship together and work alongside one another our hearts are knit to neighborhoods we might otherwise ignore.

Exercising GiftsThe collegiate model also enables committed followers of Jesus to exercise their gifts in significant ways at the local level. Multiple congregations offer more ways to get involved in the life of the congregation. For example, one congregation with a thousand members who come from all over the borough would still have only one Mercy Team, one Children’s Ministry Team, etc. But multiple congregations require multiple leaders who are exercising their gifts for the benefit of others. Therefore, we think the collegiate model counters the consumeristic and individualistic tendencies that are common in the broader culture and the church.

Training Ministerial CandidatesIn a related way, the collegiate model is also enabling us to train ministerial candidates for service in the church. Most seminaries are good at teaching people how to perform academically but are inadequate for training ministers to be shepherds of congregations. Seminary graduates are then hired for jobs requiring skills in preaching, teaching, counseling and leading that have never been cultivated. Multiple congregations enable us to expose pastoral interns to a wide variety of pastoral responsibilities where they gain experience and confidence within a relational context. Ultimately we hope they stick around and help us start new congregations in Brooklyn!

How can you pray?There are many other benefits of being one church with multiple congregations, including reduced administrative expenses, shared resources and common philosophy of ministry, but these benefits also come with challenges. So pray that Brooklyn Presbyterian Church will continue to love our neighborhoods and our borough. Pray for the financial resources we need to serve our neighborhoods and start new congregations. Give generously of your own time, talents and money that God’s gifts to you would not atrophy and be wasted. Welcome and celebrate our interns who sacrifice a lot (and raise money!) to be with us. But most importantly, cultivate in your own heart a love for your neighbors by remembering that in Jesus God has loved us.

Warmly,

Matthew Brown

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BPC Joint Lessons & Carols Service December 2010 Church planting intern David Stancil leading worship

Financial Report

Overview of 2010Thank you for giving to Brooklyn Presbyterian Church (BPC) in 2010. Your giving has supported pastoral staff, church planting interns, local and global missions, numerous community ministries and other necessary expenses allowing our young church to love and serve Brooklyn and beyond.

Overall internal giving, which includes Park Slope, Resurrection, and Flatbush, totaled $782,999 in 2010, up 1% when compared to 2009. External giving was also up 25% due to the generosity of countless individuals and churches outside of Brooklyn. These increases allowed us to finish 2010 with a surplus of $82,746. BPC finished the year with $618,480 in reserves.1

Expenses across the network increased 9% in 2010. While budgets were reduced and each congregation came in under budget, this increase came as a result of adding a new church planting intern, increased administrative costs, including health care. In addition, Brooklyn Church Project was gave more money to our newest congregation, Flatbush Community Church.

Missions Giving And Mercy FundIn 2010, we gave $64,156 to various mission projects both local and abroad. In addition we gave $14,029 out of our mercy fund, while bringing $22,245 into the mercy fund through giving from the congregations. The Mercy Fund had $45,611 in its account at the end of 2010.

2011 Budget OverviewThe total BPC budget for 2011 is $1,468,630. Each of the three existing congregations were able to reduce their budgets for 2011. The major increases to the budget is the projected launch of the Clinton Hill congregation, an additional church planting intern at Brooklyn Church Project, and expected in-creases in health care costs for all staff. Below you can see the breakdown in the budget for each entity.2

Based on our total 2010 income of $1,303,064 we will need a 13% increase in income to cover our 2011 budget. Please keep the finances of BPC in your prayers as we seek to expand our ministries in the coming year.

Grace and peace,

Chris Hildebrand

Executive Pastor

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1 Internal Grant income is additional external income that has been designated to a specific intern or pastor. Each church planting intern and assistant pastor has a “fund” to which

external supporters donate. That money is then moved via internal grant into a specific congregation for an assistant pastor or Brooklyn Church Project for a church planting in-tern.

2 Central Services represents the shared expenses among the congregations and Brooklyn Church Project. Therefore we divide the cost of Central Services among the other con-

gregations and Brooklyn Church Project according to the percentage of the budget. So Park Slope pays 36%, Resurrection pays 15%, Flatbush pays 13%, Clinton Hill pays 12%, and Brooklyn Church Project pays 23%.

Income 2010 2009 ChangeTotal Internal Giving 782,999 772,139 1%

Total External Giving 277,385 221,530 25%

Internal Grant Income1 242,043 144,339 68%

Investment Income 637 726 -12%

Total $1,303,064 $1,138,734 14%

Central Services$173,342

Brooklyn Church Project$294,476

Clinton Hill$152,577

Flatbush$169,348

Resurrection$206,750

Park Slope$472,137

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Expenses 20102010 2009 ChangeCongregationsCongregations 787,247 814,346 -3%BCPBCP 268,613 163,853 64%Central ServicesCentral Services 164,458 141,812 16%TotalTotal $1,220,318 $1,120,011 9%

2010 2009Net Operating Total $82,746 $18,723

Greetings from Park Slope Presbyterian Church (PSPC). Let me take this opportunity to inform those of you from our sister congregations about some ways God has been working in and through our congreg-ation over the past year and let you know how to be praying for us. First, PSPC continues to benefit from our intern program. Marc and Balem Choi moved into the neighborhood last summer (from Queens) and in the Fall Marc assumed his duties as a pastoral intern. Marc has

busied himself with leading Community Groups, teaching various adult education classes, leading worship and preparing himself for ordina-tion. He is a wonderful addi-tion to our staff at Park Slope and the entire network. Amy Bowser, who is known to most of you as our church admin-istrator, became our first lay ministry intern, taking on the

responsibilities of Director of Spiritual Formation. Amy’s work in-cludes the creation of an adult discipleship curriculum that we hope will be useful to all the congregations in our network. Amy is also in-volved in leading the “20/20 Project” for Brooklyn Presbyterian Church. Another highlight for us was the hiring of a new Children’s Ministry Director, Katie Hautamaki. Deb Brown stepped down from the posi-tion after many years of faithful service and Katie has assumed the responsibilities with enthusiasm and vision. Our Children’s Ministry continues to grow and Katie is working to incorporate the kids into the life of the church and assist parents in the spiritual formation of their children. Lastly, in keeping with our vision of starting and nurturing neighbor-hood congregations, PSPC gave generously to starting a new congre-gation in Clinton Hill. At last year’s congregational meeting we an-nounced that any financial surplus in 2010 would be given to the Clin-ton Hill project and our congregational giving surpassed our expenses by more than $75,000. This money has enabled Jamison and Laura and their potential congregation to start taking concrete steps towards starting worship. As you keep our congregation in prayer, please ask God to continue to grow our congregation numerically and spiritually. We are thrilled that so many people in and around our neighborhood consider us their church home, but there are tens of thousands of people in Park Slope who do not actively worship Jesus as their Lord. We want to be a church for them. Additionally, please pray that God would provide our congregation with a permanent facility that would enable us to serve this neighborhood throughout the week. Thank you for your interest and your prayers.

Matthew Brown   

Greetings from Williamsburg. Last year, on the occasion of our 2010 Annual Meeting, I asked for prayer for three areas.  It is such an encouragement to me to see how God has answered those prayers by the power of the Spirit for the glory of Jesus.  Those prayer requests were:

Spiritual maturity. As always, my desire for Resurrection Church is that God would “equip the saints for the work of ministry…”  I’ve seen God answer this prayer in a myriad of ways in the people of Resurrec-tion. At times the work has been joyful—as we see people come to the faith for the first time, or we find joy in service to one another and the community. At other times the work has been full of sorrow—such as in the sickness and death of our dear friend, Carrie Wong, or as we have supported and encouraged one another through economic and emotionally hard times. In all of this I rejoice because we are learning what it means to "… stand in this world with nothing to offer but [our-selves]” (Henry Nouwen).

Financial maturity. God certainly answered this prayer as well: through some tough mid-year budget cuts, as well as some very gen-erous giving by members and friends, in 2010 Resurrection closed a mid-year deficit and came close to making budget through internal giving for the first time.

The possibility of a morning service.  We con-tinue to study and work on this possibility in hopes that we might be able to offer another time of worship and praise to God, and to make that opportunity available to more people in Williamsburg.  Our leaders are setting spiritual, organizational and financial goals that, if met, may allow us to begin such a service in late 2011.There have been other evidences of God’s goodness to us, a few among them be-ing:

The formation of our Discipleship Program, headed up by Assistant Pastor David Stancil.  An average of 50 people meet regularly to-gether in groups of 4-5 to talk, pray and encourage one another in the joy of faithfulness to Jesus.

The adoption of a local community garden to make it a place of beauty and recreation.

The conversion, by a resourceful team led by Bonnie Mancini, of the back rooms in the sanctuary to an office for David, Evan Mazunik, me and others in the church. 

So it seems to me that our greatest prayer “request” is simply to give thanks and praise to God for all he has done for us this year, and to ask with the confidence of his beloved children that he would continue.

Your servant in Christ. 

Vito Aiuto

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NETWORK NEWSLETTER SPRING 2010

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A look back and a look forward for the Resurrection congregation:!

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Our New InternChris Hildebrand began as an intern at Resurrection almost five years ago, and then served our church faithfully and well as an assistant pastor.! After his transition to the dual roles of Executive Pastor of Brooklyn Presbyterian Church and Director of Brooklyn Church Project, we hired David Stancil as our new intern.!David has hit the ground running, assuming various ministry duties.

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Serving the CommunityOne of the most visible buildings in Williamsburg is Automotive High School on Bedford Avenue, across the street from McCarren Park.!Resurrection has begun to provide tutors to serve the students there as they prepare their college applications and study for the SAT.

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A Growing CongregationWe continue to grow in membership and discipleship, baptizing adults and babies and seeing attendance at our weekly worship service increase.

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Financial NewsEach year in the life of our church has seen an increase in financial giving, both in the amount of giving, as well as the percentage of our budget

covered by “internal” giving. Despite the slumping economy, we finished 2009 in the black through a combination of outside fundraising and the faithful giving of members and friends.!

This leads us in to our prayer requests.

!Prayer requests for 2010:!

Spiritual maturity As the pastor, my desire in 2010 for Resurrection Church is that God would “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God…with each part working properly, making the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (from Ephesians 4:10-15)

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Financial maturityWe pray that this would be the year that our internal giving would cover our budget, allowing us to increase the scope of the work we do in service to Christ.

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Morning ServiceThis has been a prayer concern for some time, and is an issue being considered by our leaders.! On some Sundays, our attendance has begun to exceed seating on the main floor of the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, our host.! Additionally, our 5:30 p.m. worship time makes it hard for some families with small children to attend. Thus, we are exploring the idea of adding a second service in the morning.

Vito Aiuto, Site Pastor

Congregational Reports

Greetings from Flatbush Community Church (FCC). I trust those of you from our sister congregations will be encouraged to hear about the ways God has been working in and through our church in the Flatbush neighborhood and will be enabled to pray more specifically for us. In October of last year we moved into a new worship space, Eras-mus Hall High School’s auditorium. This move offers us visibility

and presence in the heart of the neighbor-hood and longer-term flexibility as we grow. We are grateful for the tangible connection to our neighborhood and the opportunity to sup-port such a historic in-stitution. One of the highlights of our wor-ship this fall was having the men’s choir “Mani-

fest” lead us in singing during our Worship Service.

Our young congregation is growing numerically and in our ability to care well for one another. In fact, we will celebrate the resurrec-tion of King Jesus this Easter with two baptisms and multiple memberships. As you have opportunity, please ask a FCC parish-ioner about their experience of God’s grace through our congrega-tion.

As you pray for us, ask that God would continue to bring many neighbors into faith and a worshipping relationship with Jesus through our church so that as we grow, our neighborhood would be blessed and God would be glorified. Pray also that our search for a pastoral intern would be successful in 2011.

 Warmly, 

John Sweet

CLINTON HILL CONGREGATION UPDATE

It's been a challenging year since our last congregational meeting for our family and the folks in the Clinton Hill area awaiting a church plant, but one in which we've all learned patience, the power of prayer, and the faithfulness of our God.

You may have heard me preach at one of your congregations this past year on themes like Keeping Hope Alive and What to do when God doesn't seem to answer your prayers and How to live faithfully in uncertain circumstances. I was mostly preaching to myself. We had hoped to start Launch Team work for the church plant last Summer, and for nine months now we've been working and waiting to see the needed start-up funds come in through external support before we could formally and publicly get started. Meanwhile my family and our neighborhood congregants have been praying, hosting potlucks with neighbors, meeting with neighborhood pastors and organizations, befriending Pratt stu-dents, and digging deeper roots in the community.

And now we have some really good news we'd like to share with you. Through the generous support of individuals and churches around the country–and especially a very generous year-end gift from the Park Slope congregation–we are now able to officially move forward with the formation of this new congregation. Praise God! And thank you to all of you who have prayed for us and given to this work. We are excited and deeply grateful to see what God will do in the months and years to come.

Please pray for us as we hold our first Launch Team meeting on the Tuesday following Easter. Pray that as our team grows it will gather new neighbors outside of our BPC congregations, and that in this way God will enable us to look more and more like our very diverse neighborhood. Pray for our Pratt ministry to grow and deepen. Pray that God will demonstrate to our team and neighbors that Jesus is risen indeed–that he is actively at work today, reconcil-ing people to God, to one another, and to our neighborhood. And pray that he'll use us to do it.

Sincerely,

Jamison Galt

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Congregational Reports

“Manifest” singing at Flatbush

Community Church

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Brooklyn Church Project is the church planting arm of BPC. We train potential church planters from recruitment through the start of their congregation.

Because neighborhood life can sometimes resemble life in a small town, it’s easy to forget that Brooklyn has more than 2.5 million inhabitants living in just 77 square miles.

This is why I’m always grateful for the bird’s eye view of Brooklyn from a plane on final approach into LaGuardia. Flying over neighborhoods like Coney Island, Park Slope, Sunset Park, Crown Heights, and Bushwick renews my perspective. I’m reminded just how big Brooklyn is–thus how big our vision ought to be. And at Brooklyn Church Project we do have an expansive vision: to plant 25 new neighborhood congregations in

20 years. With the start of our 4th congregation later this year, God willing, we are just getting started.

A vision as large as Brooklyn demands a vast team of

laborers with a diverse array of gifts. We need church planters and leaders to accomplish this first stage of our vision and we believe that our church planting internship program is a strategic initiative in this regard.

It’s been a joy to watch our program mature over the past year. Brian Steadman completed his internship and moved on to assistant pastor at Park Slope. David Stancil was ordained in 2010 and he will

complete his internship this fall. We brought Marc Choi on last fall as our newest church planting intern. And Amy Bowser became our first ministry-track intern.

Looking ahead in 2011, we hope to find an intern who will join our Flatbush congregation. We will also host two short term mission teams this summer from partner churches in Rye, NY and Charlotte, NC. They share

our vision for Brooklyn and are eager to help us in any way they can.

Please pray for our endeavors as we seek to plant and nourish gospel centered congregations throughout Brooklyn.

Grace and peace,

Chris Hildebrand

BPC 2011

Flatbush 2009

Clinton Hill 2011

B’burg 2005

Park Slope 2004

BCP church planting interns David Stancil and Marc Choi in training

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The last year has been something of a whirl wind for those involved in the 20/20 Project! Since the spring of 2010 we’ve been making progress on our goal of see-ing 20% of the people of our church in-volved in orphan care and 20% of the churches in Brooklyn involved, as well.

In the last 6 months, many of you have become involved in a number of different ways: more than 100 pairs of shoes were donated to the children of the ACT Pro-ject in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; 10 children have been sponsored on a monthly basis in the same project; more than 20 people pray each week for concerns of orphans in New York and around the world. In addi-tion to caring for orphans in these ways,

we continue to explore the adoption through Sunday School classes and quar-terly discussion group.

Perhaps the highlight of entire year is find-ing out that one of the children for whom BPC has prayed on a regular basis, Chris-tian, has been matched with an adoptive family! Please continue to pray for him, as well as Raheem, who continues to await a family.

It has been a joy to see how God is using the people of Brooklyn Presbyterian Church to act on His behalf to be “a helper of the fatherless.” (Psalm 10:14). If you are interested in playing a part, please email Judy Hilkey, jhilkey@ccny.cuny.edu or Amy Bowser, amybowser@parkslopechurch.com

Ministry Highlight

BPC Temporary SessionPastor David Bisgrove — Redeemer Presbyterian ChurchPastor Randy Lovelace — Montclair Presbyterian ChurchPastor Craig Higgins — Trinity Presbyterian Church, Rye, NYPhil Patronis — Trinity Presbyterian Church, Rye, NYKirk Balzer — Trinity Presbyterian Church, Rye, NY

The Temporary Session of BPC has been commissioned by the NY Metro Presbytery to oversee the work of our church while we are a mission church.

BPC Board of TrusteesPing Moy - Park Slope Presbyterian ChurchChris DeLasic - Resurrection Presbyterian ChurchBrian Pruitt - Park Slope Presbyterian Church

The BPC Board of Trustees in accordance with NY State law trustees are the financial officers of a non-profit organization.

20% of BPC members commit to a child or youth in need of family as mentor, financial provider, foster parent or adoptive family 20% of the churches in the borough of Brooklyn join together in a partnership to advocate for and serve the needs of youth and children at risk and those awaiting adoption. 

The 20/20 Project Mission:

BPC Staff DirectoryBrooklyn Presbyterian Church Office174 Prospect Park West, Apt 1LBrooklyn, NY 11215Phone: 718-369-7972

Matt Brown, Senior Pastormattbrown@parkslopechurch.com

Amy Bowser, Administratorpspcadmin@parkslopechurch.com

Chris Hildebrand, Executive Pastorchris@brooklynchurchproject.com

Park Slope Presbyterian ChurchMatt Brown, Site Pastormattbrown@parkslopechurch.com

Brian Steadman, Assistant Site Pastorbriansteadman@parkslopechurch.com

Marc Choi, Church planting internmarcchoi@parkslopechurch.com

Amy Bowser, Director of Spiritual Formationamybowser@parkslopechurch.com

Resurrection Presbyterian ChurchVito Aiuto, Site Pastorvito@resurrectionwilliamsburg.com

David Stancil, Church planting interndavid@resurrectionwilliamsburg.com

Flatbush Community ChurchJohn Sweet, Site Pastorjohn@flatbushcommunitychurch.com

Clinton Hill Church ProjectJamison Galt, Church planterjamisongalt@gmail.com

Brooklyn Church ProjectChris Hildebrand, Associate Directorchris@brooklynchurchproject.com