From the Heart of the Pastor- Debt Retirement

​          Oak Crest, I thank you for your overflowing and gracious generosity.  At the beginning of April last year, I challenged us to pay down our existing debt by July 20, 2018.  About this time last year our payoff was $195,000.  As of now, our remaining balance on the loan is $151,163.91.  In addition to updating you on the status of our loan and challenge, I want to notify you of even more good news.  We were recently notified by the bank that they were lowering our monthly payment significantly, essentially extending the life of the loan.  Certainly this is an attempt by the lien holder to gain much more interest money in the long term, but we will use it to our advantage since we will continue to pay the budgeted higher payment amount.  If you will recall, we were already paying $592.77 extra each month directly to principle because we did not adjust our monthly payment amount several years ago when we refinanced.  Now with this new change, the payment due has been reduced from $3240 a month to $1539 a month. By continuing to pay the higher payment that we have budgeted for, we are now paying another $1700.64 a month directly to principle in addition to the $592.77 we had been paying.  That is a total of $2293.41 a month going directly to the principle payoff of $151,163.91, not to mention the principle payment within the regular monthly loan payment and any designated offering we receive.  Thank you for your faithfulness in our debt retirement efforts.
          I also want to remind you of the ultimate purpose of this challenge.  Our being debt free in one year in not an end unto itself.  Oak Crest being debt free is only a means to a greater end.  It is for the purpose of more God glorifying ministry and mission effort.  It is for the purpose of the Great Commission.  There are many mission and ministry opportunities that we would love to be able to offer even more than prayer support, but currently we cannot because our budget does not allow for it.  Of course, we continue to support efforts to reach the Lasa.  You also probably know of a couple of other noble mission efforts.  Certainly we could never provide financial support to all of these, but consider what we could do with $46,000 a year freed up for nothing other than gospel ministry.  That is how much of our budget goes to debt retirement.
          Our goal is to be debt free with as few fixed expenses as possible to free the most money possible for the most important word of sharing the gospel and discipling our people.  Whether it is local ministry here in Midlothian or reaching Muslims around the world, we want to be stewards to God’s resources that he has called us to be.
 
In Christ,
Blain Craig