After the last board meeting before the annual meeting, we can report that:
• The Immanuel group reports a profit of 18.9 million kronor for 2013. This can be compared with last year´s result of a 11.6 million kronor loss.
• The congregation´s balance has a positive result.
This is inspiring – and we should also note that all subsidiary companies made a profit. For more information, we attach the annual statement, which highlights important events during the year 2013.
Temporary employment
Husmor Ulla-Britt Henriksson will retire this summer. Therefore, there have been conversations about a successor and about the focus of this job.
At the meeting, the board decided to hire Camilla Mattebo on a temporary contract of one year.
Camilla has studied to be a deacon and previously worked as an economist and controller of the company NCC. She is also a member of the congregational board, which she will resign from at the annual meeting in 2014.
Proposal regarding the homeless
Member of the congregation Torbjörn Sundblad has written a proposal to the annual meeting. The board has discussed this proposal and includes a reply with the documents for the annual meeting.
Members of the board of directors for Probitas
The board has appointed the following persons to be members of the board of directors for Probitas:
• Sven Mannervik, (chairman), Birgitta Almhed, Claes Eriksson, Lars Fränne, Göran Johansson, Johannes Nilsson, Karin Pettersson.
Göran, Johannes and Karin are also members of the church board.
Proposal for laymen-auditors:
• Karin Sandström and Kjell Walfridsson (substitute)
Working group for the future church square
The process for the future church square has been started. A group of 9-11 people will be put together. Their task will primarily be to discuss in which way the congregations would like to use the church square – not to give proposals on the (interior) design. Ulla Marie Gunner and Dan Svanell will explain more about the group and its task at the annual meeting.
Faith, baptism and fellowship
The congregation has discussed the remittance from our denomination Equmeniakyrkan on faith, baptism and fellowship. A discussion evening was organized and the reply from the board can be found below.
Annual meeting coming up!
Spring is here and that means that the congregational annual meeting is coming up. This year the date for the annual meeting will be April 6th. We welcome all of you to attend and participate!
Warm greetings from the board
Answer to the remittance on faith, baptism and fellowship
The congregation of Immanuel Church invited people to a discussion evening on the remittance. We were a smaller group of engaged members that had a discussion on the different parts of the document. We appreciate that these questions are now addressed and believe that the discussion needs to be continued. The board has summarized this answer.
Our answer to the remittance in brief is that we wish to see a broader membership.
By broader membership, we mean that baptism, the Lord´s supper and membership should get a clearer theological interpretation and a given place in regular teaching and practice. The most important thing is not the order in which these three things are practiced, but that it is done in fellowship with the congregation. We believe that it is important to continue to accept the personal position of an individual, or of parents, with different church rituals when it comes to younger children. It is also necessary that membership in a church must be valid for all other churches within Equmeniakyrkan.
What needs to be clarified is how this works with a denomination that is a democratic and lay-led. We believe that it is hard to be Equmeniakyrkan without that.
In our discussion, we made a distinction between theological insights and daily practice, for example this thing with democracy and a lay-led movement. We do not mean to say that these are two entirely different things, but by knowing when we are discussing theology and when we are discussing practice, we believe it would be easier to progress in these questions.
The concept of fellowship in the congregation is central, but we do not understand in which way it replaces the current membership.
Apart from these questions, we discussed the issue of engagement and participation. How do we invite people to the life of the congregation? How do we invite people to a membership that means that you can make a difference in our day and age?
Immanuel Church´ congregation
Organisationsnummer 802001-5668
Annual report
The congregational board hereby presents its annual report for 2013. The report departs from the board´s responsibility for the ministry of the congregation, its finance and the overall responsibility for the congregation´s company group.
Important events during the year
Every Sunday, four to five worship services are celebrated in three different languages with around 750 visitors. During the year, all worship groups have gathered for joint services on three occasions as well as for an evening of fellowship with a potluck meal.
At the 2013 annual meeting, the board presented a vision document that contained the congregation´s vision, mission and approach. The work of implementing this in the multifaceted ministry of the congregation has begun. The communication and information has been strengthened by further development of the website that nowadays also has a blog. The website also strengthens the image of Immanuel Church as one church that has ministry in multiple languages.
The organization of the congregation needs to become clearer. It was therefore decided at the annual meeting to create a ministry board for the Swedish ministry. A similar board already exists for the Korean and the International ministry. The role of the congregational board and the senior pastor with an overall responsibility for all language groups was made clearer with this organizational change.
At the annual meeting of the denomination Equmeniakyrkan, pastor Jenny Dobers was called to be the new regional church leader for the Stockholm region, which led her to resign from her position in Immanuel Church in August. The congregation has thereafter called pastor Claes-Göran Ydrefors to be the successor of Jenny Dobers with responsibility for the Swedish ministry. He will begin this position in March 2014.
One of the three prioritized areas for the board is the ministry among children, youth and families. This ministry has – especially for the Swedish group – been somewhat of a challenge with a non-active local youth organization (SMU) for several years. To strengthen this ministry, the congregation has called pastor Tobias Frelin. Moreover, Martin Åsander has taken a partly new position as a congregational musician with a special focus on children, youth and families.
During the year, Björn Gäfvert has been hired as the new permanent organist, which ensures that Immanuel Church can continue to offer a broad musical repertoire.
As part of its diaconal work, the congregation continues to support Ny Gemenskap and cooperates with them and other churches and organizations to facilitate the “Christmas in fellowship” and “Lunch in fellowship” programs. A new challenge is the ministry among new EU-citizens, primarily romani, that have come to our city and our church. Our diaconal work engages both our staff as well as volunteers from all language groups.
Results and status
The congregation reports a surplus of 11.3 MSEK, which is the result of three financial events of a (partly) one-time nature. A condo has been sold, which resulted in a 4.4 MSEK capital gain. At the end of the year, securities were sold to materialize some of the profit that had come about due to the 20% growth in value of the congregation´s stock portfolio during the year, which resulted in a 4.4 MSEK capital gain. Finally, the congregation graciously received bequests in total of 3.4 MSEK.
The amount from gifts and offerings to the church´ ministry of 3.7 MSEK is unchanged compared with the year before. The cost of the ministry diminished by 0.7 MSEK to 32.0 MSEK, which is mostly due to lower cost for IT and web. Personnel costs have increased by 2.8% and comprise 52% of the total ministry cost.
The sum of interest and dividends from our own company group was 21.2 MSEK, which is unchanged compared with the year before. Dividends from our stock portfolio are 2.7 MSEK and are also similar to last year´s. The difference between the book value and the market value of our stock portfolio went up – despite the cashing in of 4.4 MSEK – to 10.2 MSEK.
Operations of the company group have for the past few years been dominated by the complete renovation of the office part of the property Provisorn 4 along with the renovation and new building of the part rented to the subsidiary company Hotel Birger Jarl. The work was started in 2011 and was concluded in December 2013. During the year, 39 MSEK has been invested. The total investment for this project since the start was 457 MSEK.
Hotel Birger Jarl has during the year partly been closed due to replacement of the ventilator and installation of air conditioning. They can now offer several air conditioned rooms. The different companies report the following profit before taxes: Hotel Birger Jarl AB 1.3 MSEK (-0.7 MSEK), Hotel Tegnérlunden AB 3.8 MSEK (3.5 MSEK), Immanuelskyrkans Vård AB 1.1 MSEK (0.4 MSEK) and Probitas – Immanuelskyrkans Förvaltnings AB 16.7 MSEK (-11.4 MSEK). The debts towards the church as well as the capital market are unchanged and the liquidity has been somewhat improved. Summarised, the Immanuel company group reports a profit before taxes of 17.4 MSEK (-11.1 MSEK).
The Immanuel company group (under Immanuel Church) reports this year a surplus of 18.9 MSEK after taxes compared with last year´s deficit of -11.6 MSEK.
The work of the board
The board has during 2013 had nine official, minuted meetings. Additionally, the board has had an overnight meeting as well as a meeting with all pastors in the church. The board has three committees: the finance committee, the personnel committee and the special issues committee. These committees prepare issues for the board together with the senior pastor and the administrative director as well as take decisions on delegated matters within their respective areas of responsibility. The board gives directives to the Immanuel companies group and appoints members of the board of directors for Probitas.
Future development
The board continues to work with the vision and prioritized areas decided at last year´s annual meeting: increased fellowship between the different worship groups, strengthened children´s, youth and family ministry and better efforts to help people in vulnerable life situations. This change process will be continued during 2014.
An important task during the coming years is the renewal of the church square to meet existing needs so that the congregation can welcome all people that come to our church.
Immanuel Church also has an important and central role to fill in the denomination Equmeniakyrkan. We hope that the newly formed region will lead to a closer cooperation with other congregations in Stockholm.
Lastly, the board would like to thank all staff and volunteers that have been engaged in our ministry during 2013 and wish all of you God´s rich blessings.