Finding Money

This is one of the biggest concerns for smaller & older congregations:  how to pay the bills.  I wish I could give you a quick 1, 2, 3 list that will always work.  I can’t, but I can tell you some places to look.

Build and Maintain a Budget, and manage cash flow.  Look at the monthly costs of annual expenses; don’t just pay the bills as they come in.  You can’t go without insurance, or safety inspections. The pastor and staff want to be paid.  The utilities have to be paid.

Start with your expenses.  In one church I found we were paying liability insurance for a staff of 6 but were down to three.  Does the sanctuary need to be at 65 degrees all week long if it’s only used Sunday morning?  Maybe you spend a thousand to zone off the office area.  Add some insulation.  Replace some inefficient equipment.

Then do an accounting of all the special funds you have.  I worked with one church that had a couple hundred dollars squirreled away in the flower fund, and a hundred thousand in a future building fund.  The church held 300 but only had a few dozen each week, and wouldn’t need that 20-year-old fund for a new building anytime soon.

And look around at what you don’t need.  At one church, I wondered what was in one of the closets.  What I found was a 3-octave set of handbells, in great shape, with sheet music – it hadn’t been used in 20 years, and I got permission to sell them.  Only $3500, but it was a fair price for their age and condition, and it bought a laptop, a video projector and a screen, with cash left over. 

Ask for help.

Are there things you pay for that volunteers could do?  (Yes, volunteers.  I’ll talk about that next seminar.)  Maybe someone can handle the janitorial. Use a missions team to do needed repairs. Ask for more donations.

Give them something to give to:  state a vision bigger than the present.

I still remember the meeting 15 years ago when we were facing laying off a staff member.  Then we figured that $5 more dollars each week from each family could make up the shortfall.  So we asked everyone if they could give a little more.  $20 a month from 20 families was enough, but some gave more.  Kept us going. 

Find partners.  Maybe you make a bulk purchase for cleaning supplies or office supplies with other churches of your denomination or you neighborhood association.   Maybe you share a secretary.  Maybe you share your building with another congregation.

Teach money management.  That church recently instituted Financial Peace University. They found that people wanted to give more, but there wasn’t enough left over. When the church helped them get their personal finances in order, they started giving.  The congregation is now giving more than what they need to pay the bills, enough to spend more on ministry.  Pretty good for a church that was in danger of going broke just a few years ago.

Preach and Teach giving.  George Barna tells us that if the pastor preaches on giving once a year, people will avoid or ignore that message.  “Churches in which pastors preach a series of messages about giving are nearly two-and-a-half times more likely to experience an increase in giving.

 

Using Assets Accordingly

I remember being a church trustee in a congregation of 70.  In those days, the Trustees also handled building maintenance, and part off our job was to plan work days.  What I discovered was it took a full day of effort, once a month, to keep the building in shape, and then on top of that a member spent several hours emptying the trash and vacuuming all the floors.

What I proposed (and the church approved) was a modest salary for someone to come clean and maintain the building, to let us have the time and energy to do ministry in the community.

As it turned out, a Chinese couple, studying at a local university, needed low-cost rental space.  We had missionary housing at the church, so they moved in and became the caretakers of the building.  After only a few weeks, the floors showed the improvement, and the church was more presentable than when we were doing it.

When you look at your church calendar, how much of the activity is maintenance of the organization, and how much is ministry?  How much is inward focused and how much looks out to the community?

You will not grow as a congregation if all your activity is just to keep the lights on, and to make the members happy.  To be an effective church, you need to be out doing the work of the Kingdom.

 

Baptizing Everything but the Wallet

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1748

In reply, Tim posted words of wisdom on November 19, 2008

Even the institutional system considers it holy that 75 – 85% of the giving is devoted to buy hired help and buildings that benefit mostly the givers themselves. That’s pooling, not giving.

That’ll preach.

 

This is why you preach tithing

Too many pastors are afraid to talk about money.  Even though Barna says you have to give three sermons in a row about tithing for the message to get through, or preach about it several times a year.

Now new scientific research tells us to preach giving as a way to feel better about themselves.

New research reveals that when individuals dole out money for gifts for friends or charitable donations, they get a boost in happiness while those who spend on themselves get no such cheery lift.

Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, led the study that will be detailed in the March 21 issue of the journal Science.

“I think it’s a lot of factors of prosocial spending that are responsible for these happiness boosts,” study researcher Lara Aknin of UBC told LiveScience. “I think it could be that people feel good about themselves when they do it; it could be the fact that it strengthens their social relationships; it could just be the act of spending time with other people.”

“Regardless of how much income each person made,” Dunn said, “those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not.”

So don’t feel bad about preaching money.   When you teach people to be generous, you are helping them feel better about themselves and their world.

In another experiment, the researchers gave college students a $5 or $20 bill, asking them to spend the money by that evening. Half the participants were instructed to spend the money on themselves, and the remaining students to spend on others.

Participants who spent the windfall on others — which included toys for siblings and meals eaten with friends — reported feeling happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on themselves.

It wouldn’t hurt the church’s bottom line, either.