DALLAS (ABP) — Most observers of congregational life agree: A person can tell a lot about a church by looking at its budget. But exactly which conclusions can be drawn about a church's priorities remains an open question.
“It's a question I've raised with students in my classes for years,” said Bill Tillman, who teaches Christian ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon Seminary. “The whole matter of economic and financial stewardship is such a vital part of the practice of the Christian life, whether for an individual, a family or a congregation.”
A church's budget reflects its priorities. How much a church spends on ministries inside its walls and how much it devotes to ministries beyond itself offers one measure of those priorities, but Tillman warns against rushing to judgment.
“What happens always has to be held in tension and viewed in context,” he said. “For instance, we can't say a church never should build a new facility. A new building may be what is needed in a particular community.”
At the same time, a church should ask whether its financial decisions are shaped more by biblical teachings or by cultural values, he stressed.
“The larger culture says we should spend money to make things comfortable for us,” Tillman said.
Churches should ask what lessons are being taught to families as they look at the congregation's budget, he said. And church leaders should not shy away from talking about money.
“That conversation is difficult,” Tillman acknowledged. “One of my basic assumptions is that the world of money is one of the last points where conversion and redemption happen.”
Each church not only needs to keep in mind the legitimate needs of its own members but also extend its vision to include God's work in the world at large, he said.
“It all should be qualified by the question of whether what we are doing is kingdom work,” Tillman said.
Members of Cross Lanes Baptist Church, near Charleston, W. Va., decided five years ago the best way they could do “kingdom work” is by devoting a larger percentage of undesignated offerings to mission work.
When Seth Polk arrived as pastor, the church gave 7 percent of undesignated receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program unified budget and 3 percent to its local association. Polk challenged the church to increase its mission-giving incrementally each year.
Now, Cross Lanes gives one-fourth of its undesignated receipts to missions — 11 percent to the Cooperative Program, 4 percent to associational missions and 10 percent to other mission causes.
Those causes range from local benevolent ministries and church-starting initiatives to global initiatives like Children's Emergency Relief International's work in Transnistria and Moldova. Children's Emergency Relief International is the global arm of Baptist Child and Family Services.
“We believe that as a church becomes more outwardly focused, God will bless that church at home,” Polk said.
While the church increased the percentage of offerings it devotes to missions and increased giving to seasonal missions offerings and world-hunger relief, it also entered a $3.5 million building campaign.
Cross Lanes, which leads the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists in total missions giving, has doubled in worship attendance and undesignated giving over the last five years.
“We want to focus on what really matters to God,” Polk said.
A clear focus and sense of purpose help a church make wise decisions when it develops its budget — and make adjustments when receipts don't match the budget, said Roger Hall, a retired chief financial officer and treasurer for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
“A church needs to know its purpose, its goals and what it wants to accomplish. The budget is a plan of action to get there,” said Hall, who serves part-time as business administrator at First Baptist Church in Waxahachie, Texas.
No one-size-fits-all rules apply for all churches in terms of establishing percentages for different areas of the budget. Just adding a few of the often-cited maximum percentages for various categories — 50 percent for personnel, 35 percent for debt service and 25 percent for administration — makes the numbers already exceed 100 percent, he said.
“Take that approach, and ministry is often what gets crowded out,” he noted. And if ministry and missions are the professed focus of the church, the problem becomes apparent.
Trouble develops when a church fails to define its purpose, deviates from its purpose or neglects to follow proper procedures in making financial decisions, he said.
A church's budget or finance committee should begin the budgeting process by reviewing historical records for past receipts and expenditures, he suggested. Then, the committee should look at other factors such as anticipated growth or decline as it considers what may be realistic giving goals for the upcoming year.
Next, Hall recommended, the committee that is working on the budget should announce its schedule of budget preparation to the church, solicit budget requests from staff and committee chairs, and set a budget hearing meeting to allow people who are making requests to present their rationale and prioritize their requests.
“The budget should not be a product of just one committee. It should not be the product of just the staff or pastor's recommendations. It needs ownership by the entire congregation,” Hall said.
That sense of ownership grows out of communication each step of the way, not just from an annual vote in a church business meeting. And the congregation's “buy-in” of the budget has both ethical and practical implications, he noted.
“When the budget is understood and owned by the congregation, members have a sense of rightness about it,” he said. “And if they feel like this is a good plan and they are confident in the processes, they are more apt to support it with their tithes and offerings.”
-30-
— This is the first in a three-part series about church finances.