FINANCES IN POST PANDEMIC CHURCH #1
I know this
isn’t a surprise to you, but there has been (and continues to be) a pandemic. And
while the pandemic has affected most, if not all, areas of our lives, it has
affected churches as well. Many church
buildings had to close down, many services couldn’t be held in person, although
we got really good at services outside and virtual ones. Finances of the church
were affected as well. For some churches, there wasn’t an immediate effect, because
of PPP loans and/or the generosity of many. For others, the financial effect
was immediate and harsh. A speaker at a workshop
that I took during the pandemic said “some churches have suffered because of
the pandemic and some have not---yet.”
Because of
this effect, whether it’s immediate or future, whether it’s short-term or
long-term, there are some financial lessons that we should remember. I
subscribe to a blog called “Leading Ideas” offered through
churchleadership.com, and one of their recent blogs had eight financial lessons
we should learn. I think some of them are common-sense and are important,
pandemic or not. I am citing that blog, but am paraphrasing much of what I
learned. This week’s blog will include four of those “lessons”.
1. Know
your folks. Not everyone was affected the same way. Some
people lost jobs, some people were declared essential, some actually had reduced
expenses. You can’t assume everyone suffered financially during the pandemic in
the same way.
2. Keep
asking people to give. Some churches have stopped asking because it
was a challenging time. If you stop asking, some people stop giving, and the
financial issues of the church become worse. Think of it this way: no matter
when, there are always going to be people in the church who are “on hard times”.
There are illnesses, job losses and other challenges. If people stop giving because
they are unable to give, they are still valued. This is why knowing your folks
helps in determining what is going on in their lives. Not because finances are
their lives, but finances are usually a symptom of a change. A reason why
knowing what folks give is an important pastoral concern.
3. Adjust
generosity efforts beyond the “norm”. Our traditions of asking for
and receiving money have stopped working. And it has nothing to do with the
pandemic. They had stopped working before, but we could ignore the issue until
the pandemic forced us to face it head on. Fewer people attend regularly, so if
you consider the church a pond, there are fewer fish to fish for. The good thing
about the pandemic is that electronic giving became necessary. But simply
spending a minute during a virtual service inviting people to click their phone
on the QR code on the screen or send a check isn’t going to do it. Be creative
about soliciting those electronic gifts!
4. Develop
other streams of income. It is becoming obvious that it’s not possible
to support the ministry of the church solely through the offering plates (or
electronic giving). If your only stream of income are those offerings, you will
only see scarcity, not abundance. God has provided an abundance. We simply have
to open our eyes. Look at our assets. Those assets include: money, physical buildings,
land, space, partners, people, and others. I encourage you to consider looking
at what your assets are—all of them. A book that I found fascinating and very
informative on this very topic is The Coming
Revolution in Church Economics: Why Tithes and Offerings Are No Longer Enough,
and What You Can Do About It by Mark Deymaz with Harry Li (Baker Books,
2019). The author says the purpose of the book was “to share the why, how, and
what of funding local churches beyond tithes and offerings. Ultimately, our
purpose is to help your church improve its bottom line in consideration of
resources, mission advance, and long-term gospel impact.”[1]
[1]
Deymaz, Mark and Harry Li, The Coming Revolution in Church Economics: Why
Tithes and Offerings Are No Longer Enough, and What You Can Do About It
(Baker Books, 2019).
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