Todd Hiestand
Missional Living in Suburban America
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Archive of "Money & The Church" Category
Developing Missional Values, Programs, Budgets, Goals
I am continually trying to work out how to better think through and organize our community in a natural and semi-organic way so that we can best live out or mission and our values.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this “organizing for mission” concept and as part of my thinking I brainstormed a generalized flow of thought for how we develop programs, ideas and even budgets. In fact, what you will see below came mostly from a conversation around budgets in our leadership team. We were working through some questions such as:
- What is a good use of the churches finances?
- What is a poor use of the churches finances, where do we prioritize our finances at the church?
- How do we make sure that we’re giving and putting our money into things that are helpful and help us live out our mission?
You know, fun questions like that.
So, here is a little, “flow of thought” that I came up with. Note, this is probably not good for all times in all places, but I think its a helpful start…
Our Strengths lead us to discover our Values and Mission.
I think this is a key piece that we miss. While we all have a general mission to make disciples and share the love of Jesus, I am a believer that the diversity of the body of Christ is global as well as local. My church is gifted for things that your church isn’t. Your church is gifted in ways that my church isn’t. So, as we are looking at our specific mission, we have to ask first and foremost, what are our strengths? What are the ways that God has distinctively gifted our specific community for mission in this specific location at this specific time…
Our Strengths help us look at specific, present needs in our community and in our neighborhoods.
I think this is a piece we all too often miss. We often run forward with ideas and ministries without ever asking whether our community or neighborhood even needs what we are trying to offer. A classic example is the church that wants to start a coffee shop. Now, that’s a great idea. But, the question that is often not asked is, “Does our town need a coffee shop or do we just think it would be cool to have one?” This is perhaps the longest part of this little flow here. It takes a LOT of listening and a lot of patience and then it takes some more listening and some more patience. This is usually the unglamorous process of sitting in township meetings, PTA meetings, etc.
The needs plus our values and mission help us discover our specific priorities that God is calling us to focus on.
Once we are aware of the specific ways that God has gifted us and we are aware of the needs of the community and our neighborhoods, we are better able to look at specific priorities and goals. I think far too often we don’t get specific enough with priorities. At least, in churches like mine, we don’t get specific enough. In the churches I grew up in, maybe we were a little too specific and programmed. I guess I am not talking about 10 year goals and priorities but more short term, specific, tangible goals that relate to our mission, our values, our strengths and the needs of the community. An example, for us at The Well, we want to be involved locally, and we’re doing our best to get involved in the local neighborhood around Feasterville. Priority: Go to at least one town meeting a month.
Our specific priorities help us discover important programs.
When we have specific prorities, we can then creat programs, plans or relational environments to help meet these goals. We don’t create programs up front and then see what happens. We create programs to help us meet goals. These programs are goal based so once they help us meet our goals, they might just end. I think this is the best way to look at programs. Its not a programs for the sake of programs approach. Rather, its a programs for the sake of mission approach.
Our specific programs guide us to the support structures and systems we need in place.
When we have programs or relational environments that are driven by our mission we can look at what kinds of structures and systems we need to have in place for these to thrive.
All of this together helps us decide our budget.
It’s only at this point that we decide our budget. We don’t make a budget adn then fill in some ministries and goals that fit into what we think we can do. We make a budget based off our mission and we invite God to provide the resources that will help us live the mission he has called us to.
Here is a visual representation of this (click on it to enlarge it)…
Posted in General, Leadership, Missional, Money & The Church, The Church, The Well |
4 Comments »Giving is Only as Strong as Your Mission…
Our house church has been thriving now for over 2 years and I can honestly say I’ve not once had to preach a sermon on tithing or giving, and yet our small gathering gave thousands of dollars to the help the poor in our community last year. In fact, we’re on track to double last year’s amount, and I’ve never had to beg or plead for our members to dig deep or give more. Why is this? What’s the big difference?
The simple fact is that our people can tangibly connect every dollar and penny they give with how it directly assists people in need. We keep nothing for ourselves and give all of the money we receive away to the poor. When our members connect their dollars with actual people receiving assistance they are glad to give all that they can to help others.
This is an interesting thought here. I have talked with pastor after pastor and when the conversation turns to issues of financing our mission, its usually a conversation around how “things are tight” and “we’re struggling.” Now, what I am not about to say is that we never struggle financially at The Well, but I am about to say that we have a similarly generous community as this person is describing above. I am continually amazed at the generosity of our church. It’s really inspiring.
Now this person is writing from a house church perspective and perhaps the most interesting thing that he says is that, “The simple fact is that our people can tangibly connect every dollar and penny they give with how it directly assists people in need.”
Shouldn’t this be true of every church!? I mean seriously? Shouldn’t it?
Ken Callahan, author, a mentor of mine and one of the key consultants for the Salvation Army (who, by the way, receive the most charitable giving of any other non-profit organization by a large margin) recently told me that charitable giving is actually up in America. Charitable giving in the church? Down. There is a problem here isn’t there? If part of growing a generous community is connecting every dollar we spend to people actually in need, the church should be the best at this. I really believe that. I mean, if i didn’t, I wouldn’t be a pastor.
I think the problem here is one of two options:
- Our leaders are not clearly teaching our communities how the gifts that they give are changing lives and changing the world.
- The gifts that our communities are giving are not actually changing the world and our mission is not actually that compelling.
I’ll be wiling to argue that it’s probably a combination of both. I think that most of our churches are really doing some amazing things and far too often when we talk about financial giving in our churches we do a terrible job of connecting how the organization spends its money with the impact these gifts are having. I also am more than willing to admit that our churches are downright wasting money on things that don’t really matter.
Both of these issues are a big problem.
At The Well, when I stand up to introduce offering every week I do my best to connect the gifts that we are about share with each other to how they are being used for the sake of the Kingdom. Its a good check for me as a leader. If I can’t point to how the gifts are being used, I better not be asking our people to participate in giving. I really believe that.
Questions I have to ask myself:
- Is the part-time salaries we are paying our staff resulting in kingdom work?
- Is the building we are paying for each month being used for kingdom work?
- Is the way we are spending our money really being used for kingdom work?
I, for one, believe that Kingdom work is being done at The Well and with good conciouse I can invite people to share in this mission together with their finances. The moment I stop believing that we are doing good will be the moment I can’t stand in front of my community with integrity and invite them to give.
So, we go back to what Ken Callahan said about charitable giving being up in the States and down in the Church. Why? Perhaps its because a) these organziations are doing better at teaching their constituints how their gifts are making a difference and b) these organizations are actually making a difference…
Is your community making a difference?
Is it clear how your community is making a difference?
I believe that our churhes are making a difference. I also believe that each and everyone (including The Well!) can do better at making a difference. I also really believe that as leaders, we need to do a better job of teaching our communties how their gifts are really making a difference for the sake of the Kingdom.
All that to say, Giving is only as strong as your mission.
Posted in General, Leadership, Missional, Money & The Church, The Church, The Well |
No Comments »Personal Financial Accountability In the Church, A Way Forward
For the first three years of our marriage my wife and I didn’t have any outstanding credit card debt. Then the crap hit the fan. Between some unnecessary purchases, not making enough money, hospital bills, and a string of car repairs, we amassed ourselves some significant credit card debt.
Over the last two years we’ve been trying to be more conscious of how we spend and how we save. We’re finally starting to show some signs of progress. Of course, our adoption set us back this past year and we’re in the midst of paying that down. But the good news is that this week we finally paid off my outstanding seminary bill and due to the kindness of some friend we made some significant progress on that adoption debt.
I have become convinced that being in debt is not a necessary “part of being American.” At least, it shouldn’t be. I have talked with a number of people who have pretty much resigned themselves to always being the debt. This is too bad. While I think you could argue that in some instances, its unavoidable, its certainly not something we should settle on. In fact, we’ve got to get aggressive after debt! It’s a terrible thing that so many people in the church are strapped financially by debt payments that we can’t give our money away like we really want to.
If you didn’t make any credit card, debt payments each month, how much would you be able to give away to those in need? Kind of depressing isn’t it? Of course, this number should also be motivating! Imagine those you could help and the good you could do if you got serious (or kept on being serious) about paying down your debt?
But how?
For Melanie and I we’ve made progress but we’ve not done it alone. We’ve actually been meeting with two friends (another married couple in our church) for the past year. They’ve been holding us accountable in our finances and we’ve been doing the same for them. The problem with most accountability however is that its easy to lie and keep things back. This is always tempting. Especially with your finances, its really hard to be fully transparent. Not only is it hard to admit when you don’t spend your money well, but its just hard to keep track of and show someone else.
Opening your checkbook
I am a big, big fan of opening your checkbook to someone you trust. I mean literally. This means that they would have full access to every penny you spend. I’m convinced that one of the greatest lies that our culture teaches us is that money is a totally private matter that is between me and God. Jesus didn’t talk about money that way. For something that can be so threatening to the Christian faith, we need to be intentionally counter-cultural and “open our checkbook” to someone that we trust and give them the freedom to speak into this area of our lives.
Enter Mint.
Mint is a described as “fresh, intelligent online money management.” Basically, you pull all your accounts (including credit cards!) into your secure account and it gives you up to date balances on all these accounts.
That’s nice. But, the best part is that you categorize your transactions and it gives you a beautiful pie chart of your spending per category for a time period of your choosing. The categories are really “smart” so that once you use it for a few weeks the program gets really good at auto categorizing your transactions for you. So, you can easily get a quick glance of how much money you spent on coffee, how much you overspent on fast food and if you have any more money left in your budget to go out to the movies.
The best part about Mint is that you can access it from anywhere. This means that you can give your accountability partner your username and password and they can go on anytime and see where all your money has been going. Scary eh? Yes, its scary. But I’m convinced that is what it just might take for some of us to become better at managing our money.
Now, like any accountability situation, we can’t get legalistic about every penny and spend all our time trying to catch each other doing something wrong. The idea isn’t to control each other and second guess every single purchase. Rather the goal is to have someone to speak grace and encouragement and be able to ask you honest questions about the way you are spending your money.
I think the best accountability asks questions like, “was that a good decision?” and “are you happy you made that purchase” and “do you regret anything here?” Its not about keeping record of wrongs, its about helping us live more and more free.
So, open up your checkbook. One good way is to use Mint.
Why? So you can live in freedom. When we live in freedom, we’re not strapped to a job we hate because we have to pay our bills. When we live in freedom we are not giving all our money to debtors instead of those in need.
Posted in Culture, General, Life, Money & The Church, My Family, Suburbia, The Church |
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