Balancing the Church Budget – 11 tips December 4, 2008
Posted by Gordon in church.Tags: Baptist blog, Baptist blogger, Christian blog, Church budget, church finances
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We had our Budget meeting last night, and once again had to walk the tightrope between fiscal responsibility and faith. There other counterbalances as well. You get genuine faith, and then you get fascile faith “we are believing God for a new 1000 seater air-conditioned auditorium and a new facelift for the senior pastor”.
My role has become Chief Hacker & Slasher of the Budget. Last night I achieved my greatest ever hack & slash total: I denuded the Budget of $4700 and nobody is going to miss it! That means I can comfortable start a new intern. An excellent swap: cut some Budget largess and swap for a brilliant young life preparing for a life of service within pastoral ministry.
Here’s my guide to successful Church Budget balancing:
- Always make sure you prepare your priorities for funding in the next Budget. Mine are money for training and for creative outreach expenses.
- Don’t just keep on supporting the same missionaries year in year out regardless if they are in contact with you or not. Make sure your Missions Budget is as focussed as the rest of the church strategy is.
- Always look for ministries that claim way more than they actually spend. Hack & Slash!
- Get your Treasurer to prepare a 5 year historical comparison between what ministries budget for and what they spend. Now Hack & Slash some more!
- Keep your Actuals and Budget line as close as possible.
- Don’t just ask what we can afford, ask what ‘we cannot afford not to’.
- Regularly publish graphs and interesting information about church finances. Take people behind the scenes so that they can see the significance of the Budget and stewardship.
- Get your Treasurer to give a monthly update live in church [creative and graphic], and also through e-bulletins, etc.
- Try and move as many ministries into self-funding as possible.
- Utilise income generating streams for part of your budget. [we sell coffees from our machine and cold cans with proceeds going to missions]. We have trained baristas who crank out to-die-for coffees at an incredibly low price and we still generate good money.
- Utilise your building for community purposes as much as possible. We don’t charge commercial rates but still generate income.
Due an electrical storm I will finish the list at 11 today, and post some more tomorrow. Hopefully you can submit some more wisodm for me by then yourselves.
there is some useful stuff there……what’s going on with this blog?
trained barristas? what coffee do you used and what machines do you use? how big is the congregation?
This blog getting useful! I’ll have to take it back down a peg or two!
Our adult congregation numbers 180, not counting youth and children. How you count a church depends on how big you want the figure to be I guess. By the end of Sunday about 350 people have been through the doors. By the end of a week, many more people have been through the doors for community events.
Our budget is around 275k, and that includes 2 fulltime and one part time staff, and 2 interns.
We have invested in a new La Cimbali coffee machine, and we currently use Di Bella coffee but are about to sign up and become a Fair Trade Coffee outlet. Our barista’s have done courses [independently] at a training institution in the city. They do very good crema and they guard the machine like it is the crown jewels.
We felt that a coffee machine was pivotal to good hospitality. Granulated coffee communicates to people that we don’t value them. We charge $2.50 for a mug sized cup, and part of those proceeds go to the maintenance contract fees [we own the machine and depreciate it], and the lions share goes to a contingency missions fund which is used for non-budgeted missionary support.
On Sunday we offer ‘complimentary’ tea and coffee [granulated], or you can purchase a machined coffee. The coffee machine has been a GREAT addition to our church life. I dream of a cafe here that opens on weekday mornings – hopefully that is in the future. The cafe can serve the hospitality needs of our community programs and also provide a place out of the hustle and bustle for people to come and meet.
I like the Coffee Club byline “where will I meet you you?” I would like that to be here.
Yes, I do have a coffee addiction and No I cannot rule out suing the church one day…
we do five senses coffee….and use a coffee machine…its good, and a lot better than granulated (thats not coffee…thats brown soup)
it freshly grounds it and makes a reasonable crema…
(we dont charge)
but nothing is as good as a barrista made one, as long as the barrista is good.
funny…I did not picture your church that big….
you seem too subversive for that… ha ha ha !
To afford a La Cimbali machine and good coffee we need to charge, plus its also an income stream opportunity for missions. For a mug sized, barista brewed bevergae that’s a scream.
Also, do you really appreciate something you haven’t paid for?:)
I like to think that the cup is more satisfying when you know you are supporting missions. ‘Want to support missions? – have a latte!’
The church is not big by Brissy standards. As for subversive – anyone can be subversive online, it’s in real life that matters….
I like my barista’s to be anal about the way they make it and extremely protective about their workspace and equipment. I have found that taking orders at the coffee counter is even better than standing at the door: I get to meet and chat with everyone and they get comfortable with giving me money!:)
[...] (a Baptist Union pastor I believe) has some helpful tips for saving on your church budget here, here, and here. (Just don’t switch to [...]