Money!!!

Pay day by scottwills

About the Author -

Pete Cornford planted The Crown Church, Hillingdon in West London in 2002 with his wife Nicky. Pete helps to serve some of the Newfrontiers churches in London. Pete and his family will be moving to a church plant in Perth, Australia, in 2010.

This Article

Monday, 6 April, 2009 - 16:01

Here Pete shares about handling the important but sometimes delicate subject of money in a church planting context.

Money is a crucial component that must be addressed at some stage in a church plant. Unfortunately it can be an area that is avoided for a number of reasons…

• The church plant is a small group and it is hard to challenge friends
• Often the leader is the main employee and so the most expensive ‘drain’ on the finances, so it can feel uncomfortable to get people to keep on digging deep when the money is for yourself
• In our desire to be visitor friendly and attract those who do not go to church we drop the offering and do not want to keep on harping on about money.

Yet the Bible has much to say on the subject. There are approximately 500 verses on faith and a similar number on prayer – yet there are 2,350 verses about money! Scripture confronts us that since the fall we have become grabbers rather then givers! Jesus is looking for a more radical approach and he spoke about money more than anything else - 15% of his recorded teaching.

God owns all
Psalm 24:1 & 2
‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it; for he founded the seas and established it upon the waters.’

God loves a cheerful giver
2 Corinthians 9: 6&7
‘Remember this; whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.’

In the Old Testament there was a correlation between spiritual growth and giving a tithe. When the people of God spiritually declined they ceased to give as they should, and when they ceased to give as they should they experienced a spiritual decline.

Whether we realise it or not, we all have a philosophy when it come to the church and money. Have you thought yours through? When in a team do not assume that you all agree – you need to talk every philosophy through as a team.

Some points I suggest you talk about are as follows.

Elders are responsible
Within our church leadership, we do not leave money matters solely to the trustees or the treasurer. Every month a financial report is given to our elders, who then set the budget. The elders must feel the weight of financial decisions, pray them in, and make sure all costs reflect the vision and values of the church.
To enable the monthly report to be produced, we paid for tailored software, we felt it was important to put a procedure in place to ensure this happened. (This can be much harder to do if your finances are being channelled through another local church.)

Excellence
Do things well. I have always believed that I am building a church for Jesus. It is his bride and therefore I want to do things well. You have to be aware of the area in which you are planting… if it is a rich place then everything needs to be even nicer! Yet I am aware that this philosophy costs.

Secrecy
Different leaders feel differently about this, but I adhere to the philosophy that it’s better not to know who gives what. Some people look at what other leaders give, others like to know what everyone gives. I personally choose not to know what people give, and am diligent with this. Eg If someone gives me a gift aid form to pass on I will do so, but I won’t if it’s a standing order form.

Integrity
Although I am a trustee of the church, I am not involved with setting my own pay.
We happily pay an accountant to audit the books. We keep a paper trail for everything and try not to deal in lots of cash.
We always have two people to count the offering on a Sunday. You might feel like it’s too much trouble when you are a small church, but the way you start will impact you over the longer haul.

Model
We believe in a generous God and that individuals in the church should be generous… therefore we also budget for the church to be generous.
We believe that giving starts after 10% so as a church we would want to be giving away more than this.

Team
We believe that there is safety in team because it stops us relying upon one person. It also gives many others a chance to feel involved and shows that you are trusting God for growth. Despite being a small church, we have a finance team of four.

The practicalities
Main Leader
I am still very involved with this area of The Crown, I believe it is clearly connected to casting vision in this church. If it is not your strength, either learn or get someone who can work with you on this.

Budget
Our annual budget is based on the rough estimate of our weekly attendance (including kids). So we estimate that each person represented within that average will give £1,000 over the year.  In this way we build our annual budget based on £100,000 income for every 100 people. This will vary depending on the area you work in and you will need to get a feel of what is appropriate.
I know that this can be unhelpful as it doesn’t take into account the poor, students, kids…. We have just found this to be a good rough guide.

Review
Although we keep an eye on the finances every month, after six months we hold a formal review. We look to see if the income is on track to meet the budget and if not, we have to cut things back or look to save/spend the extra!

Plan
After nine months of the financial year we start to draw up a plan for the next financial year. This gives us a more up to date picture of income and how the expenditure has gone. We also tend to think about goals for a calendar year and so the finances serve that vision.

Cash Flow
Watch the cash flow… as the saying goes – Cash is King! I know that the charity commission would like people to hold three months fixed costs…. We have not been able to do that. However unless you are very careful you will find that lots of expenses go out in one month and it can leave you short. Maybe you have to claim gift aid more regularly.

Never plan for one year
The danger is that we can look at what we can afford in one year and that stops us taking bigger steps. E.g. in order to take on another member of staff in the future it is good to gather some reserves over a year or two to meet the difference of the extra salary when you do take them on.
I heard that the average church membership in America is 112 and that is roughly the amount of giving it takes to run one member of staff.

Visitors?
Be careful about being too visitor friendly when it comes to money.
I know that on Sunday mornings we became so visitor friendly that we would often say something like ‘great to have you here this morning. We are now going to take the offering, which is for those who are committed to the church, please do not put in if you’re a visitor.’ We felt we were almost being apologetic for taking up an offering.
Then we realised it actually blesses people to give and that we weren’t following the biblical model, so instead we tried to bring a faith challenge Such as ‘Despite living in financially difficult days, we choose to show God we trust him by giving him our money before we do anything else with it.’

Personal Tips:
Some of the biggest challenges I faced when starting The Crown.

- Teach into giving to God - Not paying salaries!

- Remember and keep telling the stories of faith

- Invest in leaders: Conferences / training and thank you gifts 

- Pray specific prayers: eg. For a £1,000 giver….

- Believe that people want to give…

History is full of lives where people have trusted God and seen Him provide… let’s make sure that in this area we know the wisdom and the grace of God.

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