Alban Weekly from Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, United States "PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS: Is Congregational Sustainability the Right Goal? - FOR THE FUTURE OF CONGREGATIONS, WE MUST DISCUSS ECONOMICS" for Monday, 8 August 2016

Alban Weekly from Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, United States "PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS: Is Congregational Sustainability the Right Goal? - FOR THE FUTURE OF CONGREGATIONS, WE MUST DISCUSS ECONOMICS" for Monday, 8 August 2016
The pastor of a new church start in an economically challenged community recently shared with me a quandary. His community is achieving its mission, which includes bringing together young adult and homeless members. But the church is not able to sustain itself. He was hoping I might help him find a meaningful part-time job.
I have heard so many stories about committed people making a difference in their community in ways that are not economically sustainable. They have created places where the abused and the privileged worship side by side, where all people are welcomed as members of a community.
Yet many of the congregations are struggling to pay their own bills. Like the new church start pastor, they don't have full-time pay or appropriate benefits for the staff. They borrow buildings that are barely suitable for the ministry. Many congregations dream of being places of radical welcome but find that vision unsustainable with the tithes and offerings of those who participate in the community.
They are trapped by the American view of sustainability -- to be self-supporting.
Read more from David L. Odom »
Faith & Leadership

CONGREGATIONS, NEW FORMS OF CHURCH, MONEY, SUSTAINABILITY

Dave Odom: For the future of congregations, we must discuss economics
Many congregations dream of being places of radical welcome, but that vision is not sustainable through tithing alone. It’s time to think differently about how to accomplish such work, writes the executive director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.
The pastor of a new church start in an economically challenged community recently shared with me a quandary. His community is achieving its mission, which includes bringing together young adult and homeless members. But the church is not able to sustain itself. He was hoping I might help him find a meaningful part-time job.
I have heard so many stories about committed people making a difference in their community in ways that are not economically sustainable. They have created places where the abused and the privileged worship side by side, where all people are welcomed as members of a community.
Yet many of the congregations are struggling to pay their own bills. Like the new church start pastor, they don’t have full-time pay or appropriate benefits for the staff. They borrow buildings that are barely suitable for the ministry. Many congregations dream of being places of radical welcome but find that vision unsustainable with the tithes and offerings of those who participate in the community. They are trapped by the American view of sustainability -- to be self-supporting.
Twenty years ago, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen proposed a theory called disruptive innovation. He began by studying how new products can disrupt established products by entering the market in a place no one would expect. Initially, the new products were often cheap, low-quality and sold to customers who were not buying the older, established products.
For Christensen, disruptive innovations are experiments with a new economic model. They often start with a market that is unnoticed or undesired by established industry. When an innovation is successful, its economic model begins to win over the customers that the industry does care about.
Churches like the new church plant are the opposite. The market they are reaching is prized as a sign of faithfulness and hope, but there is not much thought given to the economics. In fact, church leaders often assume that the money will come if the ministry is faithful.
More than 10 years ago, I asked a pastor in the emergent church movement about the economic model that supported his ministry. He said that his congregation did not and could not contribute enough money to pay all their bills and the salary of a person in midlife with family responsibilities. He wrote books and consulted with established congregations about how to reach new members. The fees for this work supported the pastor and his family. Because he sensed that the demand for his services would wane over time, he was also working on a Ph.D. to make him more marketable as a consultant in the future.
My conversations 10 years apart with a pastor looking for part-time work and a pioneer in the emergent church indicate that one economic model for these ministries depends on a leader who can develop different sources of revenue to support the leader’s work. This approach puts a lot of stress on the leader. Another model treats such churches as mission outposts, dependent on a larger organization for support. Both models do work, but each has difficulties being replicated and scaled.
Instead of starting communities that require leadership, space and more, what if we focused on the work that needs to be done? The economic model would focus on the mission rather than the creation of yet another congregation that would need to be self-supporting. The efforts that prove to be effective and sustainable over time would be models that others could replicate in places where the work is needed.
In such cases, the pastor would not be looking for part-time work. The pastor and others would begin by considering what needs to be done in a community. Do people need housing? Do those trafficked into slavery and prostitution need to be freed? Do children need to be educated? Donors would be attracted to projects that change lives. Microindustries might be started to create needed products and jobs. A community would likely form that has many of the attributes of a congregation but with a different type of work at the center.
Those of us who care about the future of congregations must have a sustained conversation about economics. We need to look at the ministries we most admire and work in partnership with them to explore their sustainability. As we find great ideas that are succeeding, we need to share the news with others, spreading a new way of thinking about how to accomplish our missions.

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IDEAS THAT IMPACT: CONGREGATIONAL FINANCES
What to Keep, What to Cut: Reshaping Budgets in Times of Adversity
A congregational (or global) economic crisis isn't a time to panic. It is a time to pray, to clearly identify issues, to utilize -- not abandon -- the strategic plan, and a time to have open communications with all stakeholders.
Read more from John Wimberly »
Like many congregations and organizations with an endowment, at the beginning of 2009 Western Presbyterian Church faced a painful situation. Despite our endowment outperforming the market benchmarks by six points, it had suffered a huge loss of value in the last quarter of 2008. As our session convened in January 2009, the endowment’s equity losses were growing larger and we faced a budgetary shortfall of $200,000. With a proposed budget of a little over $830,000, 24 percent of our budget was in jeopardy.
To deal with this situation, our session needed to exhibit both leadership and management skills: leadership skills to bring our congregation along with us, management skills to work the numbers. We also needed to devise a transparent decision-making process.
Our congregation is not unfamiliar with financial challenges. When I was called to Western in 1983, nationwide unemployment was at 10 percent and the congregation had shrunk to less than one hundred in worship. Meeting payroll was a bimonthly challenge. So, as a family system, we have developed some financial coping skills. We knew we would survive the Great Recession of 2008–2009. The only question was what survival strategy we should use. Could we find a way to continue our growth as a congregation? Or would we retrench into an ecclesiastical shell?
Developing a Process
As a session, our first challenge was to develop a process to make the tough decisions we had to make. A flawed decision-making process could divide the congregation and us. Much to my surprise, a rather heated debate developed over this question. We were far from united about how to move forward.
Some elders wanted to move quickly to cut the deficit. They argued that dollars spent while we waited to make decisions were dollars no longer available to us. If we were going to reduce staff, we needed to do so quickly so that some salaries and benefits would stop being paid. If we were going to reduce benevolences, they needed to stop immediately before the treasurer dispersed them.
Other elders wanted to take a slower planning approach. They said we needed to pray about and meditate upon the overall direction of the congregation, and that we needed input from the congregation. All of this, they said, might well take most of 2009 to complete.
By the end of our January session meeting, the elders merged the two approaches. Wherever possible, they froze payments that didn’t need to be made until May. They asked committees to look for immediate cuts they could make to their budgets. They also authorized a condensed five-month planning process—complete with time for prayer and reflection—that would end no later than the June session meeting.
In February the session had an all-day retreat led by one of our members, a skilled facilitator. There was frank discussion as to what changes might need to happen to resolve the budget crisis. At times, “frank” became “contentious.”
We began the retreat with small-group discussions about what we most valued in Western’s ministry. People were asked to speak from their hearts, not their heads. They spoke about the way they valued Western’s openness to various theological positions, our investment in helping the marginalized to gain control of their lives, and the power of our worship. As we focused on values rather than budgets, it provided a lot of unity. When things got heated, we kept coming back to the unity we embraced during this part of our meeting.
As with most congregations, the biggest single piece of Western’s budget is personnel. Some members stated unequivocally that there was no way to address a $200,000 budget problem without reducing staff. I was grateful to those who raised this issue because I knew it was being discussed in the parking lot and elsewhere. It is always better to have these conversations where they belong—among elected leaders—rather than among folks who may or may not have access to all the information.
Some, including me, argued that reducing staff would cause some members to leave (I had already been warned/threatened by a few members in this regard). Therefore, the net gain from salary reductions might well be offset by the lost pledge revenue from members who left the church. To our objections, several elders responded, “Okay, then what are you going to cut? Where are you going to find $100,000 or more to cut?”
There was an equally heated discussion about the benevolence budget. Some elders viewed it as discretionary spending. Others saw it as money that had to be spent. They also argued we would lose members who were proud of and committed to our mission efforts.
Finally, there was a lengthy discussion about revenue. If we went back to the congregation and asked them to increase their giving, how much could we expect them to give? Some thought it would be very difficult for people to increase their giving in such a financial crisis.
Fleshing Out the Possibilities
The major issues identified, the session created small groups to flesh out information and possibilities in four discrete areas of our ministry: mission and benevolences, program, building/administration, and personnel. They asked a fifth group to think about creative ways to generate additional revenue, and they asked the Stewardship Committee to conduct a special fundraising campaign with a goal of $50,000.
We planned a retreat in early April to hear the reports of the work groups and make decisions on a revised budget for 2009. Finally, the elders decided to create a budget not just for the rest of 2009 but for eighteen months (June 2009–December 2010). They hoped this would preclude facing another crisis in the near future.
Stewardship: The Stewardship Committee had met prior to the session’s February retreat. As the committee discussed the options, Hal, a newer member, said, “I believe we are thinking way too small.” Hal said that he and his wife would add an additional $1,000 to their 2009 pledge. Each of us on the committee then made spontaneous financial pledges of our own. By the end of the meeting, we had $8,000 from our committee. The Stewardship Committee then challenged the session to make similar commitments.
By the time the entire special campaign was finished we had raised an additional $80,000 from the congregation, a 21 percent increase over our initial pledge total for 2009. Approximately $30,000 of the total was from one-time gifts. The remainder of the gifts were increased pledges. Hal was correct. We had been thinking way too small, perhaps for a long time!
This excellent response also reinforced the feeling I (and others) had that the congregation was dead-set against cutting the size and scope of the church’s ministry. They voted with their pocketbooks to sustain our current staff and goals. It was now up to the session to find the way to make that work.
Personnel: As head of staff, I was adamant that any discussion about the reduction of our staff take place in a small group, not in the session as a whole. We would be talking about the futures of individuals and their families. It was simply too personal and nuanced a discussion to take place in a bigger forum.
My insistence that the conversation take place in a small group was not without controversy. There were a few elders who wanted the discussion to take place in a committee-of-the-whole environment. However, a large majority agreed that such a quasi-public conversation could create bad feelings for a long, long time.
In the small group, we were able to massage some important variables in our situation. For example, several members of the staff—including me—will be retiring within three years; we have some staff who may very well move on in the same time frame; the severance costs involved in eliminating a staff person would eliminate any short-term gain for the budget; and all of us had heard various people threaten to leave the church if staff member x, y, or z was laid off.
Given these realities, the personnel group recommended that we not reduce the staff. It decided that the staff would reduce itself naturally through attrition in the short term. The group recommended we increase salaries for 2009 but freeze salaries at that level in 2010. Finally, given the reality of near-term staff departures, the personnel group asked the session to engage in a planning process to evaluate and project a future staffing structure.
Building and Administration: This group realized some significant savings for us by studying three areas: insurance, capital reserve, and utilities. By raising our deductible and eliminating a special rider for terrorism, we were able to eliminate $11,000 from the insurance budget. Competition has recently entered the utility industry in Washington, D.C., so, by switching our electrical provider from Potomac Electric to Washington Gas Electricity, we were able to save $11,000 annually ($5,500 in 2009)! The group reluctantly decided to reduce our contribution to the Capital Reserve Fund (used to fund major building maintenance) from $50,000 to $30,000, but recommended reinstating the full contribution in 2010.
Benevolences: The Mission Committee decided to make dramatic cuts in our benevolence budget. Since those most involved in the benevolences made the decision, it was much less controversial than it would have been otherwise. But it was still controversial.
The committee decided we had been extremely generous for years when we had money to spend on big ticket items (new church developments, medical mission in Ethiopia, school in Soweto, etc). We now needed to cut back to a level consistent with our reduced capacity to give. Believing it would be an incentive to give more, they tied future benevolence budgets to a percentage of member giving. They asked that this percentage be increased dramatically as the economy recovered. In the process of reducing benevolences, they decided to stop or reduce some benevolence funding that probably should have been evaluated a long time ago.
Program: Very little was cut in this area because we have a small program budget. We view our staff as our program. The staff has to create ex nihilo—just as God did!
Other Fundraising: This group proposed a benefit concert and auction of donated items to raise approximately $7,000. They also raised our fees for nonmember weddings and other building use.
Other Revenue: In 1983, Western helped found and became home to one of Washington’s best programs for the homeless: Miriam’s Kitchen for the Homeless. For twenty-five years the kitchen has basically had a free home. With the current crisis, we needed to revisit that situation.
We weren’t looking for rent. But we did talk to the program’s board about Miriam’s making a contribution toward building operating expenses. We settled on an amount that represents a bit less than one-half of our actual costs for being the kitchen’s home.
It was opportune that Miriam’s had decided to add a dinner program to its breakfast and day programs. The additional costs stemming from the new program would have required some discussion about cost-sharing anyhow. The contribution from Miriam’s was established for a three-year period, at which point the question of whether or not it needs to continue will be revisited.
Going to the Congregation
Prior to finalizing their decisions, the session sent a detailed, seven-page letter to the congregation explaining the issues, the decision-making process, and the proposed outcomes. For the next three weeks the elders held four focus groups to which members of the congregation were invited. The feedback was extremely positive with several helpful fundraising suggestions, including better stewardship education with new members and small group stewardship meetings in the homes of members. With the feedback in hand, a relieved and excited session gathered. As it turned out, the June session meeting was anticlimactic. The combination of budget cuts, increased giving by the members, and additional revenues from other sources (Miriam’s Kitchen, auction, etc.) effectively closed the $200,000 gap. By putting a salary freeze in place, the new budget should be stable through the end of 2010.
What We Learned
Our process was educational. Here is a summary of what it made clear to us:

• Communication between the pastors and elders, the session and congregation was crucial throughout. We used e-mail letters to the congregation, announcements in worship, one-on-one conversations with key players, and small, open discussion groups to keep the process participatory and transparent.
• It was very important that we had an active strategic plan in place. (It is reviewed annually by the committees and session). The plan gave us our starting point.
• Our priorities were already established, our values clear. Therefore, we were able to move directly to the question, “What do we want to eliminate from the plan?” When the answer was “very little,” we knew we had to solve most of our problem on the revenue side of the budget (through things like pledges, building rental, and fundraisers).
• Growth fuels a commitment to growth. Despite fears that the congregation would devolve into competing interest groups (mission vs. music, education vs. personnel, etc.), it never happened. As a growing congregation, our members did not want to step back from our strategic plan for growth. To sustain growth they put their treasure where their vision is.
• They also realized that everyone was going to have to experience some cuts in their favorite budget line items.
• Resolving the personnel piece was crucial. It was clear to everyone that we couldn’t move forward with our staff intact if we didn’t get more money. This was a key to members deciding they wanted to contribute more financially. To protect the core of our ministry, sacrifices by members were required and made.
• Working in small groups was very successful. When the session discussed issues as a bigger group, things got heated. When we talked in small groups people were pragmatic and in a problem-solving mode. The small groups unleashed a lot of creativity on issues ranging from fundraising to cutting building expense.
• Trust builds trust. Prior to the crisis, the congregation had a high level of trust in the session. While the swift decline of the endowment’s value shook this confidence for a few members (“How could they have let this happen?” was a comment I heard several times), most people looked at their own investments and realized that one didn’t need to be negligent to lose money during the market crash. While there was some impatience that the process took months, most members realized the decisions being made required time. At every stage of the process, the session kept the congregation informed as to what was happening.
• It is alright for people to have heated exchanges in a time of crisis. At one point in a session meeting, I clashed with an elder who is also a friend. We raised our voices as we argued with one another. Everyone wondered what would happen to our friendship. We remain friends, that is what happened. As a rule, most congregations fear conflict. When it happens naturally and we don’t fall apart, the church is a much better place.

Hopefully, Western has not only resolved its own financial challenge but has been a good model for our members as they face their own personal financial challenges. An economic crisis isn’t a time to panic. It is a time to pray, to clearly identify issues, to utilize—not abandon—the strategic plan, and a time to have open communications with all stakeholders.
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Questions for Reflection:

1. Does your congregation have a strategic plan? Is it reevaluated annually? Does it have metrics to measure whether any progress is being made on the goals?
2. Has your governing board devoted a significant amount of time to discussing how the congregation can maximize its revenue possibilities?
3. If your congregation has financial reserves, has the investment strategy for those funds been reevaluated recently?
4. Is someone in charge of having regular cost-savings conversations with utility, copier, and other companies with whom the congregation does business?
5. Does your congregation have a comprehensive communications strategy to utilize the amazing opportunities new technologies provide us for ministry?

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Putting Your Money Where Your Mission Is
Money decisions in a congregation are never simply about money. To persuade decision makers to make hard budget cuts and donors to open their reduced pocketbooks, leaders need to connect decision making to a clear-eyed understanding of the congregation's mission.
Read more from Dan Hotchkiss »
Some pundits see a silver lining in our recent economic troubles: Americans have finally kicked the habit of conspicuous consumption. I’ll believe it when I see it. Over the last couple of years, I have consulted with a number of congregations and other religious bodies that have had to cut back their consumption, and it’s not a pretty sight. Typically, the leaders rave and rage and drag their feet—spending down endowments, digging out defensive bunkers, hoping for a miracle. As long as possible, we humans try to make ourselves believe we are exempt from the arithmetic that says a deficit can be reduced in only two ways: by shrinking costs or growing revenue.
For perspective, it is worth remembering that the phrase “conspicuous consumption” was coined by the American economist Thorstein Veblen in 1899 to make sense of the excesses of the Gilded Age. Churches participated fully in those excesses when they could afford to, as anyone can see by touring the old fashionable section of most any city. Not long ago I toured a downtown church that sports two choral robing rooms—one for men and one for women—each with its own brushed-copper door.
The Great Depression changed behavior temporarily, but not attitudes. Of course, people spent less when they had less, and taught thrift as a virtue to their children. The Depression generation spent and borrowed its way gladly through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson years. Churches and synagogues joined in, building utilitarian “plants” rather than ornate palaces, just as the public sector built useful interstate highways rather than the dazzling town halls of yore. The style of spending changed after World War II, but the scale of spending mostly grew.
From 1950 to 1970, real income per capita—the amount of stuff each person can buy—almost tripled, and spending tripled along with it. Congregations participated fully in those trends: per-member revenue—and spending—of denominational churches also tripled in those decades. Our national concept of the minimum a congregation needs to provide each member has grown with members’ concept of the minimum they are entitled to.
Since 1970, income growth has stalled, but until recently consumption kept increasing. We made the difference up by borrowing: consumer debt, mortgage debt, and—especially since 2001—federal debt. Reliable statistics about church debt are hard to come by, but who can doubt that congregations have participated in this trend also? Over the last forty years, churches became as comfortable with debt as families did, and with the same result. “If you build it, they will come” is a nice slogan, but not Scripture. Like families, churches can go into bankruptcy or foreclosure. Some have, already; others will, if they don’t tighten up their belts, and quickly.
The real silver lining, for congregations as well as for households, is that when you must make do with less, you are forced to figure out what really matters. Here is where an economic crisis may conceal an opportunity. When budgets grow, leaders find it easy to say yes to every good idea. When budgets shrink, they sometimes have to say no to good ideas—even cherished, praiseworthy, excellent, and long-established ones—in order to say yes to what is central to the congregation’s mission.
How can a congregation take advantage of this opportunity? Scarcity alone is not enough: during the Great Depression, the established, mainline churches declined rapidly. One factor, I suspect, is that they generally chose to preserve the externals—clergy, staff, and buildings—and, with too few exceptions, failed to focus on each congregation’s core, distinctive ministry. Even when the ministry itself was vibrant and mission driven, the budget process began—and too often ended—with the institutional externals.
Expressing Ministry Priorities
Congregations still too often plan and budget as though planning were one thing and budgeting another. But the budget is part of a congregation’s plan for ministry. Especially in times of scarcity, the budget must express the congregation’s ministry priorities. The first budget document should have no numbers in it—only words describing the top ministry priorities and goals as understood by the top lay and clergy leaders.
This will seem odd to many finance committee members, who are used to starting work on next year’s budget by opening a spreadsheet with last year’s budget and adjusting. This approach tends to foster an excessive focus on the “fixed costs” of utilities, salaries, and building maintenance, and to assume that maintaining customary services and staffing is the top priority. All of these considerations are important, but before the spreadsheet crew gets started, it needs instruction from the top leadership about the vision that should shape their work.
One way to start the budget process is by holding an annual planning retreat. Typically, this event includes the governing board and senior members of the staff. Ideally the group spends at least a day and a half off-site with a strict no-cell-phone rule. The agenda varies, but the subject matter always is discernment, vision, and strategy.
An essential work product from the retreat is what I call the annual vision of ministry, an answer to the question, “In what new and different ways will we transform lives in the next one to three years?” The vision of ministry is the congregation’s short list of priorities—the things it will accomplish in the coming year no matter what.
Making the Short List
Why a short list? Because when a list of priorities is long, they’re not priorities! The fact that something does not make the list does not mean that it won’t happen. While creating the vision, the board will bank a number of ideas for the future: pieces of a long-term vision to which the board is not prepared to make an ironclad commitment now. There is no way to do this without sometimes saying no to good ideas.
Some congregations decide that one item is the right length for a list of priorities. “This is the year for children.” “This year we will take a big step forward in service to our neighborhood.” “We will become known as a great synagogue for young adults.” Whether the list has one, two, or three items (no more, please!), it becomes a guide for budget-makers who must say yes to what fits the vision, no to what does not. At no time is this more helpful than when the pie threatens to shrink.
The exact process for creating the vision of ministry will change from year to year. In some years the ministry priorities may be so obvious that the board creates the vision quickly and uses the planning retreat for other purposes. Most of the time the vision of ministry emerges from a yearlong conversation, followed by deeper reflection and exchange during the retreat.
Keeping Some Questions Open
In addition to a vision of ministry, the planning retreat produces “open questions.” In discussing the congregation’s work and drawing out the hopes and worries of its leaders, retreat participants may find technical challenges surfacing that all but suggest their own solutions. If the boiler is broken, you fix it. Other challenges do not lend themselves to quick or even slow decision making. Perhaps your congregation needs to decide whether to abandon, renovate, or replace a building that has been the main symbol of its identity for 150 years. Or you may wonder how to serve a neighborhood whose residents are different from the people of your congregation. You may have a nagging sense, as Jonah did, that God is calling you to make radical changes, but the subject is too hot to push it to decision making. The board could make up its mind and announce a solution prematurely, but that seems likely to increase division rather than encourage movement toward a decision. With such challenges, the board can make a major contribution simply by stating the issue clearly as an open question—one it expects the congregation to address sometime in the future, but not now. For now, the next step is sustained, reflective, and inclusive conversation.
Translating Vision into Goals
After the retreat, everyone has work to do. The staff needs to translate the board’s vision of ministry into goals and objectives. In larger churches, the senior staff has goals of its own. Even a slogan like “We will integrate social outreach into everything we do” can be counter to the tendency of staff members to draw back into their departments. The staff’s goals take the board’s vision of ministry and move it to a more practical level. If the vision of ministry says “We will make room to welcome more people,” the staff might say, “After the first of the year, we will add a second session to our children’s Sunday school. By then we will be ready to double the number of parking-lot greeters skilled at hospitality to families with children.”
Individual staff members set goals next. Beginning each staff member’s goal-setting conversation with the board’s vision of ministry and goals set by senior staff helps put parochial concerns into the context of the wider mission. It is the job of every ministry team leader to set the stage for goal setting in this way. Then the team proceeds to set goals for itself and the staff member (in consultation with his or her team, supervisor, and colleagues) sets goals for himself or herself.
The budget itself may be assembled by a finance committee and presented to the board for approval. A better process, though, is to put responsibility for creating the budget in the same place as responsibility for achieving the vision of ministry: the staff. At the very least, the head of staff should be required to sign off on the budget, saying to the board, “I believe this budget is a reasonable plan to achieve our vision.” In many congregations the normal budget process sails right from the committees to the board without the clergy leader having to express an opinion. Under that procedure, it is a stretch to hold the head of staff accountable for much of anything.
With a budget created in this way, the annual fund drive can be based on the vision of ministry. Contributors are asked for amounts that, if most of them say “yes,” will make the vision possible. The board, clergy, and staff make it clear that the vision is not just something they hope to shoot for; it’s a goal they mean to reach. Year after year, people learn that when the congregation asks for gifts it means what it says. If the members give what is asked, the results promised—the vision of lives changed through ministry—will happen.
Money decisions in a congregation are never simply about money. To persuade decision makers to make hard budget cuts and donors to open their reduced pocketbooks, leaders need to connect decision making to a clear-eyed understanding of the congregation’s mission. That’s where the sense of urgency created by a global recession can actually create opportunities. Because we all need to make do with less, it can be easier to get leaders to focus on distinguishing the core mission from the external “nice, but peripheral” cost centers that naturally spring up when funds are plentiful.
In economic hard times, people need the church more than ever—to comfort them when they lose jobs or have to adjust their lifestyles or postpone retirement, to provide them with meaningful opportunities to serve those worse off than themselves, and to advocate for justice for the weak. In the process, we may gain new eyes to see the frills in our own institutional life, and to recommit ourselves to what is most essential.
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Questions for Reflection:

1. What vision will you use to shape your budget process? How do you answer the question, “In what new and different ways will we transform lives in the next one to three years?”
2. How might your congregation express its vision in a simple slogan or statement?
3. In what budget areas are your congregation’s expenses unusually high compared with others of your size? (For reference, see the “Snapshot of Congregational Finance” at /conversation.aspx?id=3150.
4. What’s on your short list of priorities?
5. What concerns might best be left as “open questions,” as described in the article?
6. What must your congregation manage to afford, no matter what?

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FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY

Generous Saints provides a constructive theology and ethical account of money in the Christian life.
Written by James Hudnut-Beumler, now Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt Divinity School, this book deals with vital questions, including: "What does the Lord require?," "What is the true meaning of the term 'commonwealth?'," and "How does the church build a stable base for its members to live ethical lives?"
This book models a positive approach in dealing with the often-difficult topic of money in the lives of congregation members.
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