From the start Community of Grace has been a gracious church in terms of giving. We currently give away 14% of our general, weekly offerings to missions locally and around the world. We give away 10% of our building fund to specific local and international projects. 4 times a year we take missions offerings. Each Sunday we collect money for the hunger fund. Since day 1 we have been self-sufficient and have yet to have any payables. Not bad for 2 1/2 years of mission.
Yesterday I met with a student whose church went through a very difficult, back-breaking financial crisis for 6 years during a building project. During that time they lost some members, which meant the giving decreased at a time when they really needed it to go up. She talked of the toll it took on the staff and the congregation. Thankfully, things have turned around for them. But I could relate having lived through some very, very tough financial crises in my 23 years of ministry. What really caught my attention was how tough the second building campaign was for her church. The first 3 year campaign did very well. People were excited. But the second one angered a lot of people. I guess they thought that once the building was up it was paid for!
Today I read in Nadia's blog about some younger congregations that have done great financially but this year have had some challenges.
Our attendance has gone down a bit the last 12 months (not unexpected as we settle in after a very fast start.) The upside is that our giving is up significantly over last year.
I want to assure you that your board and staff take our finances very seriously. As we plan our budgets we want to make sure that we don't get ahead of Jesus but don't fall too far behind, either.
So with that in mind, three things:
1-We will be doing another building campaign in a couple of years to continue to pay for what we will build next year. This current campaign allows us to build. It will not pay for the building. So we will be stretched with these kinds of campaigns in the future. I don't want you to be caught by surprise.
2-While our giving has been solid this year, the last few months it has been down. I've had a sense that perhaps the bad news we hear day after day about the economy is catching up to us and other churches (even though the overwhelming majority of Americans feel that they are personally doing OK financially.) This is not to sound any alarms but to speak honestly about our giving as I promised to do. God has poured out his grace on us and through us so that we can carry out his mission financially. Let's continue to be open to him doing that through us in the months to come.
3-Giving is such a vital part of what it means to follow Jesus. I hope at Grace giving will always be seen as a response to God's overwhelming grace rather than a hammer that pounds us down with guilt; that giving will always be an act of joy, regardless of how much or how little we give.
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2 comments:
Regarding the repeated building campaigns, people probably wonder when the campaigns stop and the maintenance or mortgage becomes part of the budget. They can see a brand-new building or addition but don't see a loan payment.
Point well made. This is where leaders need to do a much better job of communication. In our case, repeated building funds will be necessary to make that loan payment. To add thousands of dollars per week to the general budget would essentially sink the ship. You'd have a skeleton (building) but no innards (staff, programming, etc.) Thanks for the reminder that we always need to communicate and over communicate on this stuff. I don't think most people get angry at the church for talking about money. They get angry when we don't communicate clearly about it and giving issues in the church become confused.
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