Growing up, my father and I would often spend some time on the tennis courts. My dad wanted me to learn tennis because in his words, “this is a sport you can play your entire life, and its relatively cheap. It will keep you active!” So at least one or two nights a week in the spring and summer we would play tennis. Around the age of 12, I began to win when we would play against each other; and so, our time of playing tennis together ended. Turns out, I had a knack for tennis, but I didn’t do anything with that talent in high school because I chose to play a different sport. Fast forward to my freshman year in college, and I finally decided it was time to use that gift. I walked on to our small college tennis team and ended up getting a scholarship and was an All-Conference player multiple times throughout my collegiate career. Why do I tell you this story? Because it’s not enough to possess something, you must also know what to do with it and use it. Sure I could play tennis in an above average manner, but had I not used that gift I never would’ve gotten scholarships that helped pay for my degree and I never would’ve helped our team at Southwestern. I had coaches who developed my gifts and showed me how to use them.
A sword in the hands of an untrained person is dangerous, but when you train that person how to use it, it becomes an invaluable asset in an army of defense. My fellow leaders, our church budgets should be viewed in the same light. I know it’s not the most glamorous side of ministry, but stewarding your church’s funds is a holy and vital skill that should never be overlooked. At Cross Fellowship, we have a saying that resonates around these halls; “All ministry is significant!” That means the person who cleans the bathrooms is just as vital as the person preaching. It means that the finance manager’s role is just as important as the pastor leading worship on Sundays. Every act of ministry is holy, including how you steward your church’s finances. Our churches have these resources financially, and a lot of us just don’t truly know how to use them.
If we operate from a mindset that ALL ministry is significant, then we should view our budgets and budget processes as the engine that allows all ministry to run in a God-honoring, holy manner. This should fundamentally change how most of us view and set our yearly budgets for our churches. I would guess that the overwhelming majority of churches look at the prior year’s budget as the determining factor for how they set their upcoming fiscal budgets. For example, if your church brought in $200,000 last year, you would probably use that as a determining factor for the upcoming year’s budget. You would project what you could conservatively expect to bring in financially, and then maybe set a budget close to that number or maybe a little higher because we’ve got faith.
I’m not here to question how you run your church budgets. I’m here to propose a different way, and a way that I would argue is more God-honoring and allows us to invite God into the preparation process. The first thing I would ask any church in the budget setting season is this: How does your budget help you reach the God given mission of your church? I believe we should always ask this question as church leaders who play a role in setting the budget. Our Mission here at Cross Fellowship Church is to “Be faithful to take one step closer to Jesus, and to help others do the same.” Since that is our God-given mission, we try to align our budget to that mission. This affects every facet of the budget. It affects the personnel side of budget as we prioritize making sure we have the right staff in place to carry out that mission. It influences how we hire and what roles need special attention from a personnel standpoint. From an operational ministry budget standpoint, it drives how we fund our ministries, and it also drives how we prioritize events and it informs us of the things that maybe we shouldn’t be doing because those things don’t align with the mission of the church.
I know it’s hard to fathom as church leaders, but there are probably events or budgeted items on your calendar that you don’t necessarily need. It doesn’t mean they’re bad, it simply means that they don’t align with the mission of your church. Can I challenge you to use this budget process as an opportunity to re-engage the mission of your church and to do a ministry audit to ascertain what events and positions align with your mission? Can I also challenge you to pray fervently and invite the Holy Spirit into the budgeting process? This may be hard to hear as pastors (of which I am one), but God cares way more about your church than you do, and so often we exclude Him from the budgeting process because we are simply doing the thing we’ve always done when it comes to finances. Don’t do that! We get a holy opportunity to align our finances with God’s mission for our churches, and this is an opportunity we cannot afford to waste. Eternities depend on it.
Once you ask the question of how does our budget align with God’s mission for the church, and once you’ve taken a hard look at your ministries and seen what aligns and what doesn’t; the next logical step is you fund what fits the mission. If outreach into the community is a big part of your mission then you resource ministries to go do outreach events, and to engage people in the community. If reaching the lost is a big part of your mission then you fund the evangelism strategies that you employ within the walls of the church and outside of the walls as well. If discipleship is a big part of your mission, then you fund opportunities and ministries that support that missional calling.
Here’s the hard part; sometimes this means letting sacred cows die. I must own this one personally. We had an event here at our church that I just loved and we did it every Christmas season for a couple of years when I first arrived in 2020. I can’t say enough about this event, it was fun and people really enjoyed it, but we started to notice that as good as the event was, it wasn’t exactly a big outreach event and it was adding to people’s busy schedules during a packed Christmas season. So last year when we did our budgeting process and calendaring, we made the hard decision that we needed to stop doing that event. It hurt! We had people in the church who loved that event as much as I did and they were frustrated that we were no longer doing that event, but it was the absolute right call. The funds we used for that event were deployed into our Christmas Blessing store event which reached over 200 families in the community who were not a part of our church. We definitely made the right call (even if it hurt to let an event go that I loved). Aligning your budget with your mission makes greater Kingdom impact. It’s about the Kingdom of God not the kingdom of me.
Those of us who oversee budget processes in our church can sometimes feel like we are just a cog in the wheel to make sure ministries are funded and people are paid, and I want to challenge you that your budget is so much more than that. Your ministry in finance to your church is so much more than that! What you do to help steward your church’s finances is integral to the mission of the church you serve. When we invite God into our lives, we know that as Christ followers, it is infinitely better to live out God’s plan for our lives. His will for our lives is so much better than our own will for what we want (it’s not always easier, but it’s better). I guess I would humbly ask you all to adopt that same belief when it comes to your budget. Invite God in! Let Him lead and guide and align with His will, as opposed to asking Him to align with yours. Here’s four easy words as we close this article to remember for inviting God into the budget processes of your church.
- Ask- Ask how the budget aligns with God’s mission for the church
- Audit- Take a hard look at your church ministries and see what aligns with the mission
- Acknowledge- Own the areas that need to change and own the fact that we sometimes omit God from our budgetary process
- Allocate- Fund the Budget in such a way that we allocate funds to do the work of the church that fits with the mission.
Fellow leaders, this is a harder process to engage than one might think. I have many deficiencies when it comes to being an executive pastor at Cross Fellowship, but I do believe that when it comes to budgets, this philosophy has produced fruit. We’ve seen lives changed and eternities changed and disciples engaged and we’ve seen people know that God loves them through the ministries of the church. We rely on God to lead His church. Let’s continue that belief in our budgets as well.
Travis Hastings is the Executive Pastor/Worship Pastor of Cross Fellowship Church (Black Forest Campus).
