The Way Forward: Money follows Mission

One of the prevailing temptations in ministry is to leap too quickly to solutions, especially for the kind of folks reading this note, the vast majority of whom are leaders in their churches. Leaders become leaders by solving problems, by being perceived as capable and willing to tackle the difficult work of bringing God’s good news into people’s lives and the life of our communities. As leaders, then, we are tempted to leap before we look, for problems come fast and hard and the next one is just around the corner.

Nowhere is this temptation more prevalent that when dealing with money. “Being good stewards” is our polite way of raising concerns about money; “Butts and Bucks Anxiety” is sometimes closer to the truth. When money concerns present themselves, leaders’ leap before we look impulse often kicks in with renewed vigor, for, unlike the federal government, churches must live within a budget. Such a response is natural, inevitable and is indeed being a good steward. However, in the urgency of the moment we sometimes fail to distinguish between the short-term, limited and provisional decisions that must be made right here, right now and the longer-term, broad and wide, strategic choices that must be made for the health of our congregations. Or, in this instance, our presbytery.

As I have discussed these past few weeks, the presbytery is beginning to engage in a conversation about our budget, about how we spend money, for we have an unsustainable budget deficit of $180,000 caused by a complex array of factors. In the short-term, we will make some limited and provisional decisions about how to decrease the deficit, review reserve funds toward possibly redesignating them and look at gaps in our current structure that might save us a few bucks. Much more significant will be the ever broadening, ever widening conversations focused on the longer-term, strategic choices that must be made. To give focus to these more strategic questions, I have proposed a set of three questions with which to approach our budget. These questions work for a local congregation just as well as they do for a presbytery:

·         What are we constitutionally required to do?

·         What are our core commitments that are a function of our identity and call from God?

·         What are other considerationsthat are, perhaps, important yet do not reflect our deepest identity and calling?

These three questions suggest a hierarchy of values, and as such function as a lens through which one can examine and explore who a presbytery (or congregation) is, what kinds of things they must do to remain true to their identity before Christ and their unique calling from God, and what may be one or more things that are bound to make Jesus happy but which are not foundational to the shared missional vision of the congregation (or presbytery). All this is a way of speaking the truth leaders have known for years: money follows mission; first mission, then money. Yes, we need to talk about the budget deficit. But first we need to know who we are and whose we are; we need to examine, explore and embrace our mission.

Resisting the temptation to leap before I look,

Brad Munroe