I mentioned in my Giving/Funds Reporting post last week that in the church were I served as Business Admin – that at one time we had 27 different fund accounts on the books.
In looking back, this came about really as result of growing pains – a small church with a small budget that could do more ministry with designated gifts. As the church grew larger and added more ministries, we kept that same approach. Ministry needs always out-paced resources.
Aside from the # of funds we had; from the congregation’s perspective, we were taking up too many special offerings and asking for fees for virtually every program or activity.
Ultimately, we felt the need to go to a Unified Budget – not to eliminate the 27 funds or to make the accounting simpler, but rather to accomplish 3 things:
1. To be united in our giving as a church. One fund for the Mission and Vision of the church
2. To reduce the number of special offerings to one per year
3. To eliminate or reduce the burden on our people in the area of certain fees (eliminate barriers of participation as well)
A lot of ministry/mission related offerings and fees we had been receiving we felt needed to be either a) in budget or b) better represented in the budget.
We set out to identify the areas of ongoing ministry and missions that needed to be included in the budget/funding increased in budget. We identified 14 areas. Then we determined the amounts needed to fund those 14 areas for one year. (The challenge – we weren’t in a position to just add these 14 areas to the budget all at one time).
Instead we asked, “What if we could raise those funds outside of yet another special offering?” The thought being, by the next budget year, we could absorb those into the budget.
Here’s what we did:
We came before the church, explained where we were and what we wanted to do in terms of transitioning to a Unified Budget along with the why (above). The how would be forthcoming.
The How:
The very next Sunday, Pastor preached/taught from the Parable of The Talents in scripture (Matthew 25:14-30), promoted the idea of a Missions Market to raise the needed funds. We were going to provide the talents (money).
The next Sunday, we gave a $10 bill to those who wanted to participate in the Parable of the Talents challenge. We challenged them to increase that $10 by making and selling crafts, food, services and so on in a Missions Market for our community. (We had asked a few men in the church to donate $1,000 each to this endeavor before it was announced, since our budget was so tight at the time). We handed out a little over $5,000.
The Missions Market was to be in six weeks. The church got to work. It was absolutely amazing to see the excitement generated and what people were able to do with their “talents”.
We talked from the pulpit each week, had testimonies from people about what they were doing with their “talent”, produced communication materials and posted on our blog and social media accounts – we kept it in front of the people weekly.
On In-Gathering Sunday, at the end of the 2nd morning service, we brought everyone back together to reveal (in a rather dramatic way), how much the $5,000 was turned into – over $50,000!
Those 14 areas were fully funded!
The next week, we communicated the results and where the money was allocated thru multiple channels to make sure everyone knew.
Yes, God did allow us to accomplish our primary goals mentioned above. But something else happened as well. We saw an increase in the unity of the body, which is what He really wanted all along.
Well, that’s how we did it.
What have you seen?