DEAR CHURCH:  "Butt" It Ain’t About the Money

April 26 2020

In life After the Virus (“AV”), it will appear that our single-greatest concern in church will be our finances. There’s no sense in trying to deny this fact. During this pandemic, pastors have already experienced many sleepless nights, headaches, and recurring ailments because of this one concern. For obvious reasons, most churches have likely incurred a significant decrease in giving. But we must remember: It ain’t about the money.

Yes, money is important. However, the priority of money should be much further down our list as the church begins operations in life “AV”. (We’re obviously not concerned about Evangelism, “Talk the Talk”, April 23,2020). Committee chairs, deacons, and senior leadership are rightfully concerned about the church’s finances, but money cannot be our worship and pulpit purpose.

I recently participated in an online workshop led by the pastor of a large church in Colorado. Pre-pandemic, the church received no offerings during worship. All (100%) of their offerings were previously received by auto-draft and online contributions. As a result, they’ve experienced ZERO dropoff in giving during the pandemic. Seems impossible, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the rest of us are stuck; we are caught between potential budget cuts and the need to be especially-sensitive to our struggling parishioners.

In the “old days”, we pastors were experts at squeezing juice from a turnip. However, in recent years, that approach hasn’t worked. In the last few years, many of us switched to “getting butts in the seats” as the most effective manner to increase contributions. But now, the “butts-in-seats” approach won’t work either. Worship attendance will likely decline due to anticipated social distancing and an overall fear (by some) to be physically close to others.

So, what’s the solution to our financial problem?

We have no choice. We must rely upon God to provide what we need. Yes, we already knew this, but sometimes we use “Faith in God” as an excuse to not address our financial concerns within the church. We can no longer use this as an excuse. We must use this season as additional evidence that we need to maintain real, genuine Faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. When we follow God in Faith, God will provide for all that we need!

BUTT - Yes, there is a big, big “Butt” in this - We will be tempted at every turn to bang the pulpit, trying to raise the money needed to tackle our budget concerns. If we do this, we will be displaying our big “Butts” to new people who attend our churches. We must be cautious to not communicate to our new-comers that our primary purpose for worship appears to be financially-related.

Why would they think that? “Outside people” already think our church ONLY cares about money. In the past, we’ve painted our Public Image rather poorly (see the post, “Dear Church: Public Image”, Apr 17, 2020). My assumption is that if we plan a stewardship sermon within our first couple of months after reopening our doors, we will be reinforcing their perception. The same is true if we plan for a member of our Finance Team/Committee to address the congregation during worship and make the financial plea. Remember: The world is in a financial crisis that could take a long time to overcome. Many people have lost jobs. Even if they’ve maintained their employment, their household income is almost definitely stretched because of greatly-reduced retirement and savings accounts.

I am not suggesting that we don’t pass the plates and invite the offering. I’m guessing all of us wish our church had a more significant online giving program. Yes, online and automatic giving is even more important than before, but receiving an offering during worship is also important. Our offering is a vital demonstration of one’s discipleship within the Body of Jesus Christ. “Butt”, if we give-in and bang that money-gavel in the short-term, the intermediate and long-term results within our church could be disastrous.

True, I’m not an expert on financial giving to the church (although some might disagree given my background in finance and banking). Yet, we pastors and church leaders must be careful. This is a delicate situation that requires our prayers, not our worries. Our congregations expect us to be experts in Faith, and we may never encounter a better opportunity than this to demonstrate Faith in regards to our current budget concerns.

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5, NIV)

No matter how we look at it, the church budget is a major concern for all churches. But there’s another significant concern that we must consider: Pastoral Care. Pastoral Care has dramatically changed during the last 25 years, and it’s about to change again...