Over the last year our church and I am sure many others have experienced some major changes concerning financial contributions. Many families in my church have experienced 30%+ in income loss and some much more! Recently I have had to prayerfully make changes in my personal finances as well as the church while making sure that the ministry that matters does not stop. I am grateful for what God has shown me during this process.
I am curious: Have you experienced substantial decline in finances?
What changes did you make and how?
What things did you refuse to change because it was too important?
Todd we faced it big time this year. We are down about 30% in tithe and offerings year to date which has forced us to cut just about everything. One thing that has helped us sustain aside from the obvious thing like prayer and prioritization is keeping the church informed without hammering them. The natural inclination for Pastors when giving falls off is to do a reactionary series on stewardship which can come across manipulative. We simply publish our year to date income vs our budget in the bulletin at least once a month. The people see the numbers and it keeps everything above board so they aren't blindsided if we have to take a special offering.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that has helped is learning to balance faith with the bottom line. All of us believe God will turn things around but what if what we are experiencing now is the new "normal." No one likes to think that way but just maybe Go wants us to seek Him out more for divine strategy in this economic paradigm.
Todd we have seen also seen a decline this year of approx 20% up thru July. We began to see an increase again in August through current. During that time we had a serious crunch time to the fact of NO EXPENDITURES but salaries & mortgage.
ReplyDeleteI give God thanks that we have seen a significant increase in the last month. During this time we did not restrict our asking to give and teaching to give. We continue to do the same teaching even during these times teaching people to have Faith to continue.
3 times a year we ask people to commit to support the Vision of clc. We just did that in October asking for a 3 month commitment. God honored us that we reached 75% of our goal for this 3 month time.