Smaller churches and finances

One common comment I hear when assisting smaller churches that are seeking a new pastor is their lack of money.  There is usually some sort of apology and a promise that if the church grows they will be able to pay more, but right now they just can't provide much of a salary.  Recently, I've been responding, "So in other words, you're looking for a commissioned salesperson.  The more revenue they bring in the more you'll pay them.  Is this what you're saying?"  Of course, they deny that is what they mean, but in some ways it is what they are thinking.

I understand that every church, regardless of size, has limited resources.  But, that doesn't mean that smaller churches have money problems.  In most cases, they have stewardship problems or a vision problem.  Churches are notorious for not wanting their pastor to speak on money issues from the pulpit, and yet to ignore that topic is to ignore a significant piece of the New Testament.  Jesus had much to say about money.  The Bible speaks about tithing and offerings.  For a pastor to not address these issues is to fail to preach the whole counsel of God.

My experience has been that the churches that are most offended by stewardship teaching are the ones that need it the worse.  These are churches made up of a majority of people who rob God of His tithe each week.  They are also often people who will withhold their giving in protest to something they don't like in the church.  As a judicatory leader I've seen more than one pastor forced to resign because small-minded people in the church quit supporting the church financially so the church would be unable to pay the pastor.  In two of those cases, I've confronted the congregation in a public setting and told them that is one of the most unspiritual things they can do.  Pastors need to teach stewardship to their congregations whether the congregations want to hear it or not.  Often, the reasons the church has not been more faithful in its giving is because they've never been taught what the Bible says on this topic, and once they learn that they will improve their financial support of the church.

The second cause of poor giving to a church is a lack of vision.  If the only thing a church is going to do with its finances is pay the utilities and salaries, that is all the money that will come in.  People give to vision; they give to ministry; they give much less to maintenance activities.  In a lifetime of attending smaller churches I've seen it happen numerous times that a church that struggles to pay its bills each month suddenly raises a large sum of money within days or weeks to fund a major project.  That alone proves the church is not without resources.  The problem is that we've not challenged the people to part with those resources for something more exciting than an electric bill.

When a church pursues a fresh vision from God and has been taught biblical stewardship it is very unlikely to have money problems.  The challenge then will become how to be good stewards of the funds coming in so they are used to honor God and advance His kingdom.  That is a much more exciting financial challenge for a smaller church to have!