No one goes into the ministry to become wealthy. If they did it's likely they will get a reality check rather quickly. It's important that ministers understand how to manage their money wisely. Unfortunately, after 12 years of public education, four years of college and three years of seminary most have received little to no training in how to manage their personal finances. Many are struggling with student loan debt and the expenses of starting and raising a family. This can create huge problems in the home, increase stress and even cause the minister to leave the ministry in order to financially support his or her family.
While serving as an Area Minister I spent a lot of time in my car. At the time of my retirement I was serving over 130 churches scattered across the southern third of Indiana so I had a lot of windshield time. To pass the time driving I regularly downloaded a number of podcasts on my I-Pod to listen to. One of those podcasts was The Dave Ramsey Show. This was a three hour podcast where Ramsey took caller's questions about their personal finances. He would give them advice on how to solve those problems often referring to his Baby Step formula.
After listening for several months my wife and I decided to follow those steps, and we found out they worked! When I recently served as a Transitional Pastor in a church I asked an individual to lead Ramsey's Financial Peace University in a small group, and the results were amazing. To my knowledge, every person in that group saw tremendous improvement in their personal finances.
Ramsey has published several books on personal finance and members of his team have written more, but the one I would recommend to anyone who needs help with their personal finances is The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness. This book contains the Baby Steps and explains how to follow them. It also provides a lot of commonsense advice on money management. Because Ramsey is a Christian you will find that a lot of what he teaches is based on biblical teaching.
If you struggle financially you may find his recommendations will help you get better control over your finances. When you do that you will likely find that your ministry is more productive because you are not stressed out over money problems, and your home life will probably improve as well.
I would also recommend that your church offer Financial Peace University to your congregation. If your church is like most, there are probably several families who are struggling financially who would benefit from this eight session program. This could be a tremendous way to minister to them in an area in which they are hurting.
If I returned to pastoral ministry I would also begin to offer FPU to the community as an outreach effort. Jesus touched people where they were hurting, and many people today are hurting financially. This could be an excellent way to introduce people to your church and minister to their needs.
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