The Money Series (Part 2)
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Budgeting. Giving. Financial health. Money is often a taboo topic in churches.
But what if we flipped the script? Money shouldn’t be a source of anxiety—it should be a tool for mission.
In this new series, Sean and I, along with some special guests, aim to help church leaders develop a healthier relationship with church finances.
From practical budgeting strategies to creating a culture of biblical generosity, we are going to walk through how to align your financial practices with your ministry vision without the awkwardness that typically accompanies “money talks” in church.
In the first episode, we do not hold back:
We make a clear case for the wise way for churches to budget according to biblical principles and contrast it with a common foolish approach many churches take.
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Transcript
Sean:
Well, hey, podcast listeners. Before we start today’s episode, let me tell you about our podcast sponsor: Planning Center. Are you struggling to keep your church organized and connected? Planning Center is the all-in-one church management software that solves your administrative challenges. You can effortlessly track first-time guests, manage volunteer schedules and create easy ways for your congregation to get involved—all from a single platform. Whether you need a check-in system, event sign-ups or an online giving solution, Planning Center helps you nurture your community and keep people connected. Visit planningcenter.com to get started for free.
Well, welcome to the Unstuck Church podcast. I’m Sean here again with my teammate Amy Anderson. Amy, something cool. Last month, our team was on the ground with 20 churches. 13 of those were brand-new churches that we were just beginning to work with. And seven were actually churches that are repeat or longtime clients of ours. I know you personally were onsite with several of those churches. Just wonder if you have any fun stories to share from those engagements?
Amy:
Yeah. All right. How about this: Sean, have you ever been on a plane with a mechanical issue where they tried to resolve it by turning the plane off and back on again? Is that a fun story?
Sean:
No, I don’t think so. Just a reboot. Did it work?
Amy:
My goodness. They literally did. So two of the customers that you asked about who I was working with – I was back in Durango, Colorado with my friends at Summit Church. Such a great group. This was our fourth year. And there’s, again, so much to celebrate. I’m so proud of that team. And then our friends in Quebec: MCI. So that, I don’t know, there’s something special about new churches you get to work with and to delve into and new relationships. But these ones where you have year over year just special people. But I’m trying to get out of Durango, and I fly one airline from Durango to Denver because only two airlines fly there. And then I always fly Delta; Delta’s my airline. So that’s what I do. Denver back to Minneapolis. But I gave myself a three-hour window to get there. Long story short, we had a mechanical issue, and we didn’t know what it was, they didn’t say, but there was no mechanics at the airport yet because it was too early. So the pilot says, “We’re just gonna power everything down and then turn the plane back on and see if that light will go away.”
Sean:
Well, if it works for your cell phone, maybe it’ll work for your airplane.
Amy:
Yeah. That was a little and turned out to be like an air conditioning mechanical issue. But anyways, that’s my highlight. That’s my fun story. And before you take off, I’m gonna take off today because we are kicking off a brand new series, and over the next five weeks, we’re gonna invite some special guests to help us thoroughly cover a topic that makes a lot of church leaders uncomfortable, which is money and church finances. But today to get us started, we’re looking at church budgeting approaches that either kind of set you up for success or struggle. And Sean, I would actually like to interview you for these first two episodes because you can make talking about money fun much more than I can, plus you’re a little quicker on the numbers than I am. So are you all right with that?
Sean:
Yeah. I’ll do my best to make this topic fun for church leaders. But most importantly, I hope the church leaders will just kind of lean in as we’re trying to provide some very practical steps in this series that help you develop a healthier relationship with church finances. But here’s what I wanna encourage church leaders to start with. I won’t read through the whole scripture right now, but you can either pause the podcast right now, or if you’re doing something where it’s not easy to pause if you’re running or driving or whatever it might be, go back and read this verse later.
But I want you to actually start with second Corinthians nine, six through 15. And here’s the key thought that I want you to remember throughout this series. If we are faithful stewards of God’s resources, then he will generously provide all that we need to accomplish the mission. Let me say that again. If we’re faithful stewards of God’s resources, then he will genuinely provide all we need to accomplish the mission. So if you go read the scripture from second Corinthians, that key focus is gonna make a whole lot of sense as we go through today’s episode and the series as a whole.
Amy:
I appreciate you starting with scripture and getting us into God’s word when we talk about this. Well, Sean, I remember our founder and friend Tony Morgan created a simple table to demonstrate the differences between what he called wise and foolish budgeting for churches. Can you walk us through the biggest mistakes churches make in their approach to budgeting?
Sean:
Well, the biggest mistake obviously is what we call foolish budgeting – churches that build their budgets by essentially looking at last year’s giving and then adding a percentage that they hope they will receive as what I’ll call a faith portion. And it sounds spiritual, but it actually creates a cycle of financial stress for churches. When churches budget to spend everything plus more than they’ve historically received, they’re setting themselves up for continuous ongoing financial strain. And this creates a culture where budget freezes become common. And ministry leaders are constantly told to cut back when we get to that mid-year point. We see the end coming and we know we’re gonna fall short, and then we start to hold tightly to the financial reins. It forces churches to focus on maintaining what they’ve always done rather than investing in new kingdom opportunities.
Amy:
Man, you talk about those symptoms, that sounds very common. I know that some church leaders, Sean, will take issue with that approach being called foolish because I’ve heard it called like a faith budget. Can you explain why using faith language can be unwise?
Sean:
It can sound more spiritual to call it faith budgeting, but true faith isn’t about wishful thinking. It’s about wise, intentional stewardship of what God has provided for us. So when we constantly and consistently plan to spend money we don’t have, we’re not demonstrating faith, actually, we’re just demonstrating poor financial management, and the stress that this creates actually limits our ability to really step out in faith when those genuine opportunities arise.
Amy:
All right. So if we don’t wanna be foolish, we don’t wanna do the faith budget, what does a wise approach look like for church budgeting?
Sean:
Yeah, well, that’s the question that most commonly follows what foolish budgeting looks like, right?
Amy:
Right.
Sean:
So, what we’ve seen is wise churches look at last year’s giving, and they actually budget to spend less than they expect to receive. So, we actually recommend budgeting for 10% less than the actual giving from the previous year. And here’s what’s fun about approaching budgeting this way. You’ve already budgeted for less, so if there happens to be a budget shortfall, you’re already prepared. But, if there is a budget surplus, now you get to make some fun decisions about other strategic ways that you can use your financial margin.
Also, churches that budget wisely, they make tough choices during the budgeting process, and they prioritize expenses that directly align with the mission, and they eliminate what doesn’t align with their mission. Let me just say, if you don’t have a clear strategic ministry plan at this point, the entire budgeting process is gonna be a lot more difficult. Aligning finances with your ministry priorities gets a lot more subjective at that point. So we always encourage churches to plan first and then budget second so that your resources can follow your strategic plan. When churches budget this way it creates a culture where the church routinely has margin to invest in new ministry opportunities throughout the year.
Amy:
That’s really good. Sean, any other thoughts around some of the wise best practices you’ve seen in the churches that we’re serving?
Sean:
Yeah. Well, actually I’ve seen a trend of a lot of churches transitioning to a mid-year fiscal year, meaning kind of like a July to June fiscal year. Something along those lines instead of just having a calendar year fiscal year. And I think this can help churches avoid that year-end giving rush to catch up with budget if you’ve experienced that.
Amy:
I agree.
Sean:
Over the years, some churches have gotten close to the end of the calendar year and have tried to do that giving push during the holiday season in order to meet the budget, which is kind of an awkward time of year to do an unfocused, let’s meet budget giving push. When the calendar year lands in the middle of your fiscal year, you can make adjustments for the remainder of that fiscal year once year-end giving comes in. So if we know halfway through our fiscal year December hits, and we know what year-end giving looks like we can adjust between then and June.
Amy:
That really makes sense, Sean, because I think when you run just the calendar year, June never really feels like a true picture of where we’re at in our budget because December is such a big giving month, but when December’s in the middle of your budget, it gives you a lot more clarity around how the year is truly going. That’s a great idea.
Sean:
And I would add to that also, tax return season comes in the midst of that. And so if June’s the end of your year, you get tax return season a few months before that. And that’s just generally when people have maybe some additional resources that come in or for some people, a better sense of what last year’s income looked like.
Another best practice here is to include regular brief giving moments and weekend services that connect generosity to the mission impact rather than just to budget needs. They’re connecting what we’re giving to the mission. And I really think churches should be leveraging stories about the great things that God is doing through your church in order to help provide clarity around the purpose of giving. People give to purpose, but that purpose has to be clear for more people to align their financial resources with your church’s mission.
Amy:
Yeah. It’s really good. All right. For a church that’s maybe been caught in this cycle of the foolish budgeting that you talked about earlier, what are some practical first steps, next steps to shift towards this wiser approach?
Sean:
Well, first of all, be honest about your current reality. Look at the actual giving trends from the past 3, 4, 5 years. I think facts are our friends in this instance. Ask yourself, when was the last time that we did an honest assessment of the health of giving within our church. Everything that we do here at the Unstuck Group starts with assessment. It starts with understanding where we are today.
Once you do that, consider making an initial reduction in planned expenses to create some margin. If you’re just starting out that 10% reduction might not be the first right step for you, but choose a reduction number that your budget can handle for the next year and begin working towards that annual 10% reduction in the following years after that.
I’d also say revisit your ministry priorities and be willing to make hard decisions about what to fund and what to cut. And again, if you haven’t done strategic ministry planning for some time, it’s gonna be a whole lot more difficult to do this. And let me just say too, if you sense that you need some help building a plan for next budgeting season, reach out to us. Our team has helped hundreds of churches develop a ministry plan to make budgeting a whole lot more intentional. So we’d be able to help your church and love to help your church with that as well.
Amy:
Let me add to that, Sean. Part of what we talk about with our churches, especially when we get into this budgeting conversation, is we’re also trying to help them shift their planning to happen before they do budget.
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
So that those plans inform how we need to fund and what we need to spend our money on. So even in that would be probably a first next step as well, is to take a look at when do we do our ministry planning. And then when do we do our budgeting planning and make sure you’re trying to get that ministry planning done in advance. What I see so often is everyone knows when the budget cycle is, like when we have to start submitting various proposals for our budget, and they’re in the middle of a ministry year and they haven’t even thought about what they want to do next year. So it just leads me to believe we’re just kind of rinse and repeat and add a few extra things in there since we have a faith-based budgeting process.
Sean:
Yes. That’s really good.
Amy:
Maybe one other question around this, Sean. How can church leaders help their congregation understand and actually embrace this more conservative approach without it seeming like a lack of vision?
Sean:
That’s a great question. I think first, you need to reframe this change for your team as creating capacity for New Kingdom impact rather than just cutting expenses. Let’s focus on the positive of how we can really create great kingdom impact and mission accomplishment rather than we’re just trying to make some cuts. Again, this is about being good stewards of God’s resources and approaching our finances much more intentionally. I would share stories about how financial margin has allowed other churches to respond quickly to new ministry opportunities. Maybe you’ve had a chance or know another church who’s had a chance to invest in needed capital expenses because of the margin. Either tell that story or if you’ve done it yourself, celebrate it. If you’ve been able to invest in a new strategic initiative that you wouldn’t have otherwise invested in, or maybe you’ve helped to launch a new campus or a church plant, celebrate that, tell those stories, keep focus then on mission fulfillment rather than money management in that key communication that you do with staff and with leaders in your church.
Amy:
That’s super helpful. All right, well, week one in money as we wrap it up, any final thoughts you have before we wrap up today’s conversation?
Sean:
I mentioned this before, but I’d encourage you to do a self-assessment and be honest. Which direction does your church lean here? Do you typically approach budgeting from the wise perspective or more from the foolish perspective? And here’s some questions that might help you diagnose your tendency. Do you plan to spend less than you reasonably expect to receive? Are you willing to make tough calls and cut expenditures in some areas in order to fund your ministry priorities? Have you found yourself in the enviable position of finding new ways to bless others, or to expand your vision because you’ve received more than you plan to spend? Are you fully funding your reach and discipleship strategies, both numerical growth and spiritual growth to experience new Kingdom impact rather than just funding what you’ve done in the past? Does your budgeting process create freedom for ministry leaders to accomplish the mission that God has placed on your church?
We’ll include a list of questions in the show notes for today’s episode as well as the table that Tony developed years ago. Remember, the ultimate goal of wise budgeting isn’t just financial health. It’s creating freedom for your church to be more generous, nimble, and ready to respond to what God is doing. And the churches that consistently practice wise financial stewardship are the ones that make the biggest long-term impact for the kingdom. The bottom line here is that money shouldn’t be a source of anxiety in church leadership. It should be a tool for the mission. If you’d like to actually dig deeper into this topic, check out the free PDF on Funding Ministry in Uncertain Economic Times. We’re sending that out for free via email to our podcast subscribers each week of the series. So you can subscribe for the free content at theunstuckgroup.com/podcast.
Amy, that’s it for this week’s episode. Short, sweet, to the point on budgeting and finances in the church. We’re going to be back with a similar type episode next week. So until then, we hope everyone has a great week.
