How is Your Church Doing In This Economy?

[bobv]

I am a church business administrator and I was running some numbers for my pastor. I noticed that the church's spending was right in line with where we were last year, but the giving was off by almost 30%. Obviously this is a concern. I have read different articles about how churches as a whole are doing during this economic downturn but was curious to hear if other churches are indeed seeing their giving decreasing and what is the church doing to cut back on expenses.

[bob]

I don't know much about the financial numbers of our church, but we are rolling out an overdue church expansion project - so it will be fun to see how God provides!

[pochax]

our church clearly has been affected and one could argue at the worst time - we just moved into our new facility which cost us a pretty penny. compound that with the fact that our church had much of its capital savings for this moving project in an IndyMac savings account - yeap, the same IndyMac that went sour but unfortunately our church had much higher than the cap limit $100k that was FDIC-insured. so what happened after that? the church started giving more to help compensate for the loss and we have had to cut costs. however, great pains are being made so as not to cut direct community-assistance ministries as well as pastoral salaries/benefits (although i wouldn't say they're getting raises either). in all, God is being faithful and i know the church is doing their best to still be fruitful in ministry even if the coffee/donuts on sundays seem a bit fewer than last year

[carodoo]

I'm the Finance Director for a church so I look at the numbers on a weekly basis. Back in October, we made some drastic changes to our budget to prepare ahead of time. We had each department determine what their critical needs were to operate their area of ministry and everything else is now on a pre-approval basis. So far, we have not seen a significant drop in contributions and have been able to save more for the days ahead. As someone mentioned earlier about seeing less donuts, we have cut back on food & extras for our volunteers and have become more creative in expressing our thanks to them in less costly ways. We've also gone back to some "pot luck" events rather than having everything catered and it has actually had a positive effect on our church body. Our staff has become more creative in finding ways to do things without spending extra money and working together more. We know of several churches in our area and around the country that have had to lay off staff members. So far, we are not in that position. I believe that God will turn all of this around for good.

[gourdwoman]

Our church has had to cut back on the amount given to missions and missions are very dear to us.
I know our Pastor did not get a raise for this year. He is Ok with this as he does not have to work an extra job to get by.
We know our Heavenly Father will see us through all things good and bad. We are blessed to be here. Struggling and trials just make us stronger.

[bobv]

A church I follow and admire very much in Indiana has just had to lay off some of its staff. Here is what the pastor said about the layoffs.

"I’ve heard it suggested (from others and from the voice of temptation in my head) that we should reduce outreach efforts, stop launching new ministries, reign in multi-site evangelism work and stifle innovation. Some of those tempters have proposed we stop helping other churches and focus on ourselves. These voices call for an inversion of orthodoxy; they recommend we turn our concerns top-side-down, making it our highest priority to keep every paid person on staff, even if it means we have to abandon our mission. Not a single person on staff would ever want that!"

During hard times like these, it's easy to abandon the mission God has called us to do. I believe this may be a "Job" time for churches across our nation. Staying true to God and the purposes He has called us to do will be the key to getting through this time and in the end, we will be rewarded for our faithfulness.