As director of finances at your church, you face significant challenges. While other ministers are busy with people and programming, you often become the primary (if not, solitary) checkpoint for responsible stewardship and record-keeping. In fact, you may feel personally responsible for your church’s operational excellence and financial health.
That’s a heavy load — one that can become overwhelming when the economy weakens and membership fluctuates.
You don’t have to bear the burden alone. With God’s help, your leadership can have greater influence than troubleshooting checks and balances. You know better than anyone that finite resources include not only money, but also time and people. As you let God use your expertise in finances to harness your church’s time and brainpower to His advantage, you become a much-needed minister of fiscal health.
No matter where you are in your tenure as financial director, it never hurts to be reminded that God doesn’t expect you to work miracles but, instead, wants to work through you to:
Grow your staff. Church staff should be expected to monitor budgets for their areas, staying informed about fluctuating resources and being prepared to make program adjustments. You’re not the dad that hands over another $20 for a movie or gas whenever asked. Instead, with a spirit of humility, you can build in staff the knowledge and wisdom to manage their own resources, while always keeping lines of communication open for questions, support, encouragement, and mutual accountability.
Grow your members. Church members can grow in managing their personal finances and in sharing responsibility for a church’s fiscal health and opportunities. Asking members to grow in financial health through giving and stewardship is no different than asking them to grow in spiritual health through volunteerism and personal time management. We can trust for all the Word of God that proclaims, “It is more blessed to give than receive.”*
Grow your structure. While we’re not necessarily saying that God’s favorite ChMS is Fellowship One, it is true that technology like Fellowship One can centralize information, streamline processing, and maximize reporting. Accountability thrives in shared, accessible knowledge. Funds that are quickly processed equip those who are making plans, responding to needs, and flexing resources. Online giving features can help members stay on top of their donations. And easy reporting helps you stay informed about areas of weakness or strength.
Money, time, and people — they all belong to God. As we yield to Him what’s already His, using our particular gifts to feed His sheep, we become instruments of His peace.
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We care about the heavy load church financial directors are carrying. If you could use some FREE expert input, we invite you to join us next week for our church budget webinar, hosted by PSK CPA, church accounting firm.
* Consider the context of Paul’s words to the Ephesian elders:
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. … And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:28, 32-35)
