Where Does the Money Go?
Where Does the Money Go?
This Sunday we started a new teaching series entitled Generous. Our desire is to encourage and challenge people to learn to give when the world continually says “get.” In 2 Corinthians 8 we saw that Paul asking the church in Corinth to give generously to the Christians in Jerusalem that were experiencing hardship. The money would be distributed through the local church to members that were in need. The Apostle challenged the church to grow in this grace of giving, and for it to be out of an overflow of joy. For many people today, giving, especially to the church, can bring up a host of uneasy feelings. Many churches do a poor job of teaching Biblical stewardship and generosity. Some churches make giving feel like a guilt driven obligation rather than a joyful act of worship. And, unfortunately, many churches have mishandled money and broken the trust of their members and even those outside the church. At City Awakening we are very aware of the cynicism that follows giving to the church and we try to be sensitive to those issues while still teaching Biblical truth on the subject. After all, Jesus talked a lot about money. We never want to make anyone feel obligated or guilted into giving. We never want to emphasize the size of a gift over the sacrifice of the giver. And we never want to break the trust of those that give or might give to our church. But we do want to teach generous living.
That raises the question that many people have when it comes to giving to any church or organization, “Where does the money I give to the church go?” Honestly, this can be a tough question for churches because everyone is going to have their opinions on how the money “should” be used. Some people will be passionate about children’s ministry while others advocate for a robust homeless ministry or global missions’ budget. The issue of pastor and staff salaries is always touchy as well. Some believe pastors should get paid a minimal salary and not take money away from other ministries, and some see pastors as being mostly underpaid especially considering the 1 Timothy 5:17 statement that elders are “worthy of double honor.”
With this in mind, the goal of this post is to give an overview of how we utilize the financial gifts we receive and the process behind those decisions. Our leaders want to maintain integrity and honesty in all that we do, and we want you to know that we are striving to be the best stewards of all the resources God blesses us with.
How We Gather
As of 2021, City Awakening is still operating as a portable church plant. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is weekly setup and teardown, wear and tear on equipment (and volunteers), no mid-week meeting space, etc. The advantages are low overhead on things like a mortgage, maintenance, insurance, and utilities. A building can be a blessing for a church, but it can also be a real burden financially. Many churches spend a very large portion of their budget on their facility. We are trusting God’s timing and guidance for us in the future, but for now we’re thankful that our facility costs don’t make up a majority of our budget. The school we meet in is gracious in letting us rent the space for a very reasonable cost, but we do pay monthly rent, we have property and liability insurance, and we have equipment maintenance. All expenses that come out of our offerings.
How We’re Led
Because of the relatively low facility cost, the largest percentage of our budget currently goes towards staffing. We have 2 full time pastors and 2 staff members that receive a less than part-time salary while also fundraising and/or working other jobs. We do believe pastors and ministers should be paid fair and competitive pay for the market, and we do regular research to ensure that we are in line with that. There are multiple organizations that put out annual reports for church salary guides which are helpful in seeing averages across the country, while keeping in mind our geographic location and needs. As City Awakening grows, we hope to continue to provide appropriate yet generous salaries (and one day benefits) to our staff that reflect the sacrifices they make and the honor they are due according to Scripture.
How We Grow
The “fun” part of our budget goes towards ministry expenses. This is where our staff gets to pray and strategically think through discipling our people. We get to take our vision for where we believe God wants us to go and do our best to implement it with the resources we have. This chunk of the budget includes our missional community groups, children’s ministry, student ministry, guest services, Sunday worship, member and leadership development, and marketing. This is the part of the budget that’s exciting to put together and we hope to continue to be able to put more resources into these areas of ministry in coming years.
How We Give
The final piece of our budget is our giving. In the same way that we challenge our members to evaluate their personal budgets and giving, we annually look at our offerings as a church and try to stretch our giving outside of the church. We currently give to 2 other church plants within our network (The Summit Collaborative). We do this because part of our vision is to be a church that plants churches. We hope to send out and support our own planters in the future, but in the meantime, we are happy to invest in Gospel-centered planters that we’ve connected with. As a part of the Summit Collaborative, we also give to the network which helps provide administrative oversight, support for training new planters, and support for existing pastors and staff within the network. We also give to the Great Commission Baptist Cooperative Program. Thousands of churches around the country give to the Cooperative Program which uses that money for a wide range of ministry, including sending missionaries overseas, planting new churches in North America, providing disaster relief, supporting Christian education and minister training through seminaries, and much more. The other component of our giving at City Awakening is focused directly on local and global outreach. Our local giving goes to meet needs in our community, whether that’s helping a family pay their bills, partnering with a local ministry doing outreach to those experiencing homeless or women in crisis pregnancy, or supporting teachers in our local schools. Our global giving is focused on supporting men and women serving among the hard-to-reach people around the world.
How We Are Accountable
Putting together our annual budget is something we do not take lightly. Our staff prayerfully considers what we believe God is leading us to do in the coming year, we have our team of elders evaluate our offerings and our projected budget, our church members have the opportunity to ask questions and approve our budget each December, and for the past 5 years we have regularly had outside eyes look over our finances as well; this includes other pastors and church planting coaches. This is all in effort to maintain the highest integrity and be the best stewards of God’s resources that we can.
Our prayer is that over the next few weeks a Biblical examination of giving and generosity of our time, talent, and treasure will challenge each of us to prayerfully consider our exercise of this important spiritual discipline. We should be wise and considerate of where we invest our resources, but there is a strong measure of faith that is needed. All giving requires that we loosen our fists that we tend close too tightly. And we will only truly experience the joy and blessing of giving when our motivation moves beyond meeting a need, funding a cause, or getting something in return. We are free to give when we understand how Jesus gave to us first, and our motivation becomes a worshipful response and desire to imitate our Savior.
Now as you excel in everything—in faith, speech, knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love for us—excel also in this act of grace. – 2 Corinthians 8:7
