’Where are we going to get a million dollars?’
I was working with a congregation as they dreamed about their future.
Like so many others, this historic downtown church had beautiful (and aging..) buildings, a faithful and dedicated congregation (that was getting smaller), and a passion to make the world a better place in Jesus’ name.
And they had a vision…
What if they turned their large - mostly unused - Christian education building into a small, faith-based, walkable center-city school? What if tuition were kept low - even free for those in need - making it a viable alternative to overburdened public schools in the area?
They did some research and discovered there is a consulting group for just this type of project, and reached out to them.
The consultants did:
a neighborhood study
an assessment of their property
a thorough reading of the applicable laws, rules, and regulations
got the lay of the land for building city, county, state, denominational, and congregational support.
The report came back - this vision was doable! And the consulting company could walk them through the first five years of getting a school up and running.
The startup cost: $1 million.
The church leaders looked over the report, held deep conversations, prayed about it. But in the end, they decided they could not undertake this project to see their vision through.
’If only we had a million dollars’, they said sadly.
This congregation had a $3.5 million dollar endowment they could have used for the school.
'The institutional church is collapsing and we're not sure what to do'
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’What if we need the money?’
This congregation could not get past the fear of running out of money. The interest from the endowment was a big portion of their annual budget.
They would immediately lose about $50,000 a year if they took out a million dollar chunk all at once.
They just couldn’t take the risk of moving - even a tiny bit - out of the feeling of safety this endowment provide them with.
But money in the bank is not the same thing as sustainability. And this is particularly true of spiritual organizations. We say it, but it’s hard to really believe it - the money does not matter as much as the mission. How we are bring Good News to those around us.
From what I can see from the outside, and what they post online, this church is still there (without a school), a dozen or so years later. But their membership continues to decline. They no longer have a full-time ordained minister on staff. They’re moving closer to the having to close their doors.
It feels to me as if the choice they made to stay safe was at least as risky as the path they did not take.
The paradox of ‘stewardship’.
Many churches have money left by beloved members, and carefully tended to over the years. Like the church I was working with, it could be a significant part of the budget.
It feels like a gift - and it is! It feels like a ‘nest egg’ that must be carefully tended to. And it is!
And … it can put a community in a bind.
’If we spend the money, we might have to close our doors.’
’If we don’t spend the money, we might have to close our doors.’
Taking money out of an endowment or a reserve account is a risk that is easy to see - if we spend the money, the money is gone.
It’s harder to see that not spending the money is also a risk.
It’s an investment on everything staying exactly as it is - which is not what happens with organizations (or people, or any living thing). So even if we can pay for a full-time clergy person, for instance, our membership may still be declining. Our energy for mission may be waning.
We’re losing sustainability even with money in the bank.
What are you willing to invest in?
The real question is not ‘should we spend our money or not’?
It’s: ‘what are we spending money on'?
Because churches like the one I mentioned are using the interest from their endowment in their budget - very likely for one of two things: clergy salary or building maintenance. Or both.
Yet as the church declines, one thing we’re finding is this:
Doing the same things over and over again is not changing the trajectory of the institution.
So chances are, if we just keep using the interest from the endowment to pay the pastor and keep up the building - and we do nothing else - we will just die more slowly than congregations without extra funds. But we’ll still be dying.
Lots of congregations want to innovate, but they don’t know what to do, and they don’t have the funds to do it.
But it turns out, even if they have both an idea and the funds - like the congregation and the school - they can still be held back by fear.
They can still be afraid to risk spending their money on something that hasn’t been proven:
New technology, for reaching more people, and for making administration easier.
New systems for sharing ministry, new roles for lay and ordained ministers.
New ways to engage people with the Gospel - whether they are in the church or not (bringing church to people!).
New centers of religious presence in community life (like a downtown religious school, open to everyone).
The truth is: lots of innovative ministry is not going to succeed. And - each failure leads to learning what will succeed.
As opposed to continuing the same systems and programs and ways of doing things that are definitely no longer working.
Taking a financial risk on a bold new church venture changes the odds from a 100% chance of dying to a non-zero chance of thriving.
Store up your treasures in heaven
Not spending the money you’ve accumulated as a congregation is truly the riskiest strategy of all.
And there’s no way around it - the least faithful.
I’ve always struggled with the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), where servants are praised for investing the Master’s money, except the one who buries his out of fear and gets sent away where there is ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’.
It seems to be praising wise investors, but that’s not how I’ve understood it. It seems to me that Jesus is saying, “the God you believe in will be the God you get’. In other words, the servant who buried his treasure was afraid of a wrathful Master, and that is exactly what he got.
If we want to see God as harsh and punitive, surely we can find Biblical examples. But if we want to see God as all-loving and life-giving, we will find those examples, too. And live our lives through that belief.
This is more in keeping with Jesus telling us to store up our treasures in heaven, and ‘where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.’ (Matthew 6:19-21).
I think about this congregation often - the one who did not start a school, though they could have.
What if they had?
What if they had started the school, and it was a struggle, and maybe it lasted a few years, and then they did run out of money, and both the church and the school closed?
Maybe - even if the school didn’t last - they would have touched a handful of lives. They would have changed the trajectory of some.
Now they face the same decline, and it seems all but certain they will close their doors with money in the bank.
In the end, they could have invested in a handful more lives transformed by the Gospel.
As far as I know, they still can.
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This was a powerful piece, Cathie — wow.