MONEY MATTERS . . . IT REALLY DOES

With permission I am posting a slightly edited version of e-mail correspondence that went back and forth today between the Finance Chair and myself.

----- Original Message -----
From: finance chair
To: Pastor Hill ; Treasurer
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 11:05 AM
Subject: Our First Finance Committee Meeting

Hi Pastor Hill,

Hope you are doing well.
I had to run out Sunday so I didn't have a chance to chat with you but wanted to connect before the finance meeting. The team and I will chat before the meeting, but I wanted to hear any feedback you can share or advice on structuring the meeting.

I thought maybe kick off with a prayer, introduce the team to everyone (if anyone shows up) and discuss what is going well and what isn't. Also, with the current financial situation does it make sense to address the congregation and let them know the situation we are in and see if they can help out. And, is it appropriate to do some fundraising efforts....even just short term to help things along. Should I work with outeach and other council groups to help make that happen?

As always, thanks for all your help!!
All the best,
Teresa

Reply:

Hi Teresa,

Your agenda sounds good to me. I think that the enormous list of unpaid bills we have right now will dominate the discussion, so we need to talk about that. In the past we have had such lists, but this one seems rather large.

Providing information to members during worship services helps with a short term situation, but usually when the amount we need is so large, we need a stronger approach to addressing such matters with more specific information. Soon we will be sending out a financial update on giving from members. Usually I send out a letter with that report and let people know in general how things are going.

Technically, we are not supposed to use a specifically addressed report as a means for making a specific appeal for funds. Usually specifically addressed letters (or reports) are sent by 1st class mail. In those cases the USPS doesn't care what is sent. They allow specifically addressed financial reports to be sent out bulk mail at a lower cost to us, but in such cases, because the reports are addressed to specific individual givers, they say that we should not use bulk mailed financial statements as a means for soliciting donations.

A long time ago our congregation adopted a strict policy against what is referred to as "fund-raising." This was part of the overall emphasis in the Church that Christians should give to support the mission of the church and not rely upon fund-raising activities to come up with funds for ongoing budgeted expenses we are obligated to pay.

In reality, most of these activities require a lot of work and bring in very little actual money. They also tend to create a negative climate around the churches because people begin to believe they cannot "afford" to fund their own mission.

Also, they allow leaders to gracefully avoid taking responsibility for actually talking to members and ASKING people to make some sacrifices. It also eliminates the pressure on leaders to examine their own personal giving level on a weekly basis? (How much do we as the church's leaders actually contribute each week/month?).

In 1964, when our church began, the average weekly donation was $5 per family. Several gave more than that, but that was the average per family. FORTY YEARS LATER, in spite of inflation on the income side of family finances and increased incomes, the cash average per family is still about $5.

In 1964, $5 would buy about 20 loaves of bread or two tanks of gas. How far could someone drive today on $5 worth of gas? How much does it cost for a beer or a single hot dog at Yankee Stadium these days, anyway? Can you still get into a Mets game for $5? How many Big Macs can you buy with $5?

A Finance Committee might also want to take a serious look at giving patterns over the past few years and also a specific look at our members' giving patterns during the current year.

• Have there been any changes?
• Has giving decreased?
• Are some members giving less than they used to?
• Have larger giving members moved and caused a drop in income?
• How much are the actual givers actually giving? (For example, if there are 60 families that give regularly, what is the average donation per family, and what is the median donation?)

Also it might be interesting to ask how the giving of newer members compares with the giving of long-time members. I think we would be somewhat surprised by the result of such a comparison.

Additional questions can be asked about the spending side of the situation:

• Are we spending more?
• Are we spending money for things we don't need or that could be funded by other means such as the Memorial Fund?
• Are the members of Hope really aware of what it costs to run a church like ours?

Another simple fact is that at Hope we have not worked on a financial stewardship education program or stewardship giving appeal since 2003. In the years that I have served at Hope we have had FOUR intensive programs for capital giving, each of them led by highly paid consultants who flew in from other parts of the country. They helped us back then to build our sanctuary and to build the parking lot, and the consultants were somewhat successful in helping us to increase our regular giving as well.

We need to work on an approach to our ongoing problem with finances. We certainly are not any different from any other Lutheran church in the Northeastern U.S., and we are actually doing much better at Hope than in many other ELCA churches in this part of the country. Even our synod itself is in a very difficult financial situation.

We have a tremendous church with many wonderful, deeply committed people at Hope. I WOULD NOT ASK TO SERVE ANY OTHER CONGREGATION AS PASTOR. Yet we have fear and anxiety about asking people to examine how much and why they give, and we have not yet raised up enough of a vision of what it means to be a truly giving church.

Earlier this spring one church in the Bronx received an award at our Synod Assembly from the ELCA Churchwide office because of their giving. In spite of the fact that nearly evey member of that church earns minimum wage or welfare, the number of people who give at least 10% of their income to support the Lord's work there is very large. I hope that someday we might be able to say something like that about our church as well.

Some folks say, "The Lord will provide." The truth is that the Lord already has provided for us, The issue, I believe, is how we are personally willing to use what God has provided us with. None of us can fund our church's budget by ourselves. But what could 400 or 300 or 200 or even 100 families accomplish if we tried?

With love,
Pastor Hill