I am pleased to report that my new CD, Laughter From the Well, is now on cdbaby.com. Soon after it was released, I was asked if I would prepare a routine focused on the church and money for a stewardship training retreat at the end of May. So I’ve been thinking about how churches deal with finances. It is interesting how little humor you hear from church members when they talk about finances. Here are some initial random thoughts.
First, you have the finance committee.
This is a real serious group, usually made up of the business types in the congregation.
At some point in the deliberations, one of them tries a little joke to break the tension.
“You know pastor, the church is like a business. You can’t just run it on faith, you know.” Ha Ha, Ha.
This is from a business manager that has just overseen the bankruptcy of a business and is waiting to hear if he gets a golden parachute or a government bail out.
Now of course the finance committee doesn’t raise the money for the budget. That is the responsibility of the stewardship committee.
We all learned in seminary that a steward in the bible is someone who manages the master’s property.
You can hear a member of the stewardship committee calling a member of the congregation and saying, “Hello, I’m from the stewardship committee. As you know, everything that you have belongs to God and you are responsible for using it according to God’s purposes. Therefore, I propose that I visit you and review with you how you are handling God’s money. When would be a convenient time for my visit?
Of course most stewardship committees think that their task is to be a design team who figures out how to cleverly hustle the congregations.
“Let’s have a cowboy roundup theme this year. We’ll choose a bunch of trail bosses who will round up the doggies and put the church brand on each pledge.”
More random thoughts tomorrow.
