Video Transcript: Raising and Protecting Money

This is lecture 29 in the practical ministry skills course. We're talking about  raising and protecting money. This is part of chapter 17 in the pastoring the nuts  and bolts. Book, our key verse. II Kings 22:4 go to Hilkiah, the high priest, and  have him count the money the gatekeepers have collected from the people at  the Lord's temple. II Kings 22:4 count the money. There is another verse that  could almost be another key verse for this topic, and so we'll move right into it.  It's one we've seen before. I Timothy 6:9-10 people who long to be rich fall into  temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge  them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of  evil. I Timothy 6:9-10. Unfortunately, this applies to pastors too. There are some  pastors who want to be rich, and it leads them into temptation, and they become trapped by foolish and harmful desires, and if you don't watch out, it'll plunge  you into ruin and destruction. People who long to be rich fall into temptation, are  trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and  destruction. For the love of money, is the root of all kinds of evil. You don't need  the Bible to tell you that you can look just look around the world and see the  kinds of evils that people get themselves into for the love of money. And it  doesn't have to be intentional mishandling money, even by accident, can destroy your witness, it can destroy your ministry, it can destroy your church. It can even destroy your life, wind you up in jail. So mishandling money, even  unintentionally, can have results that are just as bad as if you mishandle money  intentionally because you want to get rich. With that as a background, let's talk a little bit about churches raising money, or ministries raising money for your  ministry. First, some say, Well, should the church even ask for money? Shouldn't God just supply on very, very rare occasions, he might do something like that. If  you heard of George Mueller, who ran orphanages in England in the late 1800s  possibly early 1900s he was famous for never asking for money, but just praying and people would bring him money, but the people knew about the orphanages,  and they knew about the need, and they could see those things. And that is that  is so rare that everybody knows that one instance and can't think of any others. I think that entirely, absolutely yes, the church should ask for money, because it's  a part of how your people grow to become like Christ. Jesus was generous.  Jesus gave, and so giving is how we learn generosity. Jesus trusted that God  was going to provide his needs, and giving is how we learn to trust that God is  going to provide for the things that we could have bought with that money that  we gave to the church. The church should ask and teach and train people about  giving. It's a part of their spiritual growth, but don't become dependent on  individual donors. And I think we've talked a little bit about that, they can if your  church always depends on Brother Big Bucks for whatever Is needed that  doesn't come in the offering plate. Number one, everybody else in the church is  going to know that, and they're going to not bother to put anything in the offering plate, because they know brother big bucks will take care of it, and so they don't 

learn generosity and trust. And second, Brother Big Bucks may very well say,  well, that gives me a lot of power and influence, and I can tell the pastor, if he  doesn't do if she doesn't do what I want him to do, I'll stop giving. And that can  really be a scary thing for a pastor, so don't become dependent on individual  donors. On the other hand, don't decide for people whether or not they might  want to give. I remember a colleague actually was a bishop, telling a story about how when he was a young pastor, they were trying to raise money for some  thing in the church, an addition or replace the roof or something. I don't know  what it was, but he was going around and asking people to give, and he decided not to go ask this one certain woman, because he knew she was a widow and  she didn't have much money, and he thought it would embarrass her, so he  didn't ask her. And next Sunday, she asked him, How come you didn't come and ask me to contribute that? And he kind of explained, well, you know, I knew you  didn't have much and she was upset. She said, I want the blessing of being able to give. I may not have been able to give much, but I knew I would get a  blessing if I gave. You should have asked me. You shouldn't have decided for  me whether or not I had the opportunity to give. So ask for money, let people  know the need, but don't use guilt and fear and greed to kind of try and motivate  the giving. Guilt and fear and greed can motivate giving, but they're not fitting  tactics for servants of the God of love who created and sustains the universe the in the Psalms, I believe it is. It says that God owns the cattle on 1000 hills, and  it's not a big deal for him to sell one of those cows if he needs something. So  don't use guilt and fear and greed to try and motivate people. The Giving should  be out of a heart of love and in sowing seed. When you're raising money, cast a  vision, let people see what you hope to accomplish with the funds that they're  going to provide. People will give to a vision, to an idea, something they want to  accomplish, much more readily, usually, than they will give to, oh, we're behind  in the budget. Teach about giving. And maybe I should have mentioned this first, because it should precede most of the rest of this stuff. But one of the biggest  mistakes you can avoid, one of the biggest mistakes you can make, is to avoid  talking about money. Money is a huge part of the everyday reality of your  people's lives, and if the church doesn't teach them a Christian approach to  money, then the world will gladly jump in and take advantage. So teach about  money. And as part of that, teach about tithing. Tithing is a vital part of spiritual  growth. I think I mentioned this before. It turns the human Trinity right side up. It  doesn't make any sense to the mind. How am I going to have be better able to  meet my bills if I give money away? That doesn't make any sense to the mind. It doesn't make any sense to the body, because the body says, Yeah, but I wanted to buy all that food. But it's a way of showing that the Spirit is in charge. You are  making the choice to put the Spirit of God in charge, which is where it belongs,  because the spirit is what hears from God the right thing to do. The mind figures  out how the body does it. So teach about tithing. It's a vital part of spiritual 

growth. When you're raising money, when you're dealing with money, keep  records. Keep records of the money that came in. Keep records of who gave  what if you are in a situation where they can deduct it from their income taxes,  as is often the case in the United States, then you need to keep those kinds of  records. But you just want to be able to know, as a matter of fact, watching how  your people give can give you insight into their spiritual life situation. If it  suddenly, if they're giving suddenly drops, it might give you a clue that they're  running on some kind of a difficulty in their life that you didn't know about, where they really need some pastoral support. Or if they all of a sudden start giving a  whole lot more, it could be that they've had a spiritual revelation. I had a  colleague who that was the case. He discovered somebody, and all of a sudden  started giving a lot more money than they did, and he went and asked, and the  person said, I just had the most wonderful experience with God, and I am just so grateful. And so I wanted to start sharing like this. You need to know those kinds  of things. It is amazing how often churches forget to say thank you. Ministers  forget to say thank you to people who give. We can kind of almost approach it  as if that's their duty and their responsibility, and if they don't give, then we need  to come down on them, but if they do, then they're only doing their duty, and we  have no need to say thank you. But that's not the case. It's totally voluntary.  These are people who could use this money for lots of other things. Tell them  thank you. Tell them you appreciate it. Publicize results if you are able to do  something, because the people were generous and they responded to an  appeal and they gave, publicize, congratulate them thank you, and say, look at  the good things we were able to do because of your giving, and look at God's  faithfulness to bring us through this situation Because of your giving. So  publicize results. Should you publicize donors? Should you make public the  people who give some churches do so there's the regular people in the pews,  and there's the pastor in the front, and then there's this big, fancy box where Mr.  And Mrs. Big Bucks are sitting, and the lady says to her husband, you sure  know who the big tithers are around here. Some do that. And you know there is  something to be said for publicizing that because people learn from examples  and testimonies, one of the greatest ways for people to be encouraged to tithe is for other people who have started tithing to tell what a difference it's made in  their life. And I have never, ever known anybody who started tithing, who wasn't  excited about it, who wasn't happy about it, who wasn't happy, except possibly  for a fear of public speaking, but who wasn't happy to tell people about it? But  on the other hand, sometimes it can backfire. Acts 4:37-5:2, Barnabas sold the  field he owned and brought the money to the apostles. Good thing, wonderful  thing. That was a great thing to do. This is the Barnabas that later traveled with  Paul on his missionary journeys. But apparently people found out about it. And  so we go on and it says there was a but there was a certain man named  Ananias, who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. Okay, Barnabas sold 

some property. Ananias and Sapphira sold some property. He brought Ananias,  brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. He  brought part of the money of the apostles claiming it was the full amount, with  his wife's consent, so she's in on it too. He kept the rest. And you may know the  story. Peter said, why'd you do this? You know it was, it was all your money. It  would have been a great blessing if you had sold the property and given us half  of it, or, you know, a quarter of it, or you didn't have to claim that you gave it all.  You know, God doesn't require that you give it all? But what was going on was  Ananias and Sapphira saw how people appreciated Barnabas gift, and they  wanted people to look up at them, look up to them the same way they looked up to Barnabas. They wanted people to say, oh, Barnabas and Ananias and  Sapphira, aren't they all such wonderful Christian, holy, spiritual people. And  they tried to buy that by deception, and if you know the rest of the story, Peter  said, look here, you're not just lying to me. You're not just lying to the church  folks. You're lying to God. You're lying to the Holy Spirit. Incidentally, that is one  of the passages that shows that the Holy Spirit is God. But anyway, when he  said that, you remember what happened Ananias fell down dead. And when his  wife came in, Peter asked her, did you sell the money the field for this much?  And she said, Yep, the whole thing. We gave you all every bit of it. And then he  told her what happened to Barnabas? I mean, to to Ananias fell down dead, and  she fell down dead. So it can be a dangerous thing. But even if you don't have  people feeling down dead, falling down dead, publicizing your donors can  encourage people to try and make themselves look like they're big, big shot,  really spiritual Christians, when the it's actually for the wrong reason. So you  need to weigh and balance those things in in your situation, your culture, your  people, figure out how you're going to do that protecting money and yourself.  When you protect the church's money, you protect yourself. Even Jesus had a  situation with this. Judas Iscariot, this is John 12. It's talking about Judas saying  that woman that broke that expensive perfume over you, you should have sold it for the poor. And John comments not that he was cared for the poor. He was a  thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples money, he often stole some for himself. This is one of the 12 apostles. This is one of the people Jesus chose,  wound up as a thief and stealing the money for himself. This is long before he  ever had the idea of betraying Jesus. So it's important to have policies now, with Jesus, he knew what was going on, and he just let it happen. But you're not in  that situation. You ought not just to let it happen. It's not good for the person who might fall to temptation. It's not good for your church. You're in charge of taking  care of God's money. It's all God's money. So it's important to have policies that  protect God's money, protect you and your people from temptation, and protect  you and your people from suspicion, because even if you don't succumb to  temptation, if you don't do anything wrong, still if people see that you had the  opportunity, some of them might think you did. So you need to be able to protect

God's money, but you also need to protect yourself and the people in your  church who handle the money from being tempted to do something like Judas  did, and also from being suspected of doing something like Judas did. So  recommended policies keep careful records backed up in separate places in  case one set gets lost. At any time, you should be able to find out how much  money the church has, where it is, where it came from, whether any is  earmarked for a particular purpose. What was done with previous money? Have at least two people from different families count the money together whenever  money is being counted or handled, it's best, but especially if it's counted  initially, because once you know how much came in, then you can know how  much you need to account for. So have two unrelated people that can watch for  each other that can vouch for each other first, it avoids the temptation need. If  there somebody has the money all by themselves like Judas did, they might say  nobody's going to know and slip some in their pocket, but if the other person is  counting to and watching, that helps protect each either of them from the  temptation, but also from the suspicion. If somebody says, I think so and so  stole money, then the other one was, who was there? Can say, No, we were  counting it together, and I watched, and it's all here. Nobody stole any keep  church money in a church bank account. It's the same kind of thing if it's if  church money is in a personal bank account, then that person can go get it out.  They may tell themselves they're just borrowing it and they intend to pay it back, but that can be a really deep trap, and it might never come back. So if possible,  keep church money in a church bank account. Separate the responsibility for  receiving and depositing money on one hand from the responsibility for  spending and dispersing money on the other hand, if the person who brings the  money in and puts it in the bank is also the same person that can take it out of  the bank and and spend it. Then it's easy for them to fall to the temptation of  fudging the numbers. But if one person has the responsibility of depositing it,  and they don't have any way of getting it back out. Once it is deposited, they  have to deposit the whole amount, because somebody else was there with them counting it, so the deposit slip should tally with the count that the two unrelated  people came up with, and then that person does not have the authority to get  that money back out. The person who has the authority to get the money back  out, have to make their records tally up with the amount of money the records  from the person who put it in. So that sounds complicated, but it protects each of them from temptation and suspicion and protects the church's money. Monies  paid or given to the pastor should be overseen by a group or committee of  people who are not relatives of the pastor. You don't want anybody accusing you of getting rich off the church. Now it's amazing how many people think that the  pastor owns the church, and they think that's what's supposed to happen, but it's not what's supposed to happen, and it should be under authority and have  oversight mechanisms to assure accountability, audits somebody from the 

outside that will go over the books, or if not From the outside, at least somebody who was not related, involved in dealing with money, who can go over the books at the end of a year, or every two years, or however often it is, just to make sure  all the numbers add up. This is a way of finding mistakes, and also, again, if  

people know somebody's going to be checking on it, they're not as likely to be  tempted to do something. It's God's money, it's God's people, it's God's ministry.  You as the Minister are responsible for overseeing God's money and God's  word, and so take that responsibility seriously. See you next time.