Video Transcript: Everything Money

I have seen church planters have everything going really well. I've seen very  Spirit filled church planters and leaders who really have that piety that love of  Christ. And yet, I've seen church planters who've done almost everything well.  And I've seen church planters that have a great walk with God. And yet, when it  came to the role of money issues in the church plant, that was the thing that  sunk their church plant. So today, we're going to talk about the best practices of  the role of money in a church plant. Now, money is very important. You know, it  is said often we have to resources, time and money as humans that is, well, we  can spend a lot of time talking about how to spend our time. But the role of  money is very important, an extremely important resource created by God to  benefit a local church plant. So money is important to get the conversations  going in the early stages. Plan, credibility, transparency, communication,  stewardship, biblical teaching, connect to your team's dream, what's it all about? You will find that what people are into where their heart is located. Money  Follows. So it's okay to talk about issues such as planning, credibility,  transparency, communication, stewardship, biblical teaching, connecting to your  team's dream. Now what's planning about planning is, is looking at what your  goal is, and seeing the role of money. In your goals. Credibility is a structure put  in place that people know they can trust you transparency, is that whatever  money is spent, everyone can see there's no hiding. Communication is  communicating to everybody where the money is being spent. Stewardship is  having that self aware evaluation of how should we spend the money here, let's  not waste it. Biblical teaching is the many, many places in the Scripture where  teaching about money is given in our congregations or church plants need that  and connecting to your team's dream is finding out who God is calling you. And  what is the call in those who are coming to your church, and how can money be  brought be brought into that whole equation. So let's now get very practical.  Let's talk first about a budget plan. Planning, as you know, is very important. And every budget plan basically goes this way there are staff costs. Now, as a  church planter, a lot of times there is no money. Most times, you're bi vocational  staff. And maybe there's costs to that bi vocational staff. That is you have  another job, let's say it's you, you have another job. You're doing the church  plant for no salary. But maybe there's a car cost or there's gasoline or there's an  expense. Those are all costs that go in the budget, even if you take no salary. Or maybe you have more resources. Maybe you're a person who is a paid staff,  maybe you're there's a grant that comes in from a denomination or a mother  church. Well, you put together a budget where those costs are first of all put in a  cost section of the budget, then there's program costs. Are you going to rent a  facility? Do you need to rent anything? Do you need to buy anything that's called the capital costs, then there are expenses, things such as electricity or the rent  will rent to the building I mentioned before, but there's other expenses. So just  toilet paper, whatever those expenses are, they need to be placed in a budget. 

Then, once the expenses are placed, we also have to put down the income in  the budget plan. So how much money is projected to come from the team  members who you're already reaching and yourself from your own tithing? What about outside supporters, churches, individual families that don't even go to your church, but believe in the mission of your church? Are there any grants are there other ways that income can come in your budget plan? Now, I'll tell you never  forget God in money God is needed. God wants your church to be healthy. God  wants your life to be healthy. Confidence in money matters is good. Abuse of  trust is not acceptable. You know, I'll tell you something for me that I learned  early on is get independent help in that in money issues. Even now Christian  leaders Institute has an independent financial team. A team of CPAs, not even in our town, we have very set procedures. And we know that is better to very set  procedures with a board, and with a budget, and all of those things, because we know God wants us to do that, that we are not going to be there. You know,  worrying about those money issues that could ultimately even sink Christian  leaders Institute. And you want to have confidence in that not arrogance, but  confidence that the way you think about money in your organization is very  positive. The reality is, is when you think about those in that are not which are  not reached yet, there's an attitude about unchurched and money, unchurched  people are not against the fact that your local church needs money to operate,  they and everyone are against the abuse of accepted financial expectations, the lack of controls and weak bookkeeping efforts. So as a church planter, this is  one of those important things, you know, what I would do too, is I would in your  community at just knock on the door of some local bookkeepers, or accountants  or people that are really good at handling money. And ask them a simple  question, hey, you know, I'm Henry, I'm new to the area. We're planting a church here. And I really want our church to glorify God. And they may not even be  Christian, but they will appreciate that. Will you help me? Do you have any ideas on how I can set up a good financial control system in our new church, and  people will tell you exactly what to do and welcome their advice about apply the  best practices of money management to the new church plant, develop a  budget, and we talked about that, but do it with an informal group of leaders,  keep denominational leaders if you're a denominational church, are you  connected to a mother church, keep everybody in the loop at the budget level.  Appoint trustworthy, a trustworthy volunteer to be a treasurer, or hire that  bookkeeping firm or accountant firm, make it that the church planter is not  touching the money. His or her job was to develop the budget and spread it  according to the plan. You know, I that's something I did in church planting. I did  not collect the money. I did not touch the money. I did not do anything that gave  even the appearance that the pastor is taking this money and putting it in his  pocket. That type of thing just creates all sorts of doubt for your church planting  efforts. Number three, yourself, participate in tithing, feel confident to present the

biblical teaching to team members. And those call a call to join the launch team.  Here's something I've realized if as a church planter, you're not tithing, you're not feeling confident to present the biblical teaching to team members. In really,  people in your group sort of know, your level of involvement. If you're not giving  of yourself and your finances. You tell people by this non verbal that they're not  going to know you say, you know, that's all confidential and all that. I realize that  in many cases it is. But sometimes news gets out. He said, Would news get out? Would people gossip about stuff like that? Yeah, they might. Instead, well, we  shouldn't be gossiping with a church. All I'm doing is laying out the truth to you.  Practice what you preach. Number four, study the meaning of cash flow. There's  YouTube videos that talk about the meaning of cash flow, go ahead and put that  in the internet and type in the meaning of cash flow. Because understand that,  as a church plant, you are not borrowing money. This is you have to have cash  on hand and understand how that cash works. Be very effective at spending  money. In other words, you look at things and you want to be stewardly in  everything you do with money. And as the leader who's sort of conducting the  leadership and the budgetary spending of money, you're always say do we need this we really need this. On the other hand, if you need it, buy it and don't skimp  if you have the cash flow and its in the budget. Stay away from the guilt card we  are sharing about giving you know don't hit people on the head with guilt.  Instead inspire them in the mission and model that giving and give giving  opportunities but do not use that guilt card. create conversations, just get people talking about stewardship issues and so forth. Now, when you create  conversations, be wary of those who are micromanaging of how the church  should spend money the way they want to do it. I'm not saying create  conversations with deceptive and antagonistic people, I was saying is, in  general, it's okay to share how money is being spent, especially when you're  with trustworthy people, that shows to them a confidence a trust in you. And in  them, when making the first year's budgets, multiply it three times, you know, in  church planting, it's hard to even make a budget. But what you really want to do  is sort of have this budget, but your first budget is probably not what you're  actually going to spend in that first year. That's what many in the church planting world say. Now, if you're a bi vocational church planter, and your model that you  pick, does not spend the resources as quickly, you're not going to multiply it the  first three years, this is some of the suggestions that I've read in literature. But I  would say, make that first year's budget, you may have to multiply, you may  have to increase and be aware of that and set that expectation with your  informal leaders right away, say, here's the best guess. And we could actually  spend more we will be prepared. If the church grows, and the cash flow comes  in, the budget may actually increase. Now James Griffith and William Easum in  the ten, most 10, common mistakes made by church planters have some  observations about money, and I'm going to share some of them with you over 

overseeing expectations. Well, how does that actually work? How? Who's part  of that? How does that fit in a church plant? Well, what are they they also have  very clear set oversight procedures of how money is to be handled. Someone  who understands how to spend money needs to oversee the process. Some  processes should be set in place to monitor the flow of money to guard against  impulsive spending, have the planters bank, send a copy of the monthly base  statements to the treasurer or the treasurer of the sponsoring agency require  any purchases above a certain amount to get a second look, for instance, if it's  something like under, in USA under a couple $100, then there's not going to be  a procedure. But if it's over, there may be a procedure. And in another country,  that number may be different, something over $10 or $20 may occur that needs  more scrutiny. The reason you want to do that. And the end of the day is it  protects you as the church planter, every church that I have planted, I had these  sorts of controls in place. So James Griffith and William Easum strongly believe  that as as well, if a person isn't financially invested in your church, now, what  we're talking about here is the planter and executive leaders in the know. So if  you have people who are sort of your leader, advisors understand this, if a  person isn't financially invested in a church plant, one of four things happens.  One, they try to monopolize your time, two. They become constant complainers,  three, they create the impression that they're just one good sermon away from  pledging or four, they disappear. In any case, they're not the people you need in  your launch team or your leadership circle. They're not the people with whom  you spend most of your discipling time. Now, what Griffith and Easum is saying  here is, as you recruit leaders, their giving is very important in the process of  seeing how they are going to participate with you if they come in, they basically  don't put themselves in their finances online. You know, some it's like a little test  to find out whether or not they really want to be part of this church planting team. Now, I know in some places in the world where resources are small, that gift  may be gift in kind, it may be volunteer, it might be other ways. But remember  the principle here, in places where there are more finances, that expression of  giving, according to Griffith and Easum is very important. I will tell you as a  church planter, I saw that to be so true. Again, and I never hung it over  someone's head. But I always in my mind, realize if someone's not giving,  they're not involved. They're not really believing. Remember this principle, no  favoritism but leadership in money issues. We're not talking about giving special  attention to big givers. We're talking about planter investing in people who are  invested in the Gospel, there is a difference. Everyone needs someone to  minister to them. But not everyone should be ministered to by the planter.  People who don't give invariably tried to take up the lion's share of the planters  time. Isn't that interesting? James and William Griffith and Easum here are  experienced church planters. And it just seems like this is such a true statement. That a lot of times people are not giving, but they still try to take up the pastor's 

time. And there's something to be observed there. And you will see that too, as a church planter. In fact, they have come up with this no giving rule, giving to the  church is a healthy sign. But no giving rule goes like this. A person who will  leave the church six to eight months before they actually leave. The stopping of  giving can help the church planter in his leadership and discipleship. So what  does give it no giving the rule says basically, this look. And I've seen this in 30  years of church planting. If someone stops giving, and all of a sudden you're  aware of this, know that you have to circle back over there and maybe Minister  maybe there's something going on in their life. Maybe there's some bitterness,  some other member of the church that they have a bitter root with, that has to be addressed. Maybe it's you. Now you can't fix every problem. That's true, you  can't solve every issue. But know, this rule usually applies. You know, many  people say that the church planter should not know what's being given. Others  believe the church planter should know, there are different places where the  leaders that I planted churches wanted me to know. And I will tell you this, the  big advantage of that is if someone stopped giving, I called them up, I talked to  them. And I usually found that there was a problem. When I did not know what  somebody gave a lot of times, I would look back after they left and I would see  yet six, eight months before they left, they stopped giving I wish I would have  known that. So those are issues that you as a church planter have to resolve. In  many ways, I would prefer that you wouldn't know what people are giving. But  know that if you know that knowledge, the downside of knowing that knowledge  is that you may show more favoritism just because you're human. So always  guard against if you're going to know guard against how Satan can get in there  and make that knowing bad thing. Or if you don't know, then then just treat  everybody in a way and understand that there's going to be some some people  who you could have known that they were hurting, but you didn't know and just  accept that fact. So again, there's that no giving rule and that's your call as a  church planter, how you want to look at that start a database of supporters for  vocational church planting, raising pledges 50% of your salary before you before leaving bi vocational ministry. Where would you raise this money, your friends,  your family, Kingdom friends, your kingdom team leaders? What happens when  you're going to actually start vocational ministry from bi vocational. Okay, so it's  like this, you're not currently getting paid by the church, but you are thinking, you know, maybe it's time to get paid. Because I'm burning out, I'm doing two jobs  and burning the candle on both ends. You talk to your leaders. And there's a  thought, hey, I think you could become paid now our budget is increasing. What  you really want to do is just go around to those who are in your church, in your  church plant or outside your church, possibly Kingdom friends, and say, Okay,  before I make this move, can we get pledges for 50% of my salary. And that's  how you basically operate that before you start making that move into vocational ministry. You know, money is very, very, very important in a new church plant. 

And what I would say to you as well is get better at it than even this  presentation. I've given you some of the things that I've observed over the  years. But check out blogs, read church planter best practices with money,  develop more and more of a knowledge. Talk to other church planters who have  gone before you in your area and ask them, hey, when it comes to money, what  have you found that works and what doesn't work? And it won't be long by the  time you actually plant your church, that you'll get a good knowledge of how to  effectively and stewardly handle money in your church plant