7 Top Issues Church Planters Face: Financial Self-Sufficiency and Viability

Back in January, Ed Stetzer blogged on research produced by Exponential about the 7 Top Issues Church Planters Face.  The second issue is financial self-sufficiency and viability.  You can read Ed’s post about it here.

I often say that spiritual attack is the one universal of church planting. While financial struggles aren’t universal, they certainly are a common part of the experience for most.  It’s important to note as Ed did that when we talk about financial struggles we are talking about specific model of church planting.  That model typically includes a Sunday-centric experience with paid staff and rented facilities.  There are other ways to plant churches, but for the purpose of this post, this is model being looked at.

Here’s a look at the challenges:

1. The Bivocational Challenge. Ed points out that many planters faced with financial difficulties end up becoming bivocational.  This has a whole host of challenges associated with it.  The biggest challenge is that the model doesn’t support bivocational.  Pastoring a high impact church plant is a full-time job.  If you go bivocational something will suffer.  Either your job, your church, your family, your relationship with God or some combination.  You need to count the costs before you start and understand how much money it is going to take to start a high impact, launch large church.  I would suggest not starting until you have $100,000 in the bank.  If you don’t have it, then start bivocational but not with the goal of launching services in the next 6 – 9 months.  It won’t work.  Take advantage of the time you are bivocational to fundraise, learn about the community and make connections with people.  Learn how to be the church with those people without having the service.  Once the money is in the bank, hit the ground running.  This will have many health benefits for the church.
2. Tension over talking/teaching about giving. Been there, done that.  In the second year of planting LifePoint, we had some serious money issues begin to develop.  We cut and then we cut some more out of the budget.  It hurt.  We lost opportunities to minister in the community because of it.  We hesitated to tell the congregation thinking that we didn’t want people to think poorly of us because we were asking for money.  6 months later we went to each of our small groups and talked about the financial situation.  Some of them were upset that we waited so long to talk about it.  Giving went up 50% almost overnight.  Don’t make the same mistake.  Be open about money.  Part of discipleship is learning how to give generously.
3. Limited Budget Experience. Bible colleges and seminaries don’t require accounting courses or financial budgeting courses.  Hence, most pastors are adept at it.  The answer here is rather simple.  Get help.  Hire an accountant if you have to.  At Stadia, we provide every church planter with professional book keeping for the first 18 months.  It may seem expensive to pay for it, but it is worth it.  It will free you up to do what you are good at and it eliminate a lot of stress.
4. Flow of Funds Trap.  This is directly tied to budgeting.  You can’t spend what is not in the bank account.  It’s easy to think well I’ve got $50,000 in committed funds coming in so I can go ahead and spend $20,000 on that equipment.  But if the $50,000 doesn’t come in until the end of the year, spending the $20,000 now could cripple your budget.  This is another reason to get professional help.
5. Personal Financial Impact.  Many planters drain their personal funds or rack up debt to get the church started.  Not a good idea.  I causes even more stress on the planter’s family and can cause you to prematurely start the church before you are ready in order to get local offerings rolling in.  While I admire the entrepreneurial impulse behind this reaction, I don’t think this is an appropriate way to start a church.

Conclusions:  Finances are a reality of starting a church.  Many dreams have been stunted or killed over a lack of financial support.  If you don’t have the funds to start, either wait or adopt a new model that can thrive with the resources you have.  If you have to go get a job, be smart about it.  I know one planter that researched WordPress extensively and started a business to do websites based on templates.  He offered a great service at a low cost and subsidized his income by learning a skill that was in demand and free to learn.  Other planters have found jobs that help propel the mission of the church forward or help them connect to more people.  The encouragement in financial struggles is that it forces you to be creative.  Some of your best ministry ideas will be born our of coming up with solutions to money problems.  Church planters are the most creative people around and financial crisis are often a great fuel for that creativity.