8 Lessons about Church Budgets

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In this talk to church leaders, Jamie Dunlop shares eight important lessons he's learned after nearly a decade of putting together a church budget. It ends with 25 minutes of Q&A.
Jamie wants to point your elders to this big picture: the overarching goal of a church budget is faithfulness, not funds.
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[@mariahakinbi]

1. Elders make the budget 2. We budget what we expect the congregation to give & we spend what we budget (under spending is not necessarily success) 3. Use budget dollars to enable congregational ministry (does each budget line enable congregation to do missions or replace that missional opportunity?) 4. Be generous & careful w/pastoral pay 5. Create spending goals for outreach spending (increase 1% each year) 6. Don’t take on more missionaries than you can know and support well 7. Protect $$ for facilities spending (care for your building) 8. Seek to pastor the congregation every time you talk about $$

[@johnwillsea]

All of this is gold. Lesson 2 at the 14:52 mark is personally convictional. "We budget what we expect the congregation to give, and then we spend whatever we budget." I have been guilty of misapplying the concept of faith to the budget process. I have advocated for budgets that will as I have put it "stretch us in our faith" -- but that has nothing to do with trusting what God has promised in his word and everything to do with me presuming upon God. In so doing I have taught wrongly about what faith is. As Jamie puts it, "Especially with the budget, we need to be very careful to not mislead our people about what faith is."

[@davidwiniger3799]

Is it possible to get a copy of what is presented at Members meetings regarding finances ? We are looking to improve the quality of our reporting.