Live the Vision To Fund the Ministry
Live the Vision or Pay the Bills
Some years ago, Christian Smith and Micheal Emerson with Paricia Snell wrote a wonderful book, Passing the Plate about giving to churches in the United States. One concept has stayed with me. They wrote that there are two types of churches where money is concerned. One is a Live the Vision church and the other is a Pay the Bills church.
A Pay the Bills church is often struggling for money. You most probably all have seen this type of church at some stage. Here the treasurer (rather than the pastor) is the person who stands and informs the congregation that the finances are behind budget. A common refrain is that and all it will take is for everybody to put in the equivalent of a cup of coffee so the church can escape the current financial hole. The Pay the Bills church will rarely expand ministry or buildings because it never has enough money because the current bills are always too much. Then you may have seen the treasurer stand up and tell everyone that unless the giving goes up by ‘x’ amount certain programmes will have to be cut back or staff made redundant. I have attended such a church on holidays and heard precisely that type of announcement. But more depressing was the fact that I attended two years later and heard the treasurer make exactly the same sort of presentation. It was just all very depressing.
By contrast there is another church I know very well. This church has a slogan that appears on the screen every week. ‘We are a generous church’. This is not just blowing smoke. It is a generous church because the leadership over many many years has instilled a culture of generosity by biblical preaching, fruitful ministry and presenting, year by year, exciting proposals to support.
The senior minister recently set forth a vision for the church about where, under God, he prays the church will be in the next twelve months. It prioritized prayer, people, planting and evangelism though the word used for evangelism was proselytization to help with the alliteration. However, to make sure it was not a motherhood statement he announced that one of the church campuses was now able to construct their own building after many years meeting in a school. But that was not all. It was now full steam ahead to plant two more satellite campuses.
Will this actually be accomplished? I have confidence that it will, because this church has an admirable track record of being healthy in ministry and doing what it said it would do. In his speech the senior minister was able to announce that a Christmas appeal for a hospital in Uganda had raised $533,000. Yes, that’s right, over half a million dollars! But as they say in the commercial, there’s more. A different campus suddenly last year had the opportunity to purchase the inner-city space it had been renting. An appeal was held in October November, (lead by the senior minister not the treasurer) and $780,000 was raised help make this happen. This figure is even more remarkable as it coincided with the much-loved founding campus pastor accepting a call to a significant church in Melbourne. Normally this would be a serious handicap to such a campaign but so high was the trust of the congregation in the whole church, the money was given anyway.
Yes of course, the financial price tag of this project was laid before the people. But it was not done in the spirit indicating we need money or we will close up shop. It was given in the spirit of we are on an exciting journey helping to spread the name of Jesus and advance the Kingdom of God. Sign up with your hearts and hands and finances.
So be a Live the Vision church. Don’t just Pay the Bills. If you live the vision, the bills generally take care of themselves.
For more on this topic see my book, Giving Generously: Resourcing Local Church Ministry. https://givinggenerously.com/buy-the-book-2/