Churches today are struggling financially.
Oh, I know that's not true of ALL of them.
But I know it's true of a lot of them.
As a result, it's entirely possible for you to do the hard work of crafting a budget proposal only to be told, “We'd love...
At my very first youth ministry interview, I remember asking the committee if there was a youth ministry budget.
The committee said yes and I naively accepted it's answer at face value.
Shortly after accepting that job, I asked the senior pastor ...
Once you've translated your dreams into numbers and figured out the various revenue streams you'll use to fund your ministry, the next step in the budget process is actually crafting your proposal.
Your budget proposal should contain two things:...
At the conclusion of my junior year in college, I studied abroad in Moscow, Russia. Despite the fact that at the time, Russia was safe, to my parents – who came of age during the Cold War – Russia was a very scary place. The idea of their daughter...
Once you've translated your dreams into numbers, the next step in crafting your budget proposal is to determine where your ministry's budget will come from. Typically, youth ministries derive their budget from a combination of three sources:
-...
This fall, my high school teens and I have been discussing various “isms”. On the first week of this series, we wrestled with materialism, using the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler to do so. In this story, a rich young ruler asks Jesus...
After you've let your dreams percolate, the next step in crafting your budget proposal is to translate your dreams into actual numbers.
To do this, go back through your lists, paying particular attention to your answers to this question: What...
One of my early church memories is participating in my church's pony express giving campaign – a campaign in which a saddlebag was passed from home to home along with stories about our church's ministries and our pledge cards. Families were then...
Twice since returning from maternity leave, I've attended work conferences with my infant daughter, Hope. The first time, Hope was two months old; The second time, she was five months old. After the first go-round, I instagrammed the picture...
On a recent call with Alan Roxburgh, author of Structured for Mission, I heard Al say two really compelling things. First, people are no longer hardwired to go to church like they once were. Second, given this changing culture, those of us who...