Regardless of your church tradition or even policy, church attenders participate in business and financial meetings less and less. What can you do to engage your church to care and even become excited about them? I will share four changes we have made to increase our engagement and breath life back into the business meeting and reports.
In my church tradition and church structure, we generally hold quarterly business meetings. These meetings were to report to the entire church the financial matters that occurred in the previous three months. As well, the church members held the final voice of approval in all matters financial so they must also approve any dealing with money that had not already been delegated to the pastor or the board. For many decades this worked.
Specifically, our people would come to these meetings and discuss the needs of the church and make plans to deal with them.
Fast forward to today. Many pastors have shared getting their church members and attenders to attend one of the business conferences has become difficult and usually resulted in very few attending. Even churches who have appointed and delegated authority to a finance committee or team to do the month-to-month financial matters under an annual budget seem to struggle to even get their church to attend their annual budget conference or meeting. As a dear friend said years ago to me “They either trust us greatly or they just do not care.” Well, sadly it probably is a little of both.
So what can we do? As a pastor, the dilemma has been one that has weighed upon me. So, three years ago we began a few changes that have made this struggle become a positive and we have seen more people engaged. Not only are more engaged, but we often hear of our people talking about it with wait for it.. an excitement. So what did we do?
Here are the four changes we made:
(At the end of this I share a link to both our 2020 and 2021 Annual Report that we give out at this service and it is how we form our outline of service.)
1: Connect the business to the ministry by making it about the ministry.
As pastors and church leaders through the year, we often say things that fit into this category, “this is a spiritual house, not an earthy one“, or “we are not running a business but a ministry that impacts eternity.” Yet, when we go into these meetings to either fulfill our structural obligations or to honestly give transparent financial information we make it all about the money. To get it over with we share a report of the previous period (like a profit and loss statement) and a report or a list of needed financial matters coming up in the next period. We discuss major expenses we need or projects we want to work towards all in regards to the money. In most of these meetings, we talk nothing about the lives that are being changed or will be changed because of the finances we have dedicated to it. Maybe it is understood or assumed in times past but with so much talk of money in our world, it is no longer that way. The average giver or even the attendee who does not give does not always see their donation or their tithe attached to a ministry.
So we must make the meeting about the ministry. You cannot just give a monthly or annual budget and people see ministry. Do not just throw in some ministry information, rather focus on the ministry. You will be surprised at how many people do not know about some of the ministries you are doing as a church. You or your leaders may think it is too small to share or too few people are involved to share -but share it. This way everybody in the church can be a part of every element of ministry taking place through your church.
2: Making it a Celebration, not meeting.
We are all over meetings. Meetings are important and needed. They provide information and organization but that does not equate to fun and desirable. If you are going to get more people to engage, it cannot be a meeting. Rather, make it a celebration.
When we first went to this format I ask our worship pastor to do a couple of segments of worship. She responded, “you are going to try to do worship in a business meeting?” My response to her was, “If at the end of this it felt anything like a business meeting/conference of the past then I failed.” While it still contained elements of information and even numbers the focus was on “look what God in our last year” and “here is what we believe God is wanting to do in our future.” To make it a celebration we also shared pictures and testimonies when available. One of our outreach leaders started leading a weekly ministry time in the county jail. While in time a very small team got to go with him it was still a very small percentage of the church. However, those inmates had written letters and we were able to take pictures of baptisms and a pizza night that we could share with the whole church as a celebration. In some of our minds, it might be good to start with a goal to not plan a meeting but to plan a testimony time. “Look what God did” and “look at what your giving has helped this ministry do” should be anchor statements and driving themes of this gathering.
Celebrate what God has done and what God is going to do. People will want to attend a celebration and they will enjoy it much more.
3: Give them an impact report, not a financial one.
Most people do not care about the business. They look at their own finances more than they want. A generation ago you could raise money by simply saying our power bill was more than it was last month or we are needing a new roof. However, this generation is tired of seeing buildings built or reports of ministers buying multi-million dollar jets. While there is a large amount of funds needed to help support the infrastructure of a local church (utilities, insurance to just name a few) we will never motive people to engage in the giving of their money or time to our church by focusing on the money. The above story about the jail ministry helped our people not see where the money was going, but what impact the money made. People will give and support something that is making a difference or as we call it making an impact. Show the people the impact on others’ lives. From the food that helps feed a child or a homeless person to the youth that was able to gather around a back-to-school event. Let them see people. Share smiles not dollar signs.
Let the people see how your church is impacting the world for Christ. They will want to not only attend this type of celebration they will begin to share the impact they hear about with others.
4: Make it about Vision, not the money.
Many pastors I know do a vision Sunday service where they may preach the vision of the church. Others call it a state of the church address to share what they see as the leader of the church. I am a huge fan of these services or sermons. I am even passionate about these as I have had friends call sharing frustrations in their churches saying we want to know the vision our pastor has for our church, or where is our pastor feeling God leading us. People want to know the vision, they want a vision that can inspire them to not only stay at that church but to become engaged. I have seen people leave a church not because it was bad but because it had failed to communicate a vision that could inspire them to engage. So please do a Vision Sunday but do not divorce the finances and the business from it. You can, it is not a failure if you do these as two separate events but why not do it as one united purpose? It would be a failure if you only share your financial need or budget for the upcoming period and did not share the vision of ministry you have as the leader.
Our end mission or vision statement (we only have one statement) has a focus “to Impact our Community, Region, and World.” So our Vision Service (and our Annual Report) is broken into how we have impacted our community, region, and the world as well as what we see in the next year. Sometimes the future year is a continuation of the same ministry in an area. It does not always have to be new or different but it explains why you have asked for the budget in that area you have asked for or planned to us. Rick Warren wrote about how his budget is even structured in a way to match his five core elements of the church’s vision. While I have not adapted that into practice I do like it. Better yet it forces you as the pastor to see every dollar attached to your ministry and vision and if you cannot then you may need to find a way to get rid of that piece of your budget.
The key is that you are communicating a vision of the ministry as our driving force not a need for money. It has been said money follows vision. It has been said (even above) that we as churches are spiritual houses. If we believe those statements we need to have the integrity as leaders and pastors to make sure the vision we see from the Lord is our focus even when we are communicating financial matters.
Bonus effect to you as a leader:
This form of reporting actually is a great source of accountability for you as the pastor. It forces you and your leadership to spend time doing an assessment of your ministry. You will find that a report and meeting like this will cause you to celebrate and to critic yourself. It will give you some direction and some goals to work towards. In the end, it will unite your vision and the reporting into one focus.
Our Most Recent Vision Sunday: 2021 Annual Report
Our 2020 Vision Sunday: 2020 Annual Report
If you have questions or comments please share them. Also, I would love to hear what you and your church are doing.
