Ministry by budget …

Have you heard the joke about the two astronauts talking with each other, with one of them remarking how it was a little unnerving to think his ride into space was built by the company submitting the lowest bid?

There’s a difference between NASA quality “cheap” and what is commonly cheap. NASA has specific demands that must be met for its equipment, then the company that can achieve those standards for the lowest cost gets the contract. It might be the lowest bid wins, but the standard of quality remains.

All too often, that isn’t how we do ministry.

Some time ago I met with an elder of a church who had gone through a bitter split, losing more than a third of their members and seeing a big drop in their financial giving. They had various visiting leaders preach for them, but it was clear they needed to resolve their need for a senior minister. With the issues and healing that needed to be addressed to move this church forward to spiritual health and mission, I recommended the leadership team not settle for a lesser qualified individual. They would need a godly man with spiritual maturity to help them navigate out of their issues and into their future.

With less than ten seconds of consideration, the elder responded, “We can’t afford that.”

In looking at the leadership needs of the congregation, the elders weren’t looking at the quality of leader needed, but instead were looking at the budget.

When we do ministry by budget, we abandon our faith in God to provide the resources needed to accomplish what He has called us to do.

I encouraged this elder to take his eyes off the budget and, instead, clearly identify the kind of leadership needed to guide the congregation through their existing problems and into spiritual growth and mission vitality. Then, once they had clearly identified what was needed, they could share that need — along with its costs — with the congregation. By trusting God to provide for what was needed, and challenging themselves to do their part to meet the need, they would be able to do more than they were currently aiming for.

But those elders decided to keep their eyes on the budget, lead accordingly, and settled for calling a minister who didn’t have any senior minister experience. Things are crawling along for them. Because it is Christ’s church, the Lord is working there. But things are sluggish because ministry by budget continues.

Obviously, each local church has a budget from which to work. But let me suggest that budgets are often sources of constraint, rather than a reflection of God’s leading. Many churches design their vision for the mission of their local congregation by sitting down with a budget and asking what is it they can afford.

To seek God’s will and act in faith, that question needs to be turned around. Every local church needs to first ask how is it that God wants to reach the lost and build His kingdom through them, then design strategy and budgets to accomplish that. At first, it may look too big for them … it should! God usually does not call us to do what is comfortably within our current capacity. Instead, He challenges us to do things that stretch us and requires the ongoing exercising of our faith. When we act in faith, He equips, supplies, and blesses.

Before I heeded God’s call to vocational ministry, I was part of a medium-sized church that did ministry by faith. The leadership and congregation wanted to be in the middle of God’s will, which meant they had a great passion for proclaiming Christ to the lost. This church, consisting largely of middle-class folks, exercised their faith in following God’s leading for them. Today, that church is one of the largest and fastest growing in the nation. Rising to the vision God gave them meant a lot of sacrifice, including some members selling their large homes for smaller ones and giving the profit to finance the ministry. But the blessings from God has been more than they ever dreamed of.

Doing ministry by budget is more a means of budgeting faith rather than an expression of faith in God to enable, equip, and supply us to do what He is leading us toward.

How are you doing ministry: by faith, or by budget?

“What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, ‘Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well’— but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless,” James 2:14-17.

Scotty