You likely are scrutinizing expenditures at every level. Who knew a ream of paper cost so much? Or a pack of pens? You might be considering suspending your Sunday night service just so you can shut the air conditioner off earlier.
One of the unifying elements of these stormy seas is that we’re all in the same boat. In our common community of constant threat we help each other bail.
I want to encourage you in your budget examination to consider three items as priority. Priority means you establish them first, and make the rest of the needs fit around them.
First, you must take care of your staff. They are God’s servants among you, encouraging, teaching and leading you to be the Christ in your context every day. The Apostle Paul was clear in I Cor. 9 that those who plant a vineyard eat of its grapes. While an ox is not to be muzzled as he treads the grain, it is not really an ox that God is most concerned about, Paul points out. “If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?” he asks in verse 11.
Your staff is not in ministry for money. But money is the means of exchange required to feed and house their families, just as it is for you. You do yourself a favor when you are generous with your staff because you relieve their minds to focus completely on ministry among you.
You do your ordained staff no favor if you pay a lump sum “package” and leave it to them to divide it into salary, housing and health, life and disability insurance, retirement, book allowance and mileage reimbursement. Including those “benefits” in a salary package makes the salary look larger than it is and is not honest with your staff member or your church.
Make sure your staff is participating in the GuideStone retirement program through the Baptist State Convention. Protections of disability and survivor benefits are a part of the plan, as are contributions to your retirement account by the BSC for churches that contribute a minimum to missions through the Cooperative Program. Watch for more on this issue through an interview with Johnny Ross, the BSC’s senior consultant for church benefit, insurance and tax issues.
Second, no matter which church you belong to yours is to be a global missions church. Acts 1:8 does not assign some churches duty as a weekly family reunion, others as a local witness and give to others responsibility for the wider world. Each church whose members believe Jesus the Christ is good news to the lost and weary is charged with a global mission to tell them that Jesus saves.
Thus, your mission giving must be a top priority with you, not an afterthought. North Carolina Baptists have a marvelous vehicle in the Cooperative Program to efficiently deliver funds to put helping people in the path of need. Your gifts support efforts by the Baptist State Convention to help build healthy churches, to plant new churches among unreached people groups in our state, to encourage language and multi-cultural ministries, and to meet needs of the least among us.
Your gifts also support national and international missions and theological education. North Carolina Baptists send just over one-third of our combined gifts for these ministries through the Southern Baptist Convention. The International Mission Board received one-half of those gifts and the North American Mission Board almost a quarter.
A new series in the Biblical Recorder will introduce you to each of those at the Baptist State Convention who minister in the churches, bringing their God-called gifts to bear directly upon your need. They are staff for you and they want to serve you and grow disciples among you.
Which brings me to your third budget priority: The Biblical Recorder. For years the Recorder subscription base found strength among churches that saw the wisdom of an informed congregation inspired by the many stories of North Carolina Baptists doing Kingdom work in the world around them. The urge to “go thou and do likewise” was planted in thousands of us by the stories of others actively engaged in mission and ministry among those Jesus loves.
Churches that receive the Recorder have been greater givers to missions because their members are informed. They are better messengers to business meetings of all levels because they understand the issues, having read the arguments from both sides in the Recorder. They have a broader perspective and a more Christian view of how God is at work in the world.
Most of the news we print in the Biblical Recorder is available online, where you are reading this. It comes to you this way “free.” But it’s only “free” to you. The cost of producing it is just as great as ever, and those costs are being born for you by those who buy a subscription to the print edition, and by an allocation from the Cooperative Program. Dynamics are rapidly changing in news delivery and there is no guarantee a non-revenue producing web presence can continue.
Your print subscription is vital to the continuing ministry of the Biblical Recorder. I urge you to grow your church club plan as you plan your budget. Add your new members, make sure each staff member gets a copy. The annual rate is only $13 and an individual subscription is just $15.50. That’s the price of two hamburgers at Cracker Barrel.
As you are examining your budget this year, don’t think of the Recorder as an expense. Think of it as an investment in church health, an incubator for member response and your community connection to God’s wide work among us.