Friday Communication - 10th Mar 2023
It is hard to miss the economic news, and harder still to escape its impact. Ten interest rate rises in a row since May last year as the Reserve Bank attempts to bring inflation down, translating into significant increases in monthly repayments on home loans. Increasing rents as investors try and recover some of their increased costs in a tight rental market. As well we are told to expect further increases in our gas and electricity bills, up to 20%, from July this year. There is a sense that costs are going up all around us while wages are barely increasing.
It is an interesting time to be bringing to the congregation for its approval at the annual congregational meeting on March 21st the church budget for 2023, a budget in which we are hoping giving will increase by about $40,000. Why are we doing that? And how should we think about the economic uncertainty and what are for many the increasing demands being made on our household finances?
Our Budget
Our budget reflects and embodies our ministry priorities and most of our budget, to which a link has been placed in this Friday communication, is fixed costs. The majority of these costs are for staff, whether pastoral or office staff. Pastoral staff costs, for example, are about 62% of our total expenditure. This is a direct consequence of our commitment to children’s and youth ministries, to creating structures for our service of one another, to training, to pastoral care, to the regular and consistent teaching of God’s Word, and to congregational evangelism. All of these embody a commitment to make disciples. Children’s and youth ministries, for example, support both parents in the congregation in their work of bringing their children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord and create an environment where other children can hear the gospel. Employing a children’s pastor and a youth pastor allows that work, done by many in Sunday School, Kid’s Club, and youth group, to continue year after year with a consistency of purpose, direction and teaching, and the leaders to be trained and supported to make their involvement more sustainable. The stability of that work, which contributes to its fruitfulness, is itself a fruit of that congregational commitment to employ those pastors.
We need the number of pastors we have to sustain teaching and training, and also to incorporate those who are new to the congregation, and to bring the Word of God to bear to a myriad of situations we as believers face as we go through life – grief, sickness, marital stress. Just following up visitors, whom we have every week, takes a significant amount of time, or having the capacity to run regular evangelism or membership courses for the congregation takes time. Again, the pastors work alongside many of you, and seek to equip and encourage you in your own evangelism, discipleship, and service, but consistency of instruction, training and encouragement is provided by having paid pastoral staff. And there is more work than perhaps you imagine for while you mainly experience your own congregation on a Sunday the pastors experience all three. Last Sunday, which was not particularly busy, for example, there were 330 adults across all services, and including children 443 people. This is something to give thanks for and be encouraged by, that the Lord is saving and sustaining His people, but it is also a lot of people to keep track of and care for, and as you know not every one of us is present on any particular Sunday. Running three services with ministry teams in each is also administratively complex, which is why the Pastors need and are grateful for the administrative support the Board supplies to the congregation.
Building Confidence
All this is to say that these fixed costs in the budget are necessary and worth paying, and it is the commitment to sustaining pastoral ministry that is reflected in the requested increased giving. Realizing that target and the modest surplus budgeted will also give us confidence that we can welcome Chris back from his unpaid leave, if that is what eventuates, or if not seek to employ someone else to assist in the work. We do need a fourth pastor/ministry worker. We can maintain things for the months ahead as we stop doing some things and redeploy some of the pastor’s time, but not indefinitely and so we need to be in a position to act when the time comes. And realizing the target will also give us confidence that we can afford a period of overlap between my finishing and a new pastor starting when the congregation calls a new senior minister, a time that would allow the new minister to settle in properly.
But this is, as I said at the beginning, a time of tightening economic circumstances. How should we think about meeting our budget, our own and the congregation’s. It is always good to think about what does not change in a world that is always uncertain – so three things to bear in mind.
Informing our thinking by God’s Word
Firstly, the earth is the Lord’s and its fullness thereof. [Psalm 24:1]. Our God is the Creator and Sovereign of all there is. He owns, as the Psalmist says, the cattle on a thousand hills [Ps. 50:10], and is the One who provides grain and harvests out of His bounty [Ps. 65:9-13, Acts 14:15-17]. “All things come from you” said David “and of your own have we given you.” [1 Chron. 29:14]
That means, secondly, that we should not be anxious about our material needs but instead, knowing our Father knows our needs and He is demonstrably able to provide, we should do what Jesus commands - “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” knowing His promise that ‘all these things – food, clothing, shelter, “will be added to us” Matt. 6:33, Lk. 12:29-31. What ‘seeking His kingdom’ means in relation to the way you use the wealth, the money, entrusted to you can be learned from Scripture, and it undoubtedly means providing for yourself and your family [1 Thess. 4:11-12, 1 Tim. 5:4-8], and giving to the poor [Gal. 2:10, James 2:13]. But it also means not putting your trust in money and listening to the Lord Jesus when He tells us to store up treasure in heaven [Matt. 619-21], to learn from the dishonest steward in Jesus’ parable and use what is entrusted to us now to ensure a welcome into ‘eternal dwellings’ [Luke 16:9, 1 Tim. 6:18-19].
Thirdly, we need to remember our God is generous and faithful, and His promises to those who knowing His generosity for themselves in His gift to us of His Son [2 Cor. 8:9] seek to practice faithful, free generosity themselves are true and sure. As Paul said to the Corinthians
2 Cor. 9:
6The point is this: The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.
The economy is always uncertain, but God is the God of steadfast love and faithfulness, and His word is sure. I hope as you consider the church’s budget in the light of your own budget you will be guided in your support by the teaching of that word and your own experience of God’s generous grace to each of us in giving His Son for us, and also that you will be encouraged, as I am, by His faithfulness to us as a congregation over many years now as we have sought to be faithful to our Lord in making disciples by calling for repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus God’s Son and then teaching each other all He has commanded us.
