Is there a better way to steward church finances?

by Darren Rusco

A typical attractional church budget has about 90% of its income dedicated to the events of the Sunday service. Usually there is a building payment plus utilities, along with the salaries that pay a preacher to spend perhaps 30 hours a week preparing a sermon for Sunday and worship leaders to prepare music for the same service. 10% of a budget is often given towards missionaries or local charitable projects.

Finances usually reveal the true purpose of a local church because most churches will invest the majority of their money into the most important thing. And while there are many forms of church purpose statements, when you strip it all away, they are usually in the business of putting on Sunday services. For example, think about a local church's home group model. This will involve multiple leaders opening their homes, leading a Bible study, shepherding people, dealing with difficulties, and so forth. In every home group you'll have the required components of a church: leadership, worship, teaching, community, perhaps a mission, and whatever else goes on your list. But almost always, this home group leader is not paid and works a job somewhere else. And this is because midweek homegroups are not the purpose of why the church exists. Can you imagine what would happen if someone told a senior pastor that they will not attend Sunday services but only the midweek homegroup instead?

While spending 90% of a budget for Sunday activity isn't evil, it is fair to ask if the money is being used to accomplish the mission Jesus gave the church. (Watch for another post on what exactly is the mission Jesus gave the church.) I suppose there are multiple reasons for why a church exists, but should we use 90% of the offerings for the single reason of assembly?

In the Bible, I see at least 4 categories of giving that are revealed to be the heart of God. Maybe there are more, but I think they can be fit nicely into these:

1. "Widows": those in your church who are unable to financially provide for themselves, not necessarily limited to widows.

2. "Poor": those in your city outside your local church who need help.

3. "Needy": other needy believers far off: such as when a collection was taken among the European churches to give to the Jerusalem church experiencing a famine.

4. "Oxen": those who preach the gospel for a living, such as Paul.

These things are on the heart of God for his people to give generously towards. This conversation has two sides to the coin: how individuals give generously and how the local church gives generously. Generally speaking, in our current church culture, the people have an expectation to give around 10% of their income to their local church with a freedom to give above and beyond that to whatever they want. For many, the 10% tithe is all they can manage. This leaves local churches with stewardship of a large budget with choices on how to spend it. This conversation focuses on the church side of the coin.

So how does the church give toward the four categories on the heart of God? As I wrote above, 90% usually goes toward the expenses of the Sunday gathering and 10% is given awy outside the Sunday service. So for categories 1-3, the only chance they have to receive money is from the 10%. But usually that 10% is set aside for missionaries, who I would classify as category 4 "oxen". In reality, categories 1-3 will only receive around 1%. Most churches would classify the salaries of the pastors as "oxen".

If you are not familiar, the oxen metaphor comes from Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 9. He quotes an Old Testament law that forbid people from muzzling their ox while it treaded the grain. The people wanted to stop the ox from eating the spillage, but God said no, the ox should have a right to eat because it worked so hard. And Paul made this point about the minister. They do so much work that they should be able to earn a living from it. But who actually are the oxen? In context, Paul is making the case that HE is the ox. He is defending his right as an apostle to earn a living from the church's giving. Remember the context. Paul was involved in building up the Corinthian church as an apostle - he was not the pastor. And now he is writing from another city back to Corinth giving the oxen metaphor. So when the church of Corinth gave to support the ox, that giving was going to a person in another location who was not "feeding" themselves anymore. In other words, in the context of 1 Corinthians 9, the ox was not the local pastor.

The bigger question at stake is: how much of our money are we giving toward the matters on the heart of God? Each church and person needs to answer that question according to their own conviction.

With the ministry of Open Spaces Project, we are experimenting with flipping those percentages. We want 90% of the money to go towards the 4 categories while 10% goes towards administrative costs. Here is what this means:

• In the attractional model, the people of the church receive the direct benefit of their offerings. Meaning, the money they give goes toward the building that they receive preaching in, the heating and air conditioning they enjoy, and towards pay the pastor of whom they will sit under their preaching. The giver receives the direct benefit for where they give.

• Within Open Spaces Project, we do gather together as a group to worship and pray and commune and receive teaching, but we do not put any money towards the existence of this gathering. Much like the home group leader mentioned above, the pastors are volunteers. There are no building payments.

• In Open Spaces, 90% of the giving goes towards categories 1-4, meaning the givers do not receive the direct benefit for where they give. Any oxen who receive money are given that in an apostolic function, for the work of advancing the kingdom outside of that particular microchurch.

• In particular, this gives categories 1-3 a better chance to receive than 1%.

• And in this way, the offerings of the people go towards the purpose of advancing the mission rather than the purpose of assembly or equipping.