MONEY : THE CHURCH’$ FAVORITE TOPIC
“You build the building and the building builds you.” The idea is, there are systems even in the church that once established will eventually take over and determine everything you do and become. Money is one of those systems in the church. Here is how we view money at Mosaic.
Retail has what they call the 3 “L’s” of success - “location, location, location.” It might be fair to say churches have the 3 “M’s” - “money, money, money.” Most churches, it seems, by the time they pay for their building, staff and other fixed expenses have very little left for ministry and serving the community. And sometimes they don’t even have enough to cover their overhead. So the goal then becomes getting your people to give more. Leadership teams and pastors talk about “giving units” instead of families and people. When a horrible winter storm hits and you are deciding whether to cancel or not, a part of the equation is whether you can miss collecting a weekly offering. And then if more money does come in, first thoughts often go to how to improve the building or hiring more staff and the cycle continues. Throw in the Instagram feeds of pastors in $1000 sneakers and it is no wonder the world thinks money may be all the Church really cares about.
Ah, but the Bible says we are supposed to “tithe” or give 10% of our income, so the church is fair in asking for it right? The Bible says so right? Well, maybe not. Or at least not like we think it does. First, the “tithe” is almost exclusively an OT concept. Second, the “tithe” to the temple (which is where the church gets its tithe to the church) was given by those who owned the land and the harvest, not the worker hired to bring in the harvest. And actually, there was more than ONE tithe. There was a tithe that families set aside for their journeys to Jerusalem. And there was also another tithe SPECIFICALLY for the poor. Why aren’t any churches demanding that one!?
However, what we see through Jesus and the early church was extreme generosity and sharing. People didn’t necessarily give everything they own to the church but everyone gave enough to meet the needs….of the building…no, of the community. “There were no needy among them.” Almost sounds socialismy, but we digress. Sometimes the smallest gifts, even a couple of coins, were the most valued. What a vision of church finance!
Before we share more below, one very simple and practical way that we demonstrate how we view money at Mosaic is that we don’t “TAKE” your offering. No Church should “TAKE” your offering. We each “give” our offerings. They are something we offer with joy. So at Mosaic, we have a place for people to humbly bring any financial gifts to the Church. There is no plate passed while we each practice our peripheral vision to see who is giving and who isn’t.
On to Mosaic:
Building
So much money goes into buildings. We’ve done that. We can’t keep doing that. We won’t keep doing that. We are so incredibly blessed to be able to use space at Traverse Bay UMC for our Sunday gathering with minimal expense.
Expenses
We keep our fixed expenses as small as possible. Currently, all of our fixed expenses for an entire year total $5308 or $442/month. This includes everything needed to provide regular ministry to our own community.
Staff
First, we fully expect that our Pastors will be bi-vocational, or tri-vocational, or…you get the idea. And when the time comes to compensate a Pastor, the commitment is that there will always be money available for serving others. We have called this our “worst fear” - that we will pay for our building, fixed expenses, and pastor and have nothing left to care for others. Any salaries are then not a part of our fixed expenses. And to make sure our “worst fear” won’t come true, we have put unique financial systems in place for any giving above our fixed expenses.
Most Important Matters
When Jesus was critiquing the pharisees and their “tithing” he said they had “neglected the more important matters.” That is justice, mercy and faithfulness. Caring for others, compassion, meeting needs, showing mercy and grace are often the items that come last in a budget. Our goal is to make sure these things are always the most important. In fact we allow people to designate their giving to only go to these things if they would like.