A Faith Budget for Your Church

Yesterday morning, I was fretting over a budget challenge we were wrestling with at board meeting this week. There's something we really need to do -- but it will cost us about $30,000 more than our projected income.

I poured my heart out to God about it -- asking Him to show me His will in this.

Coming to my office, I noticed a book on my desk that I had recently purchased for a buck at a rummage sale: Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby.

I happened to open it to page 213 -- and there, in bold print was, "A Faith Budget for Your Church"
In the paragraphs that followed, Henry Blackaby shared the following:

One year, the people on our finance committee said, "Pastor, you have taught us to walk by faith in every area of life of our church except the budget." I asked them to explain. They said, "Well, when we set the budget, we set the budget on the basis of wht we believe WE can do. Id does not reflect that we expect God to do anything."

"Hmmm," I said, "Then, how do you feel we ought to set the budget?"

They said, :First, we should determine all that God wants to do through us. Second, we need to estimate what the cost will be. Finally, we need to divide the budget goal into three categories:
1. What we plan to accomplish through our tithes
2. What others have promised to do and
3. What we must depend on God to do."

As a church, we prayed and decided that God did want us to use this approach to budgeting. We did not try to dream our own dreams for God. We had to be absolutely sure God was leading us to do the things we put in the budget. Then we listed what that would cost. We listed what we thought our people would give and what others (denominational board, partnership churches, and individuals) had said they would give. The difference between what we could resonably expect to receive and the total was what we would ask God to provide.

The Big Question Was: What is our operating budget?

Well, by faith we adopted the grand total as our operating budget. At this point, we reached a crisis of belief. Did we really believe that the God who led us to do these things would also provide the resources to bring them to pass? Anytime, God leads you to do something that has God-sized dimensions, you will face a crisis of belief. When you face a crisis of belief, what you do next reveals what you really believe about God.

The budget of our church normally would have been $74,000. The budget we set was $164,000. We pledged to pray daily that God would meet our needs. Any money that came in that we did not anticipate we credited to God. At the end of that year, we had received $172,000. God taught our church a lesson in faith that radically changed us all.

The greatest crisis came when we decided to operate on the grand total rather than what we knew we could do. Operating on the $74,000 amount would not take much faith. We were sure we could do that much. Operating on a budget of $164,000 required faith. We could not see any way to get that much money unless God provided it.