Insuring Financial Integrity
Richard Bergstrom
The fatal mistake of many pastors and churches is to assume that they and those around them are above financial temptation.
—Richard L. Bergstrom It was six years to the day after my youth pastor in Colorado had confessed to eight years of embezzling church funds (my wife remembers the date well—it was on her birthday), and I was dealing with a major dilemma. We had just concluded a pastors' conference through our ministry with Church Dynamics, and I was trying to decide what to do with the funds. We had received $180 in cash and $200 worth of checks made out to church dynamics international. I needed to reimburse myself for $180 in expenses incurred, and I owed $90 to the woman who had prepared the food for the day. I conferred with our staff, and we decided it would be easiest to set up a conference account locally and keep the funds separate for future conferences in the Northwest. When I got home, it hit me: If I were to do that, I would face the same temptations that befell my youth pastor fourteen years ago when he set up a separate youth account in the name of the church! A cold chill ran down my spine as I realized how much I had forgotten in the previous six years. A quick mental review brought the lessons of the past to mind. If I were to have a separate fund in the corporate name of our ministry, I had to assume I would be tempted to mingle ministry and personal funds and justify reimbursements to myself that might otherwise be considered out-of-pocket expenses. For example, as I filled up my gas tank for the return trip home, I wondered, Should I pay for this, or should the ministry? After all, I came to the conference at my own expense. My mind tried to justify turning in an expense voucher to the conference account, ...
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