Overseeing Church Finances
Arthur DeKruyter
There are many techniques and practices that every church can employ to insure efficient and proper use of funds. In most cases they also happen to be techniques that engender trust.
—Arthur DeKruyter
Knowing the right ways to raise and spend money is a key task of anyone who helps manage a church. But there's an often-overlooked prerequisite to good money management: trust. A church doesn't need money as much as it needs trust. Without trust, a church will always have money problems. By addressing the trust issue, a church has taken a major step toward financial health.
About twelve years ago, a woman was tragically killed in this community. Having no church home, the family asked if Christ Church of Oak Brook would hold the services. Without hesitation, we did. Subsequently, the widower became intrigued by the church that was willing to help his family, to offer genuine comfort in their grief. He began attending our services.
He studied us carefully. He wanted to know how our ministries functioned, how we made decisions, how we handled money. He concluded that our ministry had integrity. He then decided that he wanted to support a church that helped the community like we had helped him. He has not yet become a member of our church, but he attends, and for the last twelve years he has donated to our church nearly as much as our largest giver.
When people trust the integrity of a ministry, they willingly give to it.
On the other hand, questions about trust can dry up giving. Not long ago, a woman in another congregation told me she was going to stop giving to her church, of which she is a charter member. She would still give to the denomination's missions, but never would she give another penny to that congregation. She didn't ...
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