One issue of small church life that is a constant headache is stretching a tight budget. Some congregations don’t have to deal with this issue, but most find it a regular struggle.
My own church is a case in point. We minister to people that often cannot contribute much in the way of money. That’s fine—it’s who God has led us to and we thrive on helping them. But the reality is that a handful of people is providing the money we need. This hinders us from building the place of worship we need. We have the land, but can’t afford to build on it. Without a building, it is impossible to start new Sunday school groups to increase our outreach to young people (hard to make renovations to a borrowed facility). This holds us back from reaching some we could. And so on…you get the idea.
Other congregations need to add more staff or at least increase the compensation to the ones they have. But small revenues prevent growth in this area. The examples go on.
Now let me make it clear—God provides all we need. There has never been a time that He has not been faithful. And therein lies the hard part. We as small church leaders must determine what our real needs are. Some things we just want, but don’t necessarily need.
We must spend time in prayer and discuss with each other what the mission of our church is. As we gain a clearer insight into our ministry, we can then focus on how to allocate the finances available to help our congregations go forward for the Lord.
