This week we’ve been talking about about small is better.
What about money in small churches?
There is a better sense of where the money is being spent in small churches. As people committed to the church there aren’t a lot of places for weird line items to hide. You have some staff, a meeting place . . . a few programs. You know how much you give and can get a pretty good sense of the cost structure in relation to what you give. It’s clear that your offering resources make a week in and week out difference.
Larger churches have the advantages of scale and in general per capita giving is higher in larger churches. But there can be a loss of an individuals giving making a macro difference. Therefore . . . when donors drop off things continue to tick along as usual.
How can we help people who support large churches financially feel the same “weight” of their giving as in small churches? How do we drive to similar organic accountability as a smaller church?
Good series Rich. My experience has been that this is often a root of dysfunction in smaller churches. Often you have a small circle of families who’s giving is almost “floating” the entire church organization. Most often the insiders of this small church community know who these 4 families are, and so begins the politics of who has “a say”.–especially when things challenging. I DO think that there is a way a small church can do giving well, I just think it’s more challenging than it is for a larger church.
In some ways the anonymity of giving in a larger church means people give out of inspiration or obedience to what God has called them to; In other words, they don’t give because they feel the “weight” but because they feel the opportunity. I think we inspire people to give when we paint a picture of the opportunity for impact it has and the way this act of obedience changes our heart like nothing else can–Where I put my treasure, my heart will follow. My “2 cents”.