Thanks to everyone who answered my questions about budgets.  But you 
haven't convinced me yet.

Budgets do not prevent against misuse, or help in protecting God's 
money.  Budgets deal with money not yet received and spent. 

As I understand budgets, they are either useless (if you can change 
them), or a slave (if you can't change them).  How many ministries 
(youth, children's, missions, benevolence, and others), are shorted 
money and resources because it's not listed in a budget.  Budgets again 
seam to remove God from the picture.  It is as if we are saying, "Ok God 
we have all income/expenses accounted for we don't need your help now". 
Now I know you don't say that literally, but are we saying that by our 
actions?

A church I know in Florida, carries no balance in their bank account at 
the end of the year.  They have built millions of dollars in 
sanctuaries, multipurpose buildings and other Church's to serve their 
communities needs, yet give their money away to other ministries. They 
start new churches with money that other Churches would squirrel away 
for a rainy day. God seems to bless them as they trust Him in ALL their 
way's. 

The Church I pastor is not there yet, but we are trying to trust God in 
everything we do.  By putting money aside for a rainy day, we have taken 
out of circulation money that could be used today  for God's kingdom and 
letting it set idle.  Are we setting money aside now in case God cannot 
supply our needs later?  Our Bible tells us God owns everything, and 
everything is at His disposal as He sees fit.  He will always take care 
of us, even when we take Matthew 6 literally.

God has been dealing with me about the great prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 
18.  When he faced the false prophets at Mt Carmel, he didn't do what 
made sense, he did what didn't make sense. He poured water on the 
sacrifice and prayed a short prayer to a big God.  God doesn't want us 
to do what makes sense in this worlds eye's, God wants us to trust Him, 
even when it flies in the face of common sense.

We need to question the things that the world say's makes sense.

Let's trust in God completely and see if He will be faithful to His Word.

Ray
New Hope Community Church
AoG



What we try to do each month is use the resources God has given us, for 
the current needs as God makes us aware.
 

Steven G. Rockhill wrote:

> Hey Gang I'm back.  Catching the tail of this discussion I thought I 
> would throw in my 2 cents.
>   Having a budget is both wise and prudent.  There are many things not 
> explicitly stated in Scripture that we use based on the 'wise and 
> prudent' principle.  Pews or chairs (and even a church building), 
> restrooms, telephones, kitchens, classroom space, any kind of 
> committee, Sunday School and VBS Curriculum, teaching aides, 
> computers, fire extinguishers and smoke alarms and yes even budgets.  
> We certainly can 'do church' without these things (as they do in many 
> parts of the world) but in our culture it is both wise and prudent.
>    I would be very wary of pastoring a church that does not use a 
> budget.  In many ways a budget is an accountability structure that 
> keeps you accountable to being good stewards of the Lord's good 
> gifts.  But there is also a certain amount of protection - if there is 
> no record of how the money is spent then there is a great liability 
> when money goes missing.  Granted pastors and other church staff have 
> embezzled funds when there was a church budget, but not having one 
> would seem to make it all the more tempting.  And if money does go 
> missing the first one they will come to will be the pastor.  In our 
> day and age we need to be 'as wise as serpents'.
>   That said, I am thankful we have a budget but wish it was more 
> helpful.  Our deacons make up a preliminary budget and then we 
> (elders) meet with the deacons and finalize it and approve it but it 
> is not necessarily written in stone (just hardening concrete).  We 
> then present it to the congregation more so for informational purposes 
> but they do vote on it.  Most of the times there is no problem, but 
> minor adjustments can be made at the congregational meeting.  When I 
> first came here 3 years ago we had a hand written treasurer's report 
> and hand written budget.  We at least have a typed treasurer's report 
> now but I would love to have something that was more aesthetically 
> pleasing to the eye as well as more helpful.
>   I saw Derick's Budget, DW you had a post that I read online that was 
> an excel worksheet - could you email that to me personally.  Thanks.
>
>
> Peace,
> Steve
>
> Dean West wrote:
>
>> Ray,
>> Having had input into the discussion I will respond to your post.  
>> Your passages quoted dealing with worry and over concern for 
>> materialism are certainly appropriate for the day.  Poor stewardship 
>> of resources (money management) is a scourge on our land.  Attitudes 
>> toward debt, credit, selfish use of material things are definitely 
>> keeping many believers from living a productive life for the Lord.   
>> Emotional and physical problems brought on by worry are providing  
>> hospitals and doctors with abundant income.  
>> The passages quoted lay down basic principals for both areas.   
>> However in none of them is it implied we are not to be good 
>> stewards/managers of God's abundant resources.   A church budget in 
>> my opinion has nothing to do with a lack of  trusting him for 
>> resources and living by faith.  In fact, a faith based budget is to 
>> be the norm.  I do find in scripture multiple illustrations that God 
>> never gets in a hurry, He makes well ordered plans for the future, 
>> structure for everything he does, nothing happening by mere chance.   
>> I view our budget as having many of these Godly characteristics built 
>> into it.  It is a means of directing God's resources.  It is a way of 
>> telling our resources where to go instead of asking where they went.  
>> It is a well ordered plan for the future if God allows time to 
>> continue.  It provides an example of good stewardship to our 
>> membership which can be applied to their lives.   
>>  
>> I'm sure the Lord's Church where you serve does many things that 
>> although not named specifically instructed in scripture are 
>> biblically based.   That would be my view of a church budget.
>>  
>> Dean
>>  
>> -
>
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