Hope for church budget woes, but no quick fix

Churches usually ask for help with stewardship when they are having problems meeting their budget.  But first they often start dealing with their budget problems by trying to decrease their spending, cutting programs and not giving their employees raises.

Then when none of those things work they start talking about the need for better stewardship.

After getting a request from such a congregation looking for some great stewardship program that would  fix their budget problems, I started to look at it a little differently.  Because there is no quick fix.

Congregations like this are anorexic by the time they ask for help.  They have a poor image of themselves and what they are capable of and what they deserve just like people who are anorexic.  And just like people with this problem they will not find a quick fix.

It takes a long time and a lot of relearning for people to fight a debilitating disease like anorexia.  A whole different image of who they are and they are worth what is life giving have to be mastered.

It is true for churches with poor stewardship.  They survive on less and less and then they have to conserve energy to keep from dying and so they can do lees and less.  They get weaker.  Sometimes they die.

People with anorexia get healed when they come to see life as something to be lived and food as the energy that gets them there.  When they know their worth and what they are about they can make that connection.  I believe that the Holy Spirit is connected to that new understanding.

While there is no quick fix for churches, there is hope.  Because we do not do it alone.  There is the healing power of the Holy Spirit that can transform our understanding of who we are and what we as churches are about.  And they we are glad to take in what we need to survive.  We are bold to ask people to be generous with what they have been given because we know that we have important things to do.  We have a mission to proclaim the Gospel and work for justice and peace in the world.  We have hungry people to feed and love to share. 

Be bold.  With the power of the Holy Spirit give people the gift of being a part of your churches ministry both by their presence and gifts of time and with their treasures which God has given them for all kinds of great things in this world.  Let the Holy Spirit heal you of your leanness and fill out both your mission and your budget to match. 


Lord,  Empower us and heal us that we may be a healing force in this world.  Amen

Copyright © 2006, The Rev. Dana Reardon. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Email her at mspastor@aol.com.



The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI.  A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care.  She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander.  She is still trying to understand the accent.  While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team.  That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.