Luke 14:28 - Counting the Costs

How public should you be about church finances? Should you keep everyone in the dark? Doing that would quickly bring allegations of fraud and IRS audits. Should you post how broke (or rich) you are in the bulletin every Sunday? Probably not that either. But should you - at times of severe drought - make public appeals? Is it ever appropriate to stand up in the pulpit and, with honesty, say, “Look folks, things aren’t good right now and we need to pull together here.”

It seems to me that would be acceptable. Unfortunately, that’s not what I recently experienced. Certain members of our church were strongly (vehemently) against such an announcement.

Are ‘financial warnings’ acceptable from the pulpit? Is there a better way?

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One of the 8 recommendations for guest follow-up is to send a letter from the pastor within 3 days — that means if someone attends Sunday, the letter from the pastor should be received by no later than Wednesday or Thursday. I believe the letter should be personalized to the extent that the guest’s name and address are part of the letter and the pastor physically signs the letter. To do that, all the guest names must be entered Sunday evening or Monday morning into the church database, the letters must be printed (since it’s mainly a form letter, it should have already been proofed), the pastor must sign each letter, and the letters must be stamped and then mailed… all within a day or two of Sunday.

The good news is that our particular church either doesn’t receive many visitors or the visitors don’t document their presence. Unfortunately, we do a poor job as a church collectively to encourage members to provide their contact information.

Assuming as many as 30 visitors per week, the process for sending out a letter from the pastor shouldn’t take more than several hours of production:

• entering names into database - 1 hour
• generating letters - 15 minutes
• signing letters - 15 minutes
• stuffing envelopes - 30 minutes
• stamping & mailing - 30 minutes

The estimates above could be off, but surely not by much. Even if they are off by 25%, that’s still only 3 hours split across the church secretary and the pastor. That seems like a reasonably small investment for what I think would be seen as a nice gesture…

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The United Methodist Church Transformation Workbook has the following 8 recommendations for following up with guests within 30 days:

1. Letter from the pastor within 3 days;
2. Letter from a staff member within 3 weeks;
3. Letter from a non-staff member within 3 weeks;
4. Being added to the newsletter distribution;
5. Feedback card sent to the guest;
6. Phone call within 36 hours;
7. Thank you card sent within 7 days; and
8. an email address requested.

The eight activities are intended to be the minimum standard for guest follow-up. In theory, healthy and thriving churches actively engage in all of the 8 as well as many more. Our church currently engages in 2 of the 8 activities. Our plan is to take on one activity per quarter (if not more) and execute accordingly. By this time next year, we hope to be actively engaged in 6 of the 8 activities.

Of the 8 listed, how many does your chuch follow? How well are each executed? Which of the 8 have more of an impact? That is, if I had to choose one activity, which one should it be based on your experience? To what extent does cost (financial, labor, or time) factor into the equation? I think the following table is my own concept of each of the 8… let me know your thoughts…

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Our church is celebrating Advent by providing books to each Sunday school class (along with lesson plans and teaching tips). The books are all the same — every class follows the same lesson. Is this the best approach or should classes have class-specific books that better target the intended purpose of the class? That is, some classes are focused on practical application of the Bible, whereas others are focused exclusively on reviewing the books of the Bible. Is one Advent text for all Sunday school classes a better approach than different books for each class… or does it matter?

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It’s an odd question. How big do you want your church to grow? Seems simple, but it’s not… and it’s something of a powder keg as well.

My church currently has an average Sunday attendance of about 400 members and some church members would like our church to grow. I’ve asked a number of members their feelings and specifically how large (or small) they thought we should be. No one thinks we should close (that’s refreshing!) and no one thinks we should be a mega-church, yet that still leaves things pretty open.

Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the perceived size of the church and how long the person has been a member (I assumed that if you were a charter member of a church that has been slow to grow, you might be more inclined to stay relatively small). Likewise, there doesn’t seem to be any relationship with the age of the church member. Young and old alike give a variety of answers.

One predictor seems to be what type of church the member ‘grew up in’ — but only loosely.

Another predictor is the intended goal of the church member. If a church member wants to start a highly specialized ministry, then far more members are needed than your ‘run of the mill’ ministry. It’s all about motivation.

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