Why Budgeting Isn’t About The Numbers

This is part of a series that provides examples of how you can manage different details of church leadership. To learn more, see our articles on how we handle church membership, why we don’t pass an offering plate, how we hire church staff, and why we have boring annual reviews.

Is budgeting at your church an afterthought? Is it something that is dictated by one person or group with no input from those who will have to live by the budget? Is the budgeting process one of gamesmanship, where people ask for more than they need knowing that they will get a certain percent of the ask? Or is the budget exactly the same each year, with just a percentage added to each line to cover inflation?

Unfortunately, these common attitudes towards budgeting do not really encourage good stewardship of church resources. In fact, they might even be discouraging innovation, or even unintentionally encouraging dishonesty.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There are ways to do church budgeting that honors God and honors each other. We’re not saying that we do it perfectly—we don’t—but there are some lessons we’ve learned through our own mistakes and successes.

It Starts with the Heart

People typically think of budgeting as a math problem: you have to balance the numbers and make sure everything adds up. However, it’s really more of a heart issue than a numbers issue (Matthew 6:21). The key to budgeting is to have a heart focused on loving and serving others through the wise stewarding God’s resources.

No matter how seemingly small your budget might be, you have a responsibility to steward whatever resources you have. And the more you have been given, the more that is expected of you (Luke 12:48). Remember that, although the Parable of the Talents can be applied to your natural skills and abilities (“talents”), it is literally about sums of money (Matthew 25:14-30). Whether you have been entrusted with five talents or only one, God wants you to use what you are given and produce a return on the investment.

Setting and tracking budgets is also a way to “know well the condition of your flocks” (Proverbs 27:23). It is difficult, and maybe impossible, to wisely steward resources if you don’t know how much money you have or how it is being spent.

Instead of treating the budget process like a distraction from ministry, you should see it as an important part of ministry. It is a way to serve God and an opportunity to love others well.

It Stops at the Top

“The buck stops here,” as the leadership saying goes—and the ultimate responsibility for how you steward the church’s “bucks” rests at the top, with senior leadership.

Budgeting shouldn’t just be left to “the finance guy” or delegated down to an assistant. Sure, someone like that might do the heavy lifting, but the church budget is far too important for senior leadership to just ignore it.

That is why, at Watermark, we intentionally have senior leadership cast vision for budgets and make announcements about budget season deadlines. People know that the process of setting budgets and sticking to them is of top importance, because it comes from the top. Senior leaders are also in the room during meetings where budget requests are discussed. And they are not just present; they are involved. They know the numbers and ask thoughtful questions. It takes time to prepare for and attend budget meetings, but senior leaders are not “too important” to make time for budgeting. Rather, budgeting is too important for leadership not to be involved.

If your church’s top leadership appears to not really care about budgeting, you will struggle to get anyone else to care. So, make it clear that you care.

Be Partners in Ministry

Budgeting is not a competitive sport. Budget meetings should not feel argumentative, where it’s “us versus them.” Instead, remind everyone that you are on the same team.

A few years ago, we realized that we had this problem because people would commonly refer to our budget meetings as “budget defense meetings.” That’s not the healthiest language; it sounds like people’s budget requests are being attacked, and they must defend themselves against those attacks.

To avoid this mentality, don’t make your budget meetings all about the numbers. For example, we try to start our finance discussions by asking questions like, “What were you excited about accomplishing this past year?” and “What are your goals for next year?” Such questions show that you care about their ministry and are partnering with them to help achieve their goals. It is also essential information to know, because you can’t set budgets to reach ministry goals if you don’t know what the goals are.

The way to look at budgeting is that you are all one family, but the family has limited resources. So, you have to work together as a family to figure out what the needs are and how you can best allocate resources to meet those needs.

Challenge People to Be Creative

One of the ways your church can do more with the limited resources you have is by being creative. Constraints breed creativity.

For example, if someone comes with a budget request for what seems like a great idea, we might approve it, but for only 75 percent of the requested amount. We’ll say, “We love the idea, but we think you can get creative and figure out how to do it for less budget. Think outside of the box.”

It is important to frame this as good stewardship, and not gamesmanship. We don’t want people to come with an artificially inflated budget request because they think we are going to ask them to do it for less, and that way they end up with what they really “need.” Instead, we make it clear that we are challenging them to be creative. Being creative is part of their job; it’s how we will all accomplish more in ministry with the limited resources we have.

Operation No Surprises

Budgeting is not just a once-a-year event; it also means tracking spending throughout the year and making sure you are staying within the budget. By tracking where the budget stands year-to-date and sharing that information clearly and frequently, you can avoid any unwelcome surprises. In contrast, if you reach the end of the fiscal year and that’s when people find out for the first time that they were over budget, the budgeting process has failed everyone significantly.

Stewardship is an ongoing process; it implies continual, diligent care. If you only look at the budget once a year, that’s not diligence; it’s negligence.

To help people keep track, we send out budget updates to everyone on staff every month. And if someone is clearly trending out-of-line on their budget numbers, we quickly have a conversation with them about that. We don’t wait for it to become a big problem. Rein things in when you have to, but also celebrate successes; don’t make people think that budget conversations are always negative.

For more detailed church budgeting tips, check out our Church Leadership Podcast on the topic.