Church Administration and Buildings Office
Robert Grant
Documentation Is Important
Part Eleven: Church Budget Preparation Part Three: The Cooperative Program
Planning for Cooperative Program giving is very important. Recent Church Budget preparations have churches skipping the planning process and merely “flat-lining” a dollar amount for Cooperative Program or setting a percentage of the actual receipts. Nether of these processes are “planning”, they are routine, low maintenance ways to get a figure on the budget that will justify and satisfy the mission offering for the year. This writer believes God expects us to be more intentional.
Revelation 3 depicts a church at Sardis. The city of Sardis was a thriving city with many cross roads of activity and growing population. Commerce was abundant; the people were doing well financially.
In verse 1: “I know your works; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. Be alert and strengthen what remains, which is about to die, for I have not found your works complete before My God”.
The writer was telling the people of Sardis that they LOOKED alive, but they were really not what they appeared, they were fooling themselves and trying to fool others. As a church they were a fake, a fraud. They looked “five miles wide” but they were only “two inches deep”. They were getting a wake up call. To “be alert and strengthen what remains”. Their reputation was on the line. They were challenged to really be a church! They were challenged to be what God had intended them to be.
Does your church represent what God has called you to be? Are you appearing one way and functioning otherwise? Do you appear to be a wholesome, thriving church to the community, only to really care about yourselves.. The lost world does not need the drama of a church “playing church”! The lost world needs a church that cares for the world, the people, and are willing to go beyond the walls with their time, talents, and resources to go and DO Great Commission work. The church of Sardis was playing church and God gave them a warning, “be alert, strengthen what remains”.
This writer visits and evaluates many churches throughout the year. Some APPEAR healthy, others ARE healthy. The difference is not how much money they have in the bank, but how much of themselves they are truly giving away. On one occasion several years ago I was visiting a church on an On-Site Building Consultation visit. On the materials provided me prior to the visit I could see a substantial increase in their undesignated receipts, their building fund, their attendance, and their Cooperative Program giving – all on the same year, all a remarkable change from many years prior. I asked why. The church leadership was quick to note that when they as a church decided to give more to the Cooperative Program, The Association and other Seasonal Mission efforts they recognized WHEN they became blessed. They knew it! It was a revelation to them that they were in the business to do God’s work not their own!
Is it time for your church to awake to healthiness? Is it time for your church to PLAN for Cooperative Program giving with more intentionality? Is it time for your church to be a REAL church to the lost world? Is it time for your church to be a REAL church to your community and to itself?
(Published in Church Staff Digest October, 2006)
