THE COFFER CRUNCH
What happens to ministry when money is in short supply?
Jim Smith, Lloyd Sturtz, Art Gay, Bob Rhoden
January 1, 1989
October 19, 1987, will forever be remembered as Black Monday in the financial world. The Dow plunged, like an out-of-control airplane, a record-scorching 508 points. In seven hours, investors lost some $500 billion in equity values. Smaller brokerages were forced out of business. Traders were let go. And now, more than a year later, according to reports, smaller investors still have not regained confidence in Wall Street.
What happens when a local church experiences a similar financial downturn? What exactly does ministry mean when a church faces a fiscal crisis, whether moderate or severe, and what's the pastor's responsibility?
LEADERSHIP posed those questions to four pastors who have experienced money crunches of varying kinds. As an introduction to their discussion of the underlying issues, here is each pastor's account of how his church found itself in a hole.
Aborted Bequest
Jim Smith
Elim Baptist Church
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Late in 1983, a former parishioner at Elim approached my predecessor to say: "My family has deep roots in this church. And now that I'm beginning to think about retirement, I'd like to build the church a new building-whatever it costs-provided you furnish it."
Plans began, I came to the church, and by July of 1987, the building's roof and walls were completed. The inside, though, had a long way to go.
Then the donor suffered a major financial reversal and informed me, "I have to cap the gift."
That left our urban-neighborhood congregation, attendance around 300, with signed contracts and debts totaling almost $700,000. Without any clue it was going to happen, we inherited a debt three times our annual budget. If the work stopped, we could be sued for breach of contract. We weren't sure there would be enough ...
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