Ideas to Get or Keep Your Church on Solid Financial Footing
Handling the financial pressures of a church are without a doubt the toughest task we face as pastors in our churches, especially when the expenses of our ministry have increased, and the income has leveled off or even decreased.
I have a “route” within walking distance of our church. I have been going there for 33 years, gathering up any kids that will come with me. We usually walk, or put the smaller ones on trisikads (bikes with sidecars).
In Mark 14 we find a number of wonderful lessons from the lives of everyday people—people like you and me. The chapter begins with the house of Simon (once a leper) and a woman who came to the Lord Jesus and broke open an alabaster box filled with spikenard and poured it on Jesus’ head.
I can very easily give “mechanically,” or “grudgingly,” or out of “necessity.” However, God is looking for His people to give from their hearts and to do it cheerfully.
It must have been a difficult task for Elijah—asking a widow woman for her last meager meal. Before this, God had provided for Elijah through the ravens and the brook Cherith, but the birds stopped coming and the brook dried up.
First Chronicles 29 records King David’s final speech to his kingdom. It was a call to sacrificial giving for the building of the Temple. All of it was to be done from the heart and to the Lord.
Our independent Baptist churches support about 4,000 missionaries for a world of over 6 billion people. These missionaries have left their home churches for a strange culture to spread the Gospel.