Funding Church Growth

I've found a solution to all your budget woes, and it's been sitting in your pews, right under your pastoral noses, for some time.

My financial revelation is not original with me. It's come handed down from the sisters at Mount St. Francis parish and retirement complex in northwest Colorado Springs, Colorado. According to this article in the Houston Chronicle, the sisters take donations and, in return, offer their prayers.

What makes the prayers of the nuns worth some cash? They are professionals. They've surrendered marriage, wealth, freedom, and all sorts of wonderful earthly delights to devote themselves to prayer. So they'll do it for you, giving you a priority placement on their prayer lists, for a price.

And to think we evangelicals have been giving this stuff away for free!

Every church has a few potential sources for income here. We call them "prayer warriors." They are usually the little old ladies who have, like the nuns, forsaken all other whims in life for the duty of prayer. As a pastor, you count on them. You call them up when you have urgent issues. You may even rely on them to intercede in a case of sloppy sermon preparation or to cover your hinney when you're in a good old-fashioned church brawl. But they do this for you, and for many other people, entirely without cost or obligation. Prayer warriors are generally good people who have good hearts. But they have become victims of a greedy, parasitic ecclesiastical system which expects to pay nothing for intercession.

It's time to reconsider the policy of freebie prayers.

Imagine the boon to your budget here: Round up all the warriors and sit them down. Prepare a chart ahead of time that will list the degrees of prayer interventions that will be available. Assign the prayer team to designated business hours. Set your church secretary up as the phone hub for all prayer requests so each request can be accounted and billed. And then send the invoices flying!

Here are some suggestions for your fee structure.

1. Charge by the request, not by the hour.
2. Base the fee on a scale of urgency: the more urgent the need, the higher the price.
3. Double the charges on the following: confidential requests, felony forgivenesses, and the ever-popular "unspoken request."
4. Offer a "pray-without-ceasing" special that guarantees one prayer each hour for 48 hours. Charge a bundle for this.

If you implement this revenue enhancement in your church, please let me know of your success. And remember, I serve you here on a freewill offering basis, so I expect a cut.

The Great Pastoral Search: American Idol meets Miss America

American Idol, Survivor, Deal or No Deal, Miss America--They've got nothing on the church.

For years the evangelical ecclesiastitions in the U.S. have enjoyed their own peculiar version of reality competition: The Pastoral Search.

A church throws out the bait: they're seeking a pastor. Word gets around and lots of ministerial types suddenly feel God has called them to apply. (You'd think that God could get it right and just apply the call to THE ONE). Much confusion ensues.

The pastor-less church now must somehow filter through all these candidates--better yet: contestants--to see which ones make the cut. Finally, and with much prayer and powerful political manipulation, THE ONE rises to the top. He or she is invited to come and put on a show, normally called a candidating weekend.

Some churches hold a cattle call: After a few culls for doctrinal idiosyncrasies, they parade each candidate into the church over several weekends, then pick a couple of favorites for the showdown.

All of this is eerily close to the competitions on TV. Like Survivor, each candidate is exposed to challenges--the doctrinal interview, the preaching trial, the denominational torture chamber. Like a beauty pageant, each candidate struts their stuff, revealing their very best plumage in the hopes that their faults and failures will be cleverly disguised by the brilliant display of ministerial aplomb, not to mention the amazing chalk art. Like American Idol, a panel of judges--elders, deacons, search committee, etc.--offer their critique. Like Deal or No Deal, some elder or deacon or church board representative eventually makes an offer, but not all of the details are revealed to the candidate until about a year into the ministry.

I say, Hey! Let's just take it all the way!

PASTORMANIA!

Get 'em all together in the sanctuary. With their wives. Announce the participants with a lot of drama--smoke and pyrotechnics and loud praise music from the worship team. Then let them fight it out on the platform. The last pastoral couple standing gets the job.

At minimal pay, with a run-down parsonage, and no health insurance.