Jesus famously said in Matthew 6:24,
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
Of course Jesus is right. But, assuming God is our Master, we can’t serve Him without money either. That’s true of individuals. It’s true of churches. And it’s certainly true of church networks like Cleveland Hope!
In this first of a 3-part series of posts called Money & Mission in 3-D, I want to begin looking at the dimensions of Cleveland Hope as-is, and as-it-could-be. Our first “D” is Dollars. Now that the 2019 budget year is complete, let’s start with a look at Cleveland Hope’s financial situation moving into 2020 and beyond.
Dollars
Cleveland Hope's capacity to help resource gospel endeavors locally and elsewhere depends on the regular financial contributions of our member churches. Last year’s budget called for $90,000 in church contributions. In 2019, with church gifts ranging from $40 to $14,000, we received a total of $77,079. Falling $13k short of our target was a bummer. Here’s the breakdown. Of the $77k received, over $39k (51.4%) was given by our top five (5) giving churches. The other churches (including Bridge Church, where I pastor) combined to make up the rest.
It’s a new year, and I’m trusting the Lord for more giving to Cleveland Hope! For one, last October messengers to our annual meeting passed a larger budget for 2020. How much larger? In terms of church contributions, $14,250 larger, taking our church revenue need from $90,000 to $104,250 (a 16% increase). The deeper why is that while the financial reality of a drop in giving is impossible to deny, the reasons for it are not always obvious at first, and in our case—as I explain below—I believe can be turned around. So, how will we get there? Here are some ideas:
Renewed Giving. Above, when I said “the ‘other churches’ combined to make up the rest…” there’s a catch: those ‘other churches’ aren’t ALL of the other churches! You see, the $77k that came in last year came from just 43 of the 61 local churches identified with Cleveland Hope. This means 18 (almost 1/3!) of the churches in our local network gave $0 in 2019. Surely at least one of them has a $100k annual budget; if that church gave just 3% to Cleveland Hope—that’s $3,000. Let’s say two of them gave $2,000, and another three gave $1,000; we’re already at $10,000. If the other twelve churches could together come up with $3,000 ($250 each), that would make up last year’s $13,000 church contribution shortfall.
Bridge Church’s giving was down last year for a host of reasons. I know declined giving can make it tougher on churches to support local missions. Some churches can give but don’t if they or their pastors don’t see the value of local network giving. Once upon a time associations received trickle-down Cooperative Program (CP) dollars for admin costs, director salary, outreach, etc., but those days are over for Cleveland Hope. Yes, as a North American Mission Board-designated “SEND City” Cleveland does receive NAMB dollars for church planting, but not through Cleveland Hope’s budget. Except a rare request for supplemental or matching funds from our state convention for special needs, our association budget receives $0 from outside Southern Baptist agencies.
Many of our non-giving churches gave to Southern Baptist efforts through the CP in 2019. That’s awesome! Did they join IMB missionaries on the foreign field or send team members to join a church planter in another part of Ohio or the U.S.? Perhaps not; yet they gave! So if CP-giving logic says “We may not be able to go but we can give to global gospel work through the CP,” wouldn’t the same logic apply here in our region? A church’s outreach in its own corner of Cleveland is local missions, but we’re talking about a metro area of nearly 2 million people! Your church and mine won’t be able to directly join or benefit from every event or endeavor our network supports but other churches will, and our network can’t support those things unless churches give! Every church can give something! So step 1 to strengthening our network’s financial future is closing the participation gap in giving. From $40 to $14,000 every partner plays a part. Our goal: 100% church participation!
New Affiliate Churches. You probably know a pastor or church nearby that’s baptistic in doctrine—perhaps non-denominational or independent Baptist. They love the Bible, believe the gospel, and want to make disciples. (I can think of three such churches in greater Cleveland right now whose pastors all attended Southern Baptist colleges or seminaries, but they aren’t partnered with us.) Why not have lunch with that pastor and share the networking vision and philosophy of Cleveland Hope? I’d be happy to join you—I’ll even buy lunch! Bring that pastor to one of our pastor breakfasts or another event to hear what’s going on across our network. The Lord might move them from independent to a new place of interdependent gospel labor. What if we on-boarded those three churches at $500, $1,000, and $2,000 respectively this year? There’s $3,500 towards our $14,250 mission budget increase.
Special Offering. If you’re thinking, But our church’s 2020 budget is already set; we can’t give more this year, think again! This August we’re going to promote and invite churches to take up a special-emphasis offering (think Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong) just for Cleveland Hope. This spring and summer I’ll be creating promotional materials, including special envelopes so your folks can continue to give through their local church as they support our broader family of churches. What if we raised a modest $10,000 in year 1? That almost puts us over the top!
Individual Giving. Do you suppose that across our 60 churches (made up of over 6,000 total members) there might be 20 kingdom-minded people willing to invest $20 a month in our church network on top of their church tithe? They might be pastors or laypersons, people who’ve benefited from or who just believe in N-E-T-S: Networked churches & resources, Encouraged pastors, Trained leaders, and Sent teams for the gospel’s sake in greater Cleveland. Let’s call it the “2020 Campaign” (okay, maybe not a great title!) Anyway, that’s $4,800, which would bring us to $18,300. Surplus baby!! February’s almost over, so we’re going to have to kick it into high-gear! To make it even easier, be looking for a “Donate” button to appear on our website soon!
A local Baptist association’s financial bread and butter will always be church contributions. However, we can explore additional and creative revenue streams to increase our network's capacity, and I certainly don’t have all the good ideas!
Do me a favor: take a few moments and complete the Cleveland Hope Support Questionnaire included in your weekly email. Thanks!
Dollars matter. Getting Cleveland Hope onto firm financial ground through the full participation of our member churches is important, but it’s not everything. Just because there’s an organization called Cleveland Hope doesn’t mean a church should automatically give to it. I want our network to be something that every pastor can unreservedly promote to his congregation as something of value to him and to the church. So, next week we’ll explore another “D” in our 3-part series “Money & Mission in 3-D”: Deliverables—how Cleveland Hope can add value to churches and pastors.