Thriving!

Dear Pastors

It feels like we are out on the open sea and there is no sign of land anywhere…..not a stick…….no blade of grass……..nothing………otherwise known as sailing in unchartered waters. The thought of that is real scary whether you are a sailor or not.

As we hear of businesses closing left right and centre I am hoping and praying that we won’t hear the same for local churches. My instinct is we won’t because churches are remarkably resilient and probably more so in tough times. Kind of inverse logic really!

That said many churches are going to go through really challenging times. So now is the time to anticipate the hard times ahead and be really smart as to how we lead and manage in the COVID19 world and also in and through the Recession that is already well underway.

Over the last week I have been doing some work on this front both by writing some stuff and supporting a few churches. What follows are 3 of 10 points of my paper called ‘Recession Guidelines’. If you would like a copy please hit ‘reply’. My passion is that churches do better than survive….that they thrive and I believe with all my heart that is possible……it really is.

1. Financial Analysis.
   [Please Note: If you are not confident with numbers ask someone who is……just make sure this happens as soon as possible].
   • Get hold of your 12 months Income and Expenditure Statement, preferably as close to March 2020 as possible. Use this as your baseline document.
   • Do a spreadsheet analysis. Take the Income figure from tithes and offerings (exclude extra-ordinaries) and do a spread sheet analysis on the basis of 10% reduction, 20%, 30% and 40%. What effect does that have on your bottom line?
   • At the same time do a sweep over your expenses and cut what you can but not wages/salaries. What effect does that on your bottom line?
   • If you have a Reserve Fund whether earmarked or not decide as a Board whether you are willing to use it during the Recession period. You probably should!
   • Wages/Salary Cuts. The biggest single expense item for churches is your wages (employment expenses). For most churches that is between 50 and 70% of your annual spend. I would recommend that now is NOT to early for you as Pastor(s) to discuss with your spouse what cut you are willing to take after all other cost saving measures have been taken. Further, it is not too early to let your Board know what you have decided after all other measures that can be taken have been taken. In some cases it may be possible for this measure to be taken earlier rather than as a last resort.
   • Find out who your 10 – 20 biggest donors were AND the industry they work in. Give each one a rating as to likelihood of their employment being secure during the recession. As the Pastor you may want to stay ‘arm’s length’ from knowing the names of the individuals so ask an independent person to do the analysis. Once you know this you can make a plan to talk to these folks, making them aware of how important their giving is and asking them if they think they can keep it going.
2. Assemble a ‘Recession Task Group’ to help you as Pastor and the Board to navigate the upcoming impacts of the Recession. This Group should be made up of successful businesspeople in your congregation. Supply the group with the data from 1) above and ask them to come up with a plan to survive (preferably thrive) the Recession and get out the other side. You could task this group to do 1) above.
3. Wherever possible partner with other groups and agencies in your community who are perhaps better than you at meeting some ‘types of need’ so that you can focus on what you alone as the church can do.

Finally. I would love to hear from you. I’m grateful to those who do stay in touch but right now I would love to hear from many others what you are sensing….feeling….hearing about the shape of things to come.

Blessings

Alan

Announcement

Some of you ‘Rockers’ might recognise this man. This is Bradley Dring aka Rapture Ruckus of former days. Brad now lives in Raglan with his family (actually our neighbours). He works for a Cambridge based company that leaped into action three weeks ago to design and manufacture these really cool, very easy to assemble desks for smaller spaces when working at home.

Brad says, “Fiasco is New Zealand's leading road case manufacturer with a factory also in Los Angeles. Almost 100% of our industry shut down so we’ve worked on these new products to hopefully provide a needed service and also try keep all our staff employed through this time”. You can find out more here.