Another Treasurer Shares Best Practice

This is another brilliant and helpful example of a talk delivered by a treasurer, which was very well received.

Coming from the perspective of generosity, rooted in Biblical principles, and seeing the local parish as being part of a much larger whole, this talk focuses on how contributions are spent on mission and supporting other parishes.

Its author (Kathie Lambert from All Saints, Preston-On-Tees) who delivered this at their recent APCM, has generously given me permission to share it, in order to assist others and to help alleviate the stress of writing such a talk from scratch. Great that these resources are being shared amongst our great big diocesan team.

Again I have removed some parish-specific financial details, so the focus remains on style and content, rather than the figures.

Kathie the Treasurer said:

“Firstly, I would like to thank you all for supporting me in my role as treasurer over the past year. It has been a steep learning curve.

Two basic facts about our finances:

1) the church has no debt. We owe nothing to anyone – except to the Lord, to whom we owe everything.

2) We do not have excessive reserves. That’s deliberate. We believe that money should be put to work for the kingdom and not stashed away in banks. We do have adequate operating reserves though so we can pay our bills on time. And we do pay on time. I think this is an important witness; “those Christians, you can always rely on them to pay their bills on time.”

I fully believe that when we are generous with the money God has given us, He will supply all our needs.

I read a quote the other day which challenged me and spoke to me personally.

If everyone in your church followed your pattern of giving, would your church thrive, survive or nosedive?

Although All Saints’ is a thriving church, there are many more things we would love to do and would do if we had the finances.

But our income is growing.

Our 2016 financial report says that our total income last year was over £x.

£x of this is the incredibly generous giving from many members of the church.

Then over £x was claimed back from the government  through gift aid.

The remaining income is everything else; like the rent from the flats across the car park which we own. And the hiring out of our church centre. Our solar panels earn us money as we sell surplus power to the national grid. And we also receive a very small amount from weddings and funerals.

What about expenditure?

Sir John Templeton once said “I have observed 100,000 families over my years of investment counselling.  I always saw greater prosperity and happiness among those families who tithed than among those who didn’t.”

What is true of family budgeting is true of church finances.

So, before we spend anything else,  we give away the first 10% of our voluntary income to outside missions in the UK and abroad outside of All Saints’.  The Missions Support team recommends to the PCC where this tithe should be spent.

Secondly, our biggest outgoing is Parish Share. This is about 40% of the church’s total spending.

Parish share pays for the vicar, his housing, his pension contributions and also honours former vicars’ pensions too. Because of parish share some churches which were dying are now flourishing.

For example, Stockton Parish Church is booming. It’s a community where the Gospel is preached and many have come to know Jesus. But it relies on parish share because many of its members are unemployed or asylum seekers.

St Mary’s Long Newton is another church which has been blessed by wealthier churches like All Saints’. It is absolutely thriving with a growing children’s ministry and a vibrant Messy Church. If our churches were completely independent of each other both these churches would probably have closed years ago.

2 Corinthians 9 says,

“You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”

This is why we are committed to being generous, and not stingy, with parish share.

Thirdly, nearly 30% of our spending is on teaching, outreach and mission in All Saints’. This pays our staff (not including the vicar) who work here and lead our volunteers. It also includes things like equipment for our children’s and youth work and Connect ministry, the Alpha course, the Life exhibition and so on.

This outreach budget also pays for training to keep those who are ministering sharp and able to keep delivering with high quality.

General Upkeep may not sound exciting, but it is vital. It enables us to be a hospitable and welcoming church. It’s things like insurance, gas, electricity, tea, coffee and toilet rolls… You’d soon notice if it wasn’t there!

Thank you so much to everyone who gives to the Lord’s work so generously.

I would also like to thank the finance team who help me in my role.

• Gill Wake counts all the cash and makes a trip to the bank every week to pay it in.
• Craig Aston regularly reads all the utility meters and feeds the information to our providers so that we pay what we owe, not what they estimate.
• Margaret Vaughan deals with Gift Aid and claws back thousands from the taxman.
• Terry Doyle does the payroll so our staff get paid evey month and I know how much to send to HMRC.
• John Belmont patiently explains Exel spreadsheets to me over and over again.
• Jennifer Brown is my assistant treasurer. I would be lost without all of them.

But most of all, I would like to give thanks to our Almighty God who has  ultimately supplied all our needs.

Finally, a reminder.

Billy Graham once said,

“A cheque book is a theological document, it will tell you who and what you worship.”

If you have not reviewed your giving for some time, I would encourage you to do so as a spiritual exercise.

Thank you. Are there any questions?”

Image credit: Macaca fuscata, social grooming by Noneotuho, CC BY-SA 3.0

How to Deliver a Tough Talk

Public speaking can nerve-wracking. Am I talking too quickly or too quietly? Am I too close to the microphone… or too far away? Then there’s all those faces staring at me. And what about the ones who have already nodded off? Delivering a speech isn’t easy, and it can be even tougher if the subject is money, and you’re the treasurer! Read on to find out what to say, and how to say it well.

I recently had the pleasure of listening to a talk at the end of a service that was delivered by a member of the congregation; the parish treasurer. He was sharing information on parish finances, ahead of a large parish-wide annual meeting at Stranton church, Hartlepool.

And I was pleasantly surprised!

This talk, in different circumstances, could have been awful. It could have been only about the facts, only about deficit and hardships and the need to “get more money in”. It could have been devoid of hope and the Gospel message. But thank God, this treasurer had worked hard with the incumbent to prepare a clear and honest speech that inspired, informed and encouraged. Yes it was about the accounts, but it put the mission of the church at its centre.

He has kindly allowed me to share this with you (I’ve removed some specific details), which I hope you might find a useful resource in the future, especially if you yourself are a treasurer who dreads these annual talks. Here’s how one treasurer got it right.

“As we come towards the end of our teaching on Generous Giving [the vicar] asked me to give a Treasurer’s view on the practicalities and possibilities of Parish Finance in the ministry of Stranton Church.

Of course, our recent teaching has covered generous giving in the widest sense, including prayer, voluntary service, and financial giving, all being parts of our response of faith to the good news of Jesus Christ.  By spending a few minutes now talking specifically about Church Finance I don’t want to downplay the importance of committing ourselves and our time in prayer and voluntary service.

But as Treasurer of Stranton Church I have a particular responsibility to present the finances of the Church in a way that informs members about how our giving directly supports ministry, and can enable us all to better respond in a planned and generous way, knowing that everything we are and everything we have comes from God, and this how we should respond in accordance with the teaching that we have received.

The Church Accounts for 2016 are currently in preparation and will be presented at the annual meeting in April.  In this preview summary of our main sources of income and the ways in which they are being applied, I bring this to you today as an opportunity for prayerful and planned review of your financial support.

If you are a visitor to our Church I hope you will not mind being patient for these few minutes

Just under half of our total income as a Church comes from the regular planned giving of members.  Through Loyalty Scheme, Envelopes, Bank Standing Orders, and Payroll giving.   This amounts to over £x a year, or £x per week.   On top of this, the amount receivable through Gift aid Tax claims was over £x.  In 2016 we also received over £x in bequests which was unusually high, and was the reason for us being in financial surplus, which we will be carrying forward to help meet the cost of renewal of the Church’s lighting in 2017.

We also received lesser but useful amounts of income from open plate collections, appeals for specific mission support, Fees, Signpost Magazine sales, and other sources including insurance claims and an organ recital.  St Matthew’s Community hall generated external income from lettings and other fundraising that more than covered its costs.

These other sources of income certainly helped us to run our buildings and make investments in mission, but the principal use of funds was in meeting our Parish Share payment to the Diocese to meet costs of clergy stipends, Training, Housing and diocesan support which committed one third of our income.  Our next biggest calls on finance were the pay and pension contributions of Lay worker and part time administrator.

We also supported local, home and overseas mission with £x in payments of various kinds including costs of Youth For Christ team. The materials used in services, overheads of Burbank Church, Messy Church and heating lighting and maintaining of the Church building cost a similar amount again.  We also met the out of pocket expenses of staff, upkeep of Clarkson Court and a small staff training budget.

Provisionally we ended the year with a surplus of around £x but this would have been a deficit if we had not received the two generous bequests.

If our income does not rise in 2017 we would certainly be heading for an overall deficit and as we do not hold large reserves to sustain that for long, we would have to decide what areas of ministry we would cut back on.  Our challenge for 2017 is to meet above inflation increases in Parish Share contributions, fund any pay increases for our lay worker Clive and Administrator Trish, and meet the additional the cost of our quinquennial building inspection.

As Stranton is an Anglican Church, there may be some lingering tendency for us to think that somehow our costs are met from endowments and external funds, but the reality is that our investment in mission in this parish is now funded directly through the generosity of members.

If our ministry is going to continue to grow and thrive we all need to review our giving regularly – a problem with standing orders is that they are a bit “File and forget” –they can continue unchanged for years if we don’t actively look at our giving.  But regardless of the method, planned prayerful giving means we should respond with the first fruits of our lives rather than the loose change in our pockets.

So in addition to thanking the members of this congregation who have been loyal and regular financial supporters in the past, I also present something of a challenge to us all, to respond to the love of Him who by the power at work within us does far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, so that to Him may be Glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus, now and for all time.”

If you want to know what the money you contribute to church is spent on, click here.