Toolbox For Faith

I woke up yesterday morning worrying about finances. Like many ministries, we were counting on a strong December to fully support our 2009 spending plan, but harsh weather required us to cancel one service and dramatically reduced attendance at three others. Unlike Rick Warren, I did not, and cannot, put out a plea to raise $2.5 million dollars in a few days, so we finished 2009 with a deficit in our Core Ministry Fund. We have reserves to cover the shortfall, so we aren’t in trouble, we simply aren’t where we want to be. We have done excellent ministry in the past year - completed a facilities expansion, expanded a community feeding program, served more people in ministry than ever before. When you include designated giving, our overall giving was as strong as ever, but still I worried about dipping into the reserves.


Now I have often heard it said that God acts in many and various ways, but Sunday morning was the first time in my life that God ever acted through the words of a song from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. As I was doing a little work between services, I started thinking of a song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat where Joseph is telling the Pharaoh that his dream means that seven good years will be followed by seven years of drought. Joseph instructs Pharaoh to save food during the good years and then use the stored food during the lean years (Gen 41:25-36). Now I certainly hope that St. Michael’s ministry doesn’t experience 5 financial lean years following five strong financial years, because we didn’t save as much as Pharaoh did, but Joseph’s wisdom helped ease my mind about tapping into our reserves. God’s people gave generously and allowed us to build up an appropriate reserve over the last five years and now when we experienced a lean year, we were blessed with the ability to continue our ministry uninterrupted because of that generosity and stewardship. As Joseph counseled Pharaoh centuries ago, being a good steward when you are abundantly blessed can prepare you for those times of scarcity.


Now let me be clear - I am not advocating hoarding cash. As the Israelites discovered when they started hoarding manna in the wilderness - hoarding stinks. In fact, once we reached a level of reserves that we were comfortable with at St. Michael, we used any extra giving at the end of the year for extra benevolence gifts. I am suggesting, however, that it is wise for congregations to maintain financial reserves and, here’s the important part, to be at peace about using them when needed.