At a recent poverty coalition meeting in the Winchester community, I reported on the increase of traffic through the doors of our church of people in our community needing help. The Mayor spoke up after my report to remind the group that churches these days are facing financial struggles to meet their budgets. He thought expecting churches to satisfy the mounting needs in our community is probably unreasonable. While my meeting may not struggle financially, I know many churches in the community are struggling and the mayor’s comments haunted me.

My first reaction was during difficult financial times, there is no excuse for the church not to be the church. I do not believe paying the bills of everyone who comes through the doors of the meetinghouse would be a good thing. Many times giving money enables some to continue poor, destructive habits that keep them impoverished. A book Barclay Press recently posted on their website intrigues me: When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. I would like to read it along with the book our Poverty Coalition is reading: Bridges Out of Poverty by Ruby Payne. It is important to find ways to respond to the needs before our community and churches in helpful, dignified ways.

However, as someone who receives a decent living wage from offerings given each Sunday as a part of worship, I think time has come to ask some harder questions. What would be a good use of money sacrificially given by people who love God and want to be faithful – to God, to their community and to their faith community? Are salaries and buildings the best use? What percentage of offerings each week are spent keeping the church doors open vs. what is used to make God’s Kingdom visible outside the walls of churches and meetinghouses? Are church building projects and staff salaries draining resources that could be available to help those truly in need down the block and around the world?

With these questions on my mind, I came across an article in Christianity Today on a survey of pay for pastors and staff. The quote that caught by eye was: “About half of the nation’s full-time pastors report they received no salary increase in the past year, continuing a downturn in salaries among top leaders in churches…” The article lists a few reasons why and mentions the financial struggles of long-term service to a single congregation and women in ministry.

My meeting is in the midst of the budget process for the year 2010. As always, it includes the issue of a raise for the staff and pastors. When Ron and I moved to Winchester eleven years ago, the amount of a salary did not enter into the discussion or our decision about our presence here. In fact, after we agreed to move to Winchester, the clerk of the Ministry and Oversight asked if we were interested in knowing what the salary would be. Coming from the middle of Africa, we had no idea what it would cost to live in the US again, much less Indiana, so our response was that we believed the meeting would meet our needs. For eleven years, the meeting has been incredibly generous in meeting those needs in the midst of rising health care costs and the cost of living. Most of the time they meet those needs without us requiring a raise or cost of living increase.

I was a bit disappointed with the Christianity Today article. In the current economic situation in the country, many people are taking pay cuts to keep their jobs and others are unemployed or underemployed. At such a time, should pastors expect or encourage raises? I believe many of us should think about a cut in salary. Even churches that are well off should respond to the economic situation in the world in a way that seeks to free up as many resources as possible to meet some of the basic needs of food and shelter for those outside of the doors of the church.

The Missions & Social Concerns Committee of my meeting spent the last six months considering the economic values of the Kingdom of God. Values that make it possible for Jesus' followers to live joyfully and well, no matter what is going on in the world around them. The committee encouraged me (and the rest of our meeting) to simplify my life and identify things early Friends called "cumber" (things that were acquired to ease life, but end up occupying so much time and energy that they ultimately become a cumbersome distraction from what really matters). They encouraged me to learn about wise investing and borrowing: to invest in products and services that serve humanity, not in those that cause harm, and to use credit carefully, not artificially to avoid living within my means. The committee encouraged me to be generous to those around me in need, to live in community in such a way as to be accountable and compassionate to those I worship with each week and lastly, to be an advocate. Private charity is nowhere near large enough to address the current crisis. Kingdom citizens let God lead them in "speaking Truth to power," accessing the opportunities and privileges of citizenship to call upon governments to follow just policies and to use public funds in ways that alleviate the suffering of the least advantaged.

For me, this was good preparation for the 2010 budget process. As I help each committee in the meeting prepare for another year of ministry in Winchester, it is good to ask hard questions. Are there items in the budget that take up limited time and energy but do not serve the real purpose of making Christ visible in the world? Are there ways the meeting can invest excess resources to serve humanity? Does the budget create a deficit that keeps the meeting from living within its means? How much of the budget simply keeps the doors open without looking at the world around the meetinghouse? Are salaries and buildings the major portion of the budget and if so, should they be? Does the budget reflect the reason for the meeting’s existence: to bring good news to our world, to live joyfully and peacefully and to make disciples for Christ?

Hard questions? Maybe, but these queries may make budget preparation less boring.