Making the Link with Finance

People have varying understanding of what the Church is, and how it works. On any PCC you may find people who think of the Church as a: 

• business - a charity whose accounts must be 'in the black'. Spending must be for specific reasons and regulated against income at all times. 
• place of escape - where they can go to pray, sing and worship. Very little money is required for such things to happen. 
• supportive community - whose people and activities help them through their life. They want to 'chip in' to pay for necessary costs as best they can. 
• part of the fabric of the community - always there, to be repaired and beautified as appropriate. Money will be raised for the purpose when it's needed. 
• missionary organisation - rather than 'spending on ourselves', funding must be directed towards helping the poor, evangelism and advocating a different set of values to those seen in society at large.

Set against these personal understandings, different people will have widely different views about budgets and financial priorities. The teaching on Christian giving outlined in the previous section is important, but so too is communicating how the Church is spending the money, and demonstrating that it too is exercising good stewardship. Since a Church might always be expected to have a vision which is larger than its current resources, increasing giving, and making decisions about spending priorities are both important. Communicating the budget to the wider church, and not just the PCC, is a good way of demonstrating this corporate stewardship. A "narrative" budget, simply means focusing on the outcomes of the budget and what the money will achieve, rather than simply presenting a column of figures.

In particular, there will be a range of elements to a parish budget which may compete for priority : 

• Paying the Parish Share. For most parishes, the Parish Share (or equivalent phrase) will be one of the largest elements on the budget. Yet its link with funding the clergy, and hence the mission and ministry of the church, is not well understood.
• Maintaining the fabric of the building - being responsible stewards of the building we have inherited.
• Supporting external mission and charitable organisations, demonstrating corporate generosity.
• Funding current and desired parish projects and ministry - being stewards of the mission that the church believes God is calling them to.