Still Need Prayer for me

Hello everyone,

I know that some of you have been praying for me and my youth group, and I have another matter of concern to bring to your attention.

Since I came to the church, I uncovered some budgetary issues that are quite significant.

Attendance at the church has fallen dramatically in the past couple years, and the church was way short on receipts last year. For this year, the budget was apparently cut by about 10%, with the youth budget in particular getting cut by about 1/3, and the youth missions budget cut nearly in half.

That didn't help matters, as we are on pace to fall short of our needed receipts by about 10%, even with the reduced budget, and attendance and giving are still falling.

One of our main problems is that we are overstaffed. The church has been running just under 200 on Sunday morning, but we have a FT pastor, FT administrator, two FT secretaries, one PT music minister, me (a PT youth minister), a very PT librarian, a custodian, a food manager, and a PT music associate/pianist.

Please pray that God guides me to make the right decisions in my future.

 

Wow...overstaffed is right!

Our church has just under 200 and we only have a FT pastor and PT administrator. Everthing else is voluntary, and our church runs quite smooth.

I pray God puts it on the hearts of some of these people in positions that don't need to be paid to either resign or become voluntary servants of the church. Also praying that God gives leadership wisdom in the instance this doesn't happen, to cut positions wisely and gracefully.

Why essentially 3 FT administrative positions :confused: Can't they all be rolled into one?

I don't see why the worship leader cannot be voluntary (ours is), and why all of the other "fat" so to speak needs to be paid (librarian, custodian, food manager, pianist). I've never heard of such a large payroll for such a small church. The money could be spent much better reaching out to the community.

 

They're bloated because they have a big church mentality left over from the "glory days."

When they were running 500-600 on Sunday morning, a larger staff was legitimate, but they're holding on when they don't need to do so.

 

I don't know...even for 500 that seems rich. When our church tops 300 we plan on adding another FT pastor (and I'm guessing another PT admin), but that is the extent of our growth. If we grow past that size I believe we would plant a church, as our church has already planted two locally, each at or around 200.

 

I guess that's the difference between an active church an a declining one.

 

I pray for wisdom for you and your church, brother.

 

Amen to that.

Chinge is hard, 'cutting' is horrible.

Maybe you can present some future planning for them to adopt so that they are looking into the future progress and not present 'withdrawals' ?

 

I've been talking about the need for evangelistic outreach, and I've even analyzed some data about the evangelistic health (or lack thereof) of the church and made a presentation in staff meeting.

The problem is that it's a senior adult church with emphasis on activities for senior adults and almost no emphasis on outreach. On a Sunday of 200 in attendance, probably 150-160 of them are senior adults. They brought in a younger pastor in 2004 to help with this issue, but they fired him in 2006, and this alienated the few younger families that were attending. They have since left.

As the youth minister (and honestly I have no idea why they even have one with a church of this demographic), I am really limited in what I can do.

 

I will pray for wisdom on your part.

 

Well SM, I now have a greater understanding of where you're coming from. Wish I'd known earlier. In spite of that, there are others who continue to pray for you and this youth group. For some reason (GOD only knows the W5) you are planted in this vineyard for the time being. There's no question that staffing needs to be cut or realigned to reflect the demographic population, but interesting that the scruffy, verbal, abusing, mouthy, 6 ways to Sunday kids are the one's that are causing the tempest in the teapot. Maybe God is using this youth group as an outreach for your community and aging church population???

 

Well, with so much going on--God is definitely up to something! :)
Praying for your situation, StefanM.
:praying: :praying: :praying:

 

It's not working as outreach, that's for sure. I've actually had youth tell me that they don't want to come to church because of the unruly ones.

 

And, as a matter of correction, after reviewing the pertinent information, the budget was actually not as large as I thought. It was actually just over 4%.

We are still on pace to miss our budget by a mile, though.

 

Payroll costs and benefits (not including ministry expenses) eat up over 56% of the budget.

 

I'm talking to the pastor today at 4 (central time). Please pray for me.

 

I will pray for you. Sometimes when the thing that needs to be done cuts out our salary, it hurts.

And that is a high portion of the budget for church budget.

 

SM: Wondering how your youth group is going the past few weeks? Any change noticed? And you asked for additional prayer re your own personal $$ situation. Has that settled down or are there major changes in the works?