When churches fill out loan applications with ADF, one of the questions we ask is what they project their attendance will be five years from now. It’s fascinating to see the optimism that is usually expressed in their answers. Likewise, when we meet directly with church leaders, their hopes and dreams for the future are rarely small. They often are planning three or four building phases into the future, with the capstone project routinely being a large Christian retirement center. We don’t suffer from a lack of dreaming big in the church world, but we do suffer from a lack of preparing big for those dreams. In short, our convictions about our dreams are rarely deep enough to cause us to plan as if those dreams will happen, and that’s a shame, because some of those dreams are really worth pursuing.

One of the most disheartening aspects of our work here in the Church Services Group of ADF is the all too common need to inform a church that it cannot possibly afford the building project it had hoped to soon undertake. The disappointment in the pastor’s voice at this news is palpable. And it’s understandable, especially in a case where they have invested a year or two in designing a new worship facility. Not only do they have to tell their congregation that all they’ve been working toward is not going to happen, they also have the added burden of having spent many thousands of dollars for building plans they now cannot use. What makes this the most frustrating for us is that such a scenario can usually be avoided.

Boiling down ADF’s ministry operational plan to the most basic elements is simple: we “borrow” money from Alliance people and churches (our investors) in order to provide loans to Alliance churches for property and buildings. As awkward and unspiritual sounding as it may seem, debt is a key component of our ministry model. One would think, especially given what the Bible has to say about debt, that it would be hard for us to sleep at night. But we sleep just fine for a number of reasons. Let me first approach this with some practical statements and then we will get to a biblical response.

For many years, ADF has partnered with Christian Investors Financial (a part of the Evangelical Free Church of America) to provide capital fundraising consulting for Alliance churches. I've asked the vice president in charge of capital campaigns, Steve Johnson, to write a guest blog emphasizing the benefits of a consultant-based capital campaign. ADF is a firm believer that capital campaigns are a critical element of any capital project, so I encourage you to read what Steve has to say:

Have you ever noticed how, with buildings, everything seems to fall apart at the same time? My wife and I had our current home built 19 years ago. It’s a wonderful house, and we feel blessed to own it; however, all of a sudden there is much that needs to be done. We have recently replaced all of the carpet and the furnace. The fence is shot. Our contractor-grade windows have lost their seals and are full of condensation. The linoleum in our master bathroom is coming up. The roof is close to the end of its useful life. We need to repaint the exterior, and all of the decorative stone beds are beyond a simple weeding and actually need to be pulled out and replaced. I could go on and on. Looking back, none of these maintenance issues are a surprise. With very little effort, we could have somewhat accurately predicted the life expectancy of each of these things, and we should have. Had we been disciplined, we would have counted the cost of what it would take to maintain our home throughout our lifetime, and we would have begun setting aside money each month to handle each expense as it was incurred. Instead, we will have to borrow against the equity in our home to pay for some of these things, and others will have to wait. It didn’t have to be this way, but we took advantage of having little maintenance to do in the early years of owning this new home and spent our money on other things. Now, we are paying the price.

Like most of you, I marvel at not only the magnitude of the challenges and uncertainties we face right now, but also the speed with which they came upon us. The pandemic, a faltering economy, severe unemployment, and societal upheaval on several levels gives us much to be concerned about, grieved about, and puzzled about

If you’re like most church leaders, you probably only think about fundraising when there's a major building project or significant one-time financial need on the horizon. Aside from special capital campaigns, your church likely relies on weekly tithes and offerings for your funding. While the weekly gifts from your congregation can be sufficient to keep the church running, there are other giving opportunities—beyond the offering plate—that can drastically increase your church’s incoming donations all year long.

I was recently talking with a good friend about approaches to funding ministry. Some have a “crisis approach”—going from need to need. But, we agreed that the better way is to develop a stewardship/generosity culture instead. You could say that a scarcity mentality versus one of abundance is related to these approaches.