I believe that there is a direct correlation between how a church
spends its money and its effectiveness in engaging the world. If the church
spends all its money on itself (I mean using it to run the “show” – I would
include staff, building, etc. in this), there's a pretty good chance that it's
going to be stalled out as far as growth is concerned. I am shocked (although,
I shouldn’t be) by how most churches use their money. Seriously, many churches
feel like it is a herculean achievement to allocate 10% of their money outside
of the building and its members. 

One
of the churches that I've had the privilege of helping start, Emmaus Church,
actually spends 50% of its budget outside of their building/members, in the community where they reside.

Their
Budget looks like:

• 50%
  – General expense
• 25%
  – Global Engagement
• 25%
  – Local Outreach

The
Global and Local would include things such as trans-local outreach, evangelism,
social justice, community development and church planting. It is incredibly
ambitious for a group to spend that much money outside of running the
church, but I think it is the direction churches have to go to ensure that they
are viable and missional into the future.

The
church plant that I am starting is going to initially use a breakdown of:

• 66%
  – General
• 12%
  – Trans-local (out of our region)
• 12%
  – Local Outreach
• 10%
  – Save

I
obviously don’t have the faith that David Von has at Emmaus 🙂

Regardless
of allotment percentages, a church has to think/pray long and hard about how
they use the resources God has charged them to manage for His Kingdom. A church
has to settle whether it really wants to behave “missionally,” or just use the word
in its Mission Statement! To be sure, it is not a magic formula or a panacea for
engaging the world. Money is only one facet in how a community operates. That
said, if the church’s identity is “missional” than it is imperative that it is
somehow reflective in its use of money.

Do you know of another church that is giving away more than Emmaus? Budgeting 50% of their resouces to be given away? I'm sure there are – I just don't know of them.

How much does your community set aside to be used for something other than "your community?"

r