I have been listening more to theDave Ramsey show lately because I am getting that Gazelle Intensity. The other day a man called in asking about how to go about setting up a budget for a church that has never really budgeted before. It got me thinking about how to apply the principles of Financial Peace University to a church organization. All of the churches I have ever worked for had a budget that was fought over and approved for each year. But these churches always have borrowed money for very large projects based on pledges of giving from the members of the church. In many cases I have seen churches struggle to pay off the debt in the projected time and have been forced to cut back on other ministries to pay for the debt. They also sometimes will go back to the congregation and ask for new or updated pledges to the project in order to make up the short fall.
So why not take the approach of taking pledges and saving up that money so that the church could pay cash for their project? Monies would be designated to that project not to be used for anything else at the church. They could be placed into a money market account to earn back some interest while saving and the money could be raised before the project was ever started. Seems like a good idea to me. Any thoughts?
