Are you losing sleep over your church's finances?

Over the years, I have kept coming back to the
words of Edwin Friedman, “Stress comes less from overwork than from
taking responsibility for the problems of others.” We can adapt these
words for church finance: “Stress comes less from money challenges than
from taking responsibility for the money problems of others.” So often
pastors end up carrying the anxiety for church finances. Who is staying
awake at night? It’s often the pastor, although I talked recently with
a church treasurer who was losing sleep over whether there would be
enough money in the account to pay the bills. In fact, the potential
shortfall does not belong to the treasurer but to the church, but the
treasurer is the one who was carrying all the anxiety

Family systems theory includes the idea of overfunctioning and
underfunctioning, where some take too much responsibility, and others
do not take enough responsibility. There’s something of a dance between
the two, a balance that gets created. In church finance, perhaps the
most obvious example is the way that a small percentage of members
frequently give the lions share of the budget. The 80/20 rule is
operative here, with 20% of the congregation giving 80% of the money.
Often it’s 90/10, with 10% giving 90% percent.

The pattern is often at work in how the minister relates to the
church financial life. This can be seen in a variety of ways: the
minister may be the largest single giver to the congregation (and often
no one knows that). Or, the minister accepts a salary year after year
which is not adequate, because the church just can’t afford it – or, as
is becoming increasingly common, takes a salary reduction to balance
the budget (without necessarily a reduction in hours).