Sunday morning I sat in church on celebration Sunday when Pastor Bradford came up and began talking about our new facilities at Central Assembly. While I am fairly new at Central, I was aware of the new buildings, and they are great. We have taken a couple of special offerings for the project, so I knew it wasn’t all paid for, but I thought it was close. The longer the presentation went on, the more I began to realize how deep this debt was.
As the presentation was drawing near to the close, Pastor Bradford mentioned how he had been up at nights unable to sleep as he walked about praying and thinking about this “situation.” As he said this, I immediately thought back to about a year ago. I remember sitting in my office and literally shaking in fear. I was looking at a payment for $7,200, an invoice for $16,500, an?invoice for $11,000, an invoice for $4,200, and another payment for $4,800. All were due in full, and I had no money I could apply to any of them. The fear I felt during these nights was far greater than any fear I have ever felt in 9 years of law enforcement. Unless you have been in this situation, this level of fear is hard to comprehend.
When the presentation finally came to the part that said we owed $4,000,000 I about choked. I was in absolute disbelief. The presentation then moved into the need for?$31,000 per month to pay this debt off in 20 years. We went into different examples of how we could save millions by paying it off early. I just still can’t?believe that we signed up to pay the bank $3,400,000 in interest because we couldn’t wait five years and do it all for cash.
I agree that these facilities are an awesome outreach to the community around us, and two and a half years ago when all this started I would have signed up for this as well. I am just truly grieved that we now have another master, the bank. I wish I was in a position to help us get out of this bondage, but I still have 24 masters left myself. What part of the borrower is slave to the lender do we not understand? All I can say is ouch!
I’d agree that the thought of paying so much money for so long is a nightmare, esp. since the loan is so expensive every month.
1. Why didn’t the church just wait to accumulate the money?
2. How can the church use the premises to generate additional revenue? Conferences? etc?
3. I’m surprised that the church seems to teach one thing about finance, and then do the opposite!
“Christian Money Management
Topic: “Financial Management”
Leader: Pat Lee - 833-9795
Our class will begin by discussing how God desires us to manage our money and our worldly poseeseeions properly, as gifts for Him. We will then provide practical lessons in eliminating compulsive spending, budgeting, debt relief, improving your credit score, and practical investing.”
Just a few thoughts, from someone whose family faced similar problems.
Kenneth
Comment by kenneth — September 19, 2006 @ 8:04 am
So they hadn’t done any type of capital campaign to kick it off? Had paid none of it in advance?
Comment by a lurker — September 19, 2006 @ 8:23 am
I’ve been reading your blog for a while, and thought to comment on this issue. If your church is anything like mine, there is no escaping a certain amount of debt. Our church is bursting at the seams (we cannot build any additions), and pretty soon we will have no room to welcome visitors to our service. We had a church meeting to understand what the issues are and what can be done, short-term (until we find a larger, affordable building or lot). We are praying that God will provide an appropriate solution. We may end up renting a larger space for Sunday mornings, but it seems more likely that we will have to buy a larger building and go (deeper) into debt.
If every member of the church gave 10% of their income, somehow I don’t think the church would have a problem with debt.
Comment by Anitra — September 19, 2006 @ 8:44 am
Lurker - They did do a capital campaign, raising 1 million in 2 1/2 years. They began the project with the commitment for that over the period of 3 years.
Anitra - Thanks for commenting.
Why is there no escaping debt? Why can’t we wait until we have the money before we do something? Evangel University has dramatically re-done their entire campus over the last eleven years, all debt free!
We have been so lied to by the financial industry that we actually believe we have to have debt. That is so crazy! I would rather have service in a paid for tent than a multi-million dollar facility done first class that we can’t afford.
I’m not just hitting on my church either; if you follow the Springfield media, look at the crime lab project. We finally get Federal funding for it and can get everything done we need to in order to have a fully functional crime lab; yet city counsel wants to have a “pretty” building, so they are going to spend and borrow money against tax payers wishes in order to do this?
Are we all really this spoiled?
Comment by Joel — September 19, 2006 @ 9:16 am
Joel-
I agree. My DH went to AGTS when they first moved into that beautiful building and I remember them telling us that they were sorry there was no furniture in the lobby but they didn’t have the funds yet. That told us we were at the right place!
Comment by a lurker — September 19, 2006 @ 10:10 am
May I comment on Anitra’s comment? If a church is so full that there is no room to welcome visitors, perhaps two services could be held, an early one and one at the usual time.
Comment by Pam — September 19, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
I have to agree with Pam. The Church I attend has scheduled as many as three services to accommodate attendees. We too have space problem but splitting the service in to two or three sessions works a treat.
Comment by Anton — September 20, 2006 @ 4:55 am
Multiple church services is a great idea.
I live near 2 churches with about 3000 members each, but entirely different congregations.
One has a membership that believes in giving and in tithing. It’s a very wealthy church and they built an $8 million auditorium completely debt-free in 18 months time.
The other has a membership that is akin to the typical church–about 10% tithes and gives. They have a $125,000 building debt that they’ve been trying to pay off for 3 years.
I think a church needs to be very wise and realize what kind of membership they have. If they can’t support a new building, debt-free, they shouldn’t build it. You’re right, the borrow is servant to the lender and building debt can stunt a church like nothing else.
Comment by JuryDuty — September 20, 2006 @ 10:17 am
Going to extra services is a great idea, but it wouldn’t have helped Central. They already have two morning services. It seems the additions they made were more for the youth and community ministries.
They didn’t have anywhere else to stuff kids during Sunday School.
Most of the presentation on Sunday seemed to focus on the goal of paying this thing off quick.
What’s done is done. And we weren’t there during the decision making process. So now… now it’s our responsiblity to help our church get out of debt ASAP. Not necessarily discus how we disagree with the decision to get in debt.
Save that for the next time your church has a business meeting and wants to borrow money.
Comment by Amy — September 20, 2006 @ 11:38 am
This is a tough one. I have had the same concerns as well. Our church moved into a new building last year that was 7 years in the planning/funding/building. Our church as about 10k members now and we had 4 services before we moved. We have 2 now. The crazy thing is that we will probably need to build additional wings for children’s classes withing a few years. When we moved there were only a few extra rooms available.
With that being said, the building cost about 80 million and we have almost half of that financed. That is really scary.
What is really sad is that if only 50% of people would tithe, debt would not be necessary and nor would building capitol raising programs be necessary. Statistics say that less than 10% tithe religiously. Some do nothing, others $5 here and there and other are inbetween somewhere.
People want something for nothing, even at church. Good pastors, programs, facilities without the burden to contribute via a tithe. That is so unbiblical.
So how do I conclude this. Our church/bible teaches to stay out and get out of debt yet the church is in debt and choose to be there. There is no doubt that we had outgrown the facilities we were in. We were using nearby schools and portables for facilities in addition to the facilities we had. Before the previous building they used a school for about 5 years as their primary building. The church has fantastic pastors, is bible based and does the right things. Growth had stopped at the old building. So was it worth it to borrow 40 million. I don’t know. I do know what the Bible says about it though and it is hard not to justify the debt in light of the reasons.
Comment by Matt — September 20, 2006 @ 11:55 am
I attend a church that is in debt upward of a million bucks for a 2.5 million building project. Without a doubt, we raised $400,000 to get started, and it was a great testamony to God’s power to raise that out of 75 faithful “middle-class” people.
But this discussion is an important one. How can a church justify debt? That is the question, and I don’t think you can make a biblical case for it…even if you might be able to make a practical case.
The cool part is this: Grace for communities of believers is just as good as for us individuals. Churches are made of broken people, so they are by definition broken communities. And yet, look at what God does through us!
So, at the end of the day, we need to be leaders in our churches, reminding our communities of God’s wisdom in avoiding debt and corportately learning how to truly live by faith.
You could argue that the best way to keep churches out of debt would be to keep the members deeply rooted in the Scriptures. They would sacrifice more to the ministry and make better stewardship decisions.
And in the mean time, we will all rest on His Grace.
Comment by Mark Hunsaker — September 20, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
One thing to add here. One of the major reasons that churches don’t have the funding for projects like this is because many/most of it members are living paycheck to paycheck because they are in debt up to their eyeballs and don’t have anything extra to give. I can’t wait to be debt free including the house. I can’t wait to be able to help with these types of things and be randomly generous just becuase I can.
Comment by Matt — September 21, 2006 @ 3:32 pm
Thanks for all your comments.
While I was initially shocked by the large amount of debt, as a member of Central my concern must now shift to eliminating this debt as quick as we can. I am fully on board on getting us out!
I pray for the peace of Pastor Bradford and the board members as I know the stress they certainly feel with this amount of debt.
Comment by Joel — September 21, 2006 @ 11:37 pm
I wanted to respond to various questions & suggestions from Joel and others.
“Why is there no escaping debt?” Because people want to benefit (from the church) without giving anything back (time and/or money). Our church building isn’t pretty by any means - it simply meets our needs. The current pastor inherited an ugly church building in an inconvenient area with a large mortgage. God is still working through this pastor to grow the church - in SPITE of the building, not because of it. The mortgage for the current building has been paid down, and we are expecting a large check for “buy-back” of protected wetlands on our property, which should get the church nearly debt free. However, as the church has become more crowded, some money has been diverted from the mortgage to make the current space more livable (ie. air-conditioning for the main hall, so it no longer is 100*+ during summer morning services).
“Hold two services” - Unfortunately, parking is our biggest problem. Holding two services wouldn’t help the parking problem much, as people would be trying to arrive before others leave. We are adding “parking attendants” and are considering double- or triple-parking to extend our facilities in the short-term.
“I would rather have service in a paid for tent than a multi-million dollar facility done first class that we can?t afford.” - For the most part, I agree. And our church certainly isn’t looking for a brand-new state-of-the-art building. We just need something larger, with more parking. We’re in central Massachusetts, so it’s not the cost of the building that’s holding us back, per se, it’s the cost of the land underneath the building, which is very expensive.
Matt - “Most members… don?t have anything extra to give.” Only if they’re not budgeting correctly. I bet Joel and Amy set aside some money for God with every paycheck. It’s all about your priorities.
I hope I don’t sound inflammatory with this post; I certainly don’t mean to.
Comment by Anitra — September 22, 2006 @ 12:54 pm
When I was a little kid, 12 maybe, we drove past a beautiful church building when visiting my grandparents. When I commented about it, my mom told me that the church had gone so far in debt for that building that people from the bank came to services to collect their portion of the offering. Remembering that always reminds me that focusing on the things this world values is a distraction from what God wants his people to be doing.
Comment by Elizabeth — September 22, 2006 @ 3:37 pm
Looking at how to best use the church facilities during the week seems like the way to go to me. I work for an organization that pays rent to churches for meeting space, and I know lots of other ones do, too. Another great source of revenus is if your church gets really good at handling weddings–having a wedding coordinator on duty (even a volunteer one), making one room pretty for a bridal dressing room, etc. Your church can work that debt down by using a variety of small ways just like people can.
Comment by Sally Parrott Ashbrook — September 27, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Joel - I just checked into your blog for the first time in a couple of weeks and saw this entry. Our church was just rocked by our pastor’s resignation and it’s a scandalous situation. We moved into a new building about 3 years ago. Land was paid for but the building has a mortgage of about $2.5M. Now I have to wonder if we’ll be able to make the payment if a lot of people leave over this. If the church were debt-free it would sure be easier to get through this storm. It is sad and yet another reason for ALL of us to be debt-free. If I were debt-free, I could help more at a time like this.
Comment by susan — September 27, 2006 @ 10:30 am
Thanks Susan, that is so true. If we were debt free, we could help in these situations; and if the church were debt free, it would only have to worry about doing the right thing concerning that pastor, not how that might affect the mortgage they have. So true!
Comment by Joel — September 27, 2006 @ 9:14 pm
regarding tithing Churches tend to fall under one of two types. Those that teach tithing and those that don’t. Those churches who teach tithing tend to fall under the what I’d call legalistic tithing, they teach on it regularly and usually is a condition of membership is your expected to tithe 10% of your income. The positive is it makes for very prosperous churches. The problem is for those who don’t give tithe 10% is an insurmountable obstacle, thusly you tend to have two types of Christians, those that tithe and those that don’t. Where I think churches fail is that they don’t allow non tithers to start small, that’s what my Wife and I did was to start small but be consistent. My wife and I talked and agreed on a small amount that we could give every week. We’ve increased that amount (wont’ reach 10% until were debt free)
What I’ve found is giving tithe focuses you, it’s another line on the budget and in order to reach that goal I have to manage my money better.
This has been a debate in other blogs but personally I don’t believe in giving a large tithe if your heavily in debt. Give regularly but only a small amount until your debt free.
Comment by Rob in Madrid — December 25, 2007 @ 6:10 pm