When I work with congregations, I come loaded with all sorts of formulas, which arise from the composite trends in the many other churches where I have worked. Sound formulas allow me to process a church’s situation and its possibilities faster. Here are four of my favorites. (I should warn that there are plenty of contexts that require us to adjust these ratios a little, this way or that. But these numbers represent a good starting place for some of you who are just wading in to the work of coaching and consulting with local churches.)
·
55-15-15-15.
o
In a conventional church budget, expect 55% for
payroll costs, no more than 15% for debt service, around 15% for mission and
denominational support and 15% for everything else. We generally assume that the debt service is
mostly mortgage on facilities. When I
see 38% going for payroll, I usually see a grossly understaffed – or underpaid
– situation. Or when I see a church with
28% going for debt service – I know they will underfund just about everything
from staff salaries to denominational support.
·
3:2.
o
This is the appropriate ratio of leader staff to
support staff in a conventional local church (based on full-time-equivalents
where two half-time people would equal one full time, and so forth). Leader staff would be pastors and ministry
directors, people who publicly lead.
Support staff are behind the scenes, managing and cleaning facilities,
spending money, and providing administrative and communications support. If you have too few support people, you may end
up with very expensive secretaries (i.e. the pastor and all the other ministry
directors). Herb Miller used to
prescribe a 1:1 ratio between leader staff and support staff. Improving technology and the rise of lay-led
ministry teams causes me to amend the formula – but kudos to Miller, one of the
pioneers in the modern field of church consulting!
·
2 for 1.
o
As a rule, for every older person that leaves a
church, the church needs to add two people in order to break even
financially. This means that, based on
current trends, it may take up to 500 people in the not-so-distant future to collect
the same income as a church of 250 today, especially if a whole group of
octogenarians pass off the scene, replaced by thirty-somethings. Given the fact that most churches will not
double in size, we will see massive restructuring of fixed costs and clergy
deployment in order to meet this challenge. I expect coming generations of church-folks to
attend fewer Sundays on average, and to allocate more of their charitable
giving beyond their local church – unless their congregation can make one heck
of a case that it is changing the world in a big way!
·
50-100-200.
o
This is my favorite formula. In speaks to a tsunami-like shift about to
hit the American church. In the 1990s, a
relatively healthy church of 200 members saw 100 persons in worship on a
typical Sunday, with about 50 people doing most of the work. And the lion’s share of volunteering was
directed internally toward church maintenance, classes and committees. In the 2020s, we will see just the opposite
in a very healthy church. The church of
50 members will have 100 persons in worship and 200 persons engaged in mission
work, most of it directed outside the church, focused largely on helping
others. This means the majority of our
hands-on ministry personnel in the future may not be members, worship attendees
or donors… yet. This formula does not assume a loss of worship
attendance, but there will be loss in the
majority of places. Add in the expected
loss in per capita income: and you can expect big changes coming soon to almost
every church near you!
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