{"id":34890,"date":"2022-09-10T21:47:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T02:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/start-a-healthy-discussion-of-how-money-affects-the-church\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T21:47:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T02:47:00","slug":"start-a-healthy-discussion-of-how-money-affects-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/start-a-healthy-discussion-of-how-money-affects-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Start a Healthy Discussion of How Money Affects the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Without question the area where most pastors feel least prepared to lead their churches is stewardship in general and church finances in particular,&#8221; declare Aubrey Malphurs and Stephen Stroope in their new book <strong><em>Money Matters in Church<\/em><\/strong> (Baker Books July 2007).&nbsp; <br \/>Money can be a tricky subject under any circumstance but &#8220;There are aspects of church finances&#8230; that are foreign even to those who have advanced degrees in business and finance,&#8221; the authors say.<br \/>It is easy for a local church to fall into a money trap.&nbsp; While it is true that we serve God and not man, Malphurs and Stroope encourage pastors to remember that &#8220;One principle the Scripture prescribes is that people obey their leaders,&#8221; and even though the church is &#8220;an organism&#8230;[it] has a business aspect, with corporate responsibility to its constituents as well as the government.&#8221; <br \/>Our money is a resource and it needs to be used wisely.&nbsp; &#8220;Churches, like all other organizations, aren&#8217;t exempt from the law,&#8221; the authors remind us.&nbsp; Church leadership, therefore, has a responsibility to follow rules and regulations that are in place.&nbsp; There are many things for a church to consider when it comes to money. &nbsp;Keeping concise financial records and planning for future growth are just two ways a church needs to use money wisely in order to function and grow.&nbsp; Money should not be treated as a taboo subject, and ignorance of the laws surrounding its use can lead to jail time, a tarnished witness and a poorly led congregation.&nbsp; While some aspects of money are technical and unnecessary for the congregation to know, a pastor cannot expect a money-savvy congregation when church leadership sets a bad example.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/>The book provides detailed advice on topics like maximizing contributions, and developing a strategic budget, along with a campaign timeline in the back to aid the process of campaign contributions.&nbsp; In the end, though, the authors remind us of the real reason to be careful with money:&nbsp; &#8220;Jesus teaches that God has entrusted us as his stewards with that which is temporary (worldly wealth) to provide for that which is eternal (true riches).&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<div style='clear:both'><\/div>\n<div class='the_champ_sharing_container the_champ_horizontal_sharing' data-super-socializer-href=\"https:\/\/www.preaching.com\/articles\/start-a-healthy-discussion-of-how-money-affects-the-church\/\">\n<div class='the_champ_sharing_title' style=\"font-weight:bold\">Share This On:<\/div>\n<div class=\"the_champ_sharing_ul\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style='clear:both'><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Without question the area where most pastors feel least prepared to lead their churches is stewardship in general and church finances in particular,&#8221; declare Aubrey Malphurs and Stephen Stroope in their new book Money Matters in Church (Baker Books July 2007).&nbsp; Money can be a tricky subject under any circumstance but &#8220;There are aspects of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/start-a-healthy-discussion-of-how-money-affects-the-church\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Start a Healthy Discussion of How Money Affects the Church&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}