Occasionally I think I will share some things that I have learned in our journey to start a new church. Some of these may be more than you were looking for from me. But I think that it will help me & the honesty might just help some of you, well, those of you who might read for perspective on church planting. Some of it might be funny, some more serious, either way, I’m hopeful it will help someone.

I’ve learned a lot about fundraising and support raising since we’ve started this process. I’ve learned that when raising money you have to really, slowly spell things out for everyone you ask to be financially involved in the ministry, which I think is good as it helps you to find clarity in what you’re doing. But the one thing that has surprised me is the fact that most people seem to have no idea that it takes money to start new churches, I thought they would, but they don’t. It’s taught me that many weekly church goers really are out of tune with what happens in their church and that many of them know that the church has to pay bills and operate but that it’s someone else’s job to fund it. Like you know, the magic tree behind the building or the machine you turn on that just spits it out. Do you have one of those machines? Oh a building, yeah, that too. And that’s my point, the average (I use the word average loosely) church of 200 people probably has a budget of around $300k plus per year, maybe more. So, for a brand new church to get started there are obvious costs involved, starting from scratch and doing ministry. We’ve been very blessed and have had a lot of folks/churches that we thought would support us and didn’t. We had a few we had no idea would be involved, so there are trade offs. Either way, it’s been a learning experience for me and our team. The one thing that has proven most true to me are the words of Jesus: “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.” So true. What you value will show up in a big way in your checkbook or bank account.

A great lesson learned. What do you think?