The cruciality of community
On the night before his death (John 13ff), Jesus said that the purpose of his death was to form a new community. His disciples were to become a new humanity which was to be a 'demonstration plot' of the kingdom of God. In their relationships to one another, and in the way they related together to the rest of the world, they were to be a sign that Jesus is the Lord who is going to redeem all of creation. Christian community is a comprehensive and distinct way to be human in deep relationship with others who have been transformed by the gospel.

Adequate financial internal controls are necessary to safeguard the funds you have been entrusted with. Your internal controls will also be taken into consideration if or when the church attempts to obtain a bank loan. The ideal internal controls should be developed with the following in mind.

Adequate financial internal controls are necessary to safeguard the funds you have been entrusted with, and to protect the reputation of the people handling the funds. Your internal controls will also be taken into consideration if or when the church attempts to obtain a bank loan. Last month I wrote about general procedures for internal controls. This month I briefly discuss internal control procedures regarding income.

In past articles I have explored the roles of the church administrator in the context of the relationships you will have with the pastor, the church and the community. In addition to these roles, there are also priorities - areas where the administrator should be consistently focused. In general terms, these areas are provision, protection and perspective.

There are three key areas that are important for the church administrator to develop as you launch your new church: Your relationship with your pastor, your relationship with church members and your community, and preparation for the future.

In the last article I talked about the opportunities available for receiving funding for your church plant needs, as well the general thinking of the successful businessman. In this article I want to give some steps that will be helpful in getting money from the people who have it. The difficulty in any methods-based approach is the tendency to follow the procedure while avoiding the principle behind the procedure. Since church planters are at various stages in their church, this process will obviously have to be adjusted based on your particular situation.

There were four of us sitting in the kitchen on a Saturday morning. We had transformed it into a makeshift conference room. The colored markers we purchased for the occasion hadn't been taken out of the box yet, and the white board was squeaky clean. All we had for a podium was the kitchen table moved off to the side. We sat there sipping our coffee in anticipation for the help we expected to receive. Our "conference" speaker was a short, pear-shaped man, about forty. He had a little mustache and wore a dark pinstriped suit. We noticed he had some annoying quirks, such as telling dumb jokes then laughing raucously at himself. Overall, we liked him. He was quintessential "salesman", but he was good. We had flown him in from Ohio, or was it Jersey? I don't remember. He asked us if he could light up a cigarette and we said "sure". As he took a long draw from his fire stick he assessed the situation. He looked at us with inquisitive eyes, then spoke.

The world of church planting can be fast paced and stressful. Pastors have sermons to prepare and preach, worship bands to assemble and practice, community groups to launch and maintain, weddings, funerals, emails, letters, phone calls to return, initiate and ignore, books to order and then find time to read, children's ministry volunteers to rope in, youth activities to manage, and the list goes on and on. With all of these duties, and more, on a pastor's plate, especially a lead planting pastor who may be wearing all of those hats with varying degrees of success, it makes sense to look into outsourcing his mind. An assistant is the perfect way to farm out much of the work and tasks that weighs on his mind at 3am. Yet "How?" seems to be a common question. How can a pastor truly leverage an assistant to maintain peace of mind, remain focused on the macro vision for the church/ministry, and still feel like he is working and deserving of the big bucks his church is paying him? Below are several main areas of outsourcing that will help a pastor maintain sanity and accomplish what God has given him to do (Acts 6).

Often times when a church plant gets started, the Pastor is stuck doing a thousand jobs outside his gifting. Church finances can often be one of these things. And the handling of these funds from an offering standpoint is very important.

First off, it is very important to protect the Pastor from anything that would misrepresent him in regards to church finances. Therefore, establishing a Financial Committee from the start, is imperative. This committee will be the vehicle to carry out the financial controls.

Reasons why a church would have no offering procedure:

1. Pastor doesn't realize he is a liability by taking offering home to count it, or the appearance this gives. What would you do if you lost the money after you took it home and word got out to the community?

Bruce P. Powers Ed.

All the basics for developing and implementing effective church administration in one convenient volume.

Good administration is essential to the mission of a church and the leadership of clergy and lay leaders. A smooth-running church can concentrate on spreading the gospel, rather than on office supplies, insurance, and weeding the flowerbeds. This newly-revised edition of the Church Administration Handbook offers practical advice from a distinguished list of contributors on issues including: