Mind the gap: our financial conclusions

The Case Statement prepared by the planning group seeks to ‘mind the gap’ between today and tomorrow: our present financial reality and a direction of travel into a hopeful new future.

Likely one person has prepared the Knowing our Numbers Report. The first step in drafting the Case Statement is for the planning group to chew over the Report and the picture it paints of our financial situation. The first section invites the group to do some hard thinking, review the data, summarise issues and suggest action.

This conversation and the overflow into the later leadership consultation helps us mind the gap. Our financial conclusions recognise where we are. Our budget is our direction of travel to a different future. Our Gift Array is our map, our GPS, to show us the way.

Drawing our financial conclusions

Our first step to a new future starts with knowing where we stand today. The financial data in the Knowing our Numbers Report tells us where we are now. So give the data a ‘hard stare’ worthy of Paddington Bear. It will shed light on some trends, showing us where have been and where we are now. The anonymous Planned Giving Profile will deepen understanding of our congregational giving.

The Report will identify areas of potential growth and action we can take, from growing the all important Parish Giving Scheme and our digital giving to creative new income streams. The report may identify areas of concern, risks to the financial - and the missional - health of the church. What story does it tell? What picture is it painting?

Scarcity and abundance

Understanding our finances and taking action is essential. But church leaders have a deeper responsibility. Congregations mostly don’t know much (and often care even less) about church finances. But they do sense a when things are not good. A persistent drip of bad news, understood or anxiously felt, is corrosive. It can undermine morale and diminish hope. Unknown and unnamed the problem can feel too big. When talk is of scarcity and survival, church leaders, including our treasurers who know the heat of battle, must tell a story of God’s promise, provision and abundance. The Case Statement is one way, not the only one but an vital one, for telling a new story, a vehicle for travel to a new future.

Generosity offered, promise renewed

In Genesis 18 Abraham and Sarah received three special visitors. The older couple had a shared experience of loss, of scarcity, of a promise yet to be fulfilled by the birth of a child. Abraham meets the visitors at the doorway of his tent. He offers traditional Bedouin hospitality of water and food. That doorway was a liminal place, a physical and spiritual threshold. Abraham offers generosity. The three visitors renew the promise to Abraham and Sarah. They tell afresh the story of God’s promise and abundance and Abraham and Sarah learn again to trust and hope.

We must face up honestly but not hopelessly to our financial reality and as leaders to tell afresh a story of trust in a God of abundance. This may not be easy given where we are. But the planning group in their case statement and the church leaders who affirm it must themselves know and themselves tell a story of abundance and promise.

One small step

Our first step into a new future starts with knowing where we stand today. We may want to start our journey from somewhere else. But here we are.