A new start for legacy churches
One of the biggest challenges for legacy church is budgets and ministries that have been driven by programs, facilities and personnel. Many of us have recognized this challenge for years but have struggled with changing the conversation from programs, facilities and personnel to mission. If you need evidence of that – talk to the personnel chair that has dealt with a long-standing employee, the facilities chair that has to deal with an ever growing list of deferred maintenance issues or the staff members who has to continue to show they “value” a programmatic ministry that has long outlived its effectiveness. We need to start having these conversations today.
Personnel – What percentage of total income should be allocated to personnel in the post-pandemic world? I had been leading my current church to get down to around 45% (most legacy churches I’m aware of are 60+%). Now I’m thinking we need to get down to 35%. Many of us will not get a choice in that matter. The economic downturn and the loss of donation income will require some quick and stressful decisions to be made. We usually don’t do those well. Let’s be upfront with our staff and be as graceful as we can with their exits.
Let’s also understand that the church has a mission that is greater than being an employment agency. For far too long we have let under-performing staff continue because we didn’t want to have the hard conversations or we didn’t know what else the staff member would do.
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Mergers This conversation was happening before the pandemic. We need to get more focused on it now. Every legacy church should empower a team of folks to look at opportunities to merge with other congregations. This will help us control fixed expenses but also bring much needed creative conversations to ministry possibilities.
Facilities – I am grateful for my current church and their willingness to open up our facilities to our community. Until the pandemic started it was amazing to see how much happened in our building on a daily basis. Some of those activities generated needed income for the building and some of that was us blessing the community. But during the pandemic the buildings were only a liability. Can you leverage your facility in new ways? What businesses might need space to get restarted or start? Can your property be used for affordable housing? Can your buildings become a non-profit hub for your community? What about multiple churches gathering in one space? The cost of facilities will have to decrease for all churches. What can you do to make this happen?
Move from Programs to Partnerships – Don’t start another program for your church – look for groups you can partner with to make a greater impact in your community. Look for ways you can partner on personnel, space use, back office work and community impact. The redundancies of program focused churches can’t continue. So call the most networked people in your congregation and start thinking through all the relationships your church can build going forward. Also be willing to figure out how to partner in new ways for missions. Expect more from denominational agencies then what they have been providing. Don’t invest in a denominational model that is as broken as the local church model.
We must all pivot from programs, facilities and personnel conversations to conversations that lead to partnerships and blessing. We don’t have a lot of time to make this pivot. So start working on it today.
Dan Carlton was called to serve as pastor at Culpeper Baptist in August 2014. Dan has a passion for seeing legacy churches continue to grow and connect with the surrounding community, while maintaining traditional values and relevant ministries. Culpeper Baptist Church was birthed in 1774 in the soil of religious liberty by its first pastor Nathaniel Saunders, who was imprisoned in the Culpeper Jail and its third pastor, John Leland, who helped establish religious freedom in the Constitution.
