Continuing to look at the unique challenges of ministry in a small town:
#4 — The Economy Stinks Here
So…if you thought that the economy was bad in your bigger town. Ouch. The small town economy suffers even worse. Take for instance that we had one factory leave town and it impacted our towns budget base by 40-60% was the word. Double ouch.
When you lose your job around here, it is much harder to fall into anything else, and if you do, it is much less on the pay scale.
When you run a larger church in a small town, you have to be extra wise, crafty and creative when it comes to all things budget. I remember in the early days that people had a really hard time grasping the total budget with plenty of zeroes on the end. It is not the norm for our smaller communities. We have scaled back the budget several times and are in need of much more staff and funds to operate in a large church way, not retreat. This is where extreme creativity comes in.
For instance…we employ plenty of people who are 1/4 time and most of them do work way beyond their pay grade. Not that I want 1/4 people working full-time hours, but when you find someone who is outstanding in an area, let them run wild within healthy boundaries. I used to assume everyone needed to be full time to be effective.
We have become the masters of making things look really expensive and classy when they really are not. Take for instance the set design that is in this set of head shots they were doing with me. You will see this set at the sticks (it is much more ornate than this too, this is only a small part of it). It looks like it cost $2,000, but it was really $300. We also choose to keep our sets up much longer, as we used to change every series, now we just make some tweaks to it, and let it roll longer. I could go on…
This fall we are doing a joint mailer with another great church in the area to save capital. It’s all about being obedient and creative. I have staff who would like to see us withdraw and huddle up in this horrible economy. I choose to be creative, to continue building HIS KINGDOM, which ultimately is OBEDIENCE. There are still people who don’t know Christ who are counting on us to reach out to them despite the messy economy. I will continue to be crafty and wise at the same time.
No excuses. Let’s get it done!
Blessings and peace!
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Doing ministry in a small town? Check out the sticks conference coming in just 2 weeks!
