Stained Glass Windows

Posted on May 6, 2014 Written by

Stained glass windows were the original Bible texts for millions of illiterate people in Europe. By “reading” the windows they learned the stories of Jesus’ life and miracles. Stained glass windows are usually very beautiful and expensive to make since the reds and blues require using gold and silver to make. Stained glass windows require little maintenance but when they do need maintenance, it is very expensive.

Glass is a liquid – it flows, albeit extremely slowly. If you look at glass windows that are over 50 years old, you’ll notice that the bottom part is thicker than the top. The same is true with stained glass. That means that windows that are a century or even centuries old are brittle at the top and quite thick at the bottom.

Stained glass pieces are held in place by a metal, usually lead. Over time lead deteriorates and needs to be replaced – about once every hundred years or so. The window is removed carefully and then the lead is removed and replaced. If there is any broken glass, the pieces are joined by lead. Every effort is made to keep the original pieces. Then the window is put back in place.

Sometimes the weight of the windows causes them to bend and buckle in place. Often, iron bars are installed stretching from one edge to the other and are anchored in the stone or masonry in which the window sits. The idea is that the iron bar will take some of the weight instead of the window handling it all. Inserting iron bars is tricky but necessary.

Churches with stained glass windows should have a fund for their maintenance. I recommend setting aside $1,000 or more a year from the maintenance budget into a restricted fund so that over the decades this fund will grow. Then, when the money is needed after 100 or 120 years, the church has funds ready to be used for the windows and they won’t be strapped financially. Then, they can maintain not just the artwork that graced their buildings, but continue to educate pre-literate children and adults with the stories of Jesus.

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: buildings, facilities Tagged: ,

Toilet Heights

Posted on April 29, 2014 Written by

Almost 20 years ago, Isabel McCormack told me that when I renovated the bathrooms near her Sunday School Class that I must put in only handicap height toilets even though they cost more. I thought about it and did what she said – Isabel always made rational suggestions and she wielded a lot of influence in the church.

Over the years I’ve come to agree even more with Isabel. The marketing term is “comfort-height” toilets and they are

  • about 3 inches taller than the older toilets
  • easier to stand up from, especially for seniors
  • easier to sit on because you don’t feel like you’re about to hit the floor
  • available in models which don’t clog which saves on plumbing expenses

Since Isabel spoke with me, I’ve renovated several dozen bathrooms and installed close to 100 toilets. Every single one has been a comfort-height toilet. Even when I redid the bathrooms in my own home, I used these toilets (since I’m getting older, too!).  One downside – I’ve been told that people who are closer to 5 feet tall than 6 feet have their legs dangling when they sit down. While that may not be as comfortable, it is not a deal-breaker in moving to these toilets.

For final and full disclosure, I only use the elongated toilets, too. That is easier for men to use. One last comment – I’ve noticed architects specifying elongated, comfort-height toilets in all work I’ve been a part of for the past several years.

Yes, this is a weird post but it does fall under the heading of “other stuff” in church administration!

Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: buildings, facilities Tagged: ,

$10 Million Estate

Posted on April 22, 2014 Written by

The Last Will & Testament of Bill & Melinda Gates is not a public document. However, some information about it is public such as the vast majority of their estate will go to their foundation. There is speculation that their three children will inherit no more than $10 million from their parents. Bill said that he wants his kids to have their own careers and that too much money would spoil them – that is seen is so many cases of affluent scions.

$10 million is a lot of money. By my calculations, it is enough for someone to live on quite comfortably for the rest of his or her life. Invested well, that money should earn at least 8% per year. If the owner “harvests” just 5% of the balance each year leaving 3% of the growth to be reinvested as an inflation offset. In the first year, the owner would get $500,000 which is certainly more than enough to live on and even be generous within that “budget.” In subsequent years, the owner will get $500,000 plus the annual 3% inflation adjustment.

What if the very rich capped how much they would leave each child at $10 million in cash (I’m speaking strictly regarding cash, not property or businesses). High net-worth families could focus on giving away everything over the line to benefit others. In their own lifetimes they would get to see the joy they bring by funding medical research, building schools and parks, providing college scholarships, and countless other worthwhile causes. And the best part is they’ll never leave their families in want.

I challenge high net worth families to let their children know that each one of them will inherit no more than $10 million and then ask them to participate in giving away everything else. What a lesson that would be to everyone – to see that money isn’t the answer for everything but love and family are.

Lead On!

Steve

 

 

Filed Under: church finances, generosity Tagged: ,

When Should a Pastor Search Team Disband?

Posted on April 15, 2014 Written by

Pastor-Search Committees have a very hard job. In just a few months, they are charged with

  • going through the five stages of grief as the pastor leaves (even when it is a contentious departure, people still grieve a loss)
  • determine what is the current culture of the church
  • decide what are some of the future paths the church can take
  • solicit names of potential leaders and research those prospective pastors
  • work with other church leaders such as the personnel and finance teams to ensure there are sufficient funds and a fit with the existing staff
  • promote the final candidate to the church and to the current staff
  • coordinate the vote and install the new pastor

At this point, most pastor-search committees are exhausted. This has taken about 18-24 months of monthly or even bi-weekly meetings. The members have given up family time, their jobs may have suffered, and certainly there have been jabs and barbs from church members second-guessing the decisions of the committee. Many, if not most, committee members want nothing more than to be done with the pastor-search committee.

But their work isn’t done. In fact, it won’t be done until the pastor they helped bring to the church departs. Pastor-Search Committees have a very difficult short-time responsibility but they have a critical long-term role.

Pastor-Search Teams need to stay together and continue to work with the pastor. They need to meet at least semi-annually with the pastor to provide him or her feedback about the status of the church and what the “person in the pew” is saying. The committee needs to know what the church leadership is saying about the direction of the church and its leader and then they need to share that in an honest way with each other and the pastor. In fact, the Personnel Committee should charge the Pastor-Search Committee with doing the pastor’s annual evaluation.

No one at the church knows the new pastor better than the search committee – they’ve known him longer and they know the reasons they felt he or she was a match with their church. The search committee has a duty to both the church and the pastor to help the new pastor be a success and they have a vital role in his leadership. Pastor-Search Committee members were selected for their position because they are typically highly respected lay leaders with a lot of experience and influence. They must leverage their position to help the pastor succeed and chart the course for the church for the next generation.

When church members begin to gripe about the new pastor, the search committee must step up and be his or her advocate. That doesn’t mean they have to defend everything the new pastor wants, but they shouldn’t denigrate the pastor publicly, either. Instead, they can bring concerns to him or her at their next semi-annual meeting and together craft a way to address valid problems in a win/win scenario. The pastorate is an incredibly lonely position and one in which people want to tell him or her only good things. All leaders need constructive and forward-looking feedback. In a church, that responsibility is on the Pastor-Search Committee for the length of the pastor’s time with that church.

Over time, especially for long-tenured pastors, some search committee members will leave the church through moving or death. But the original search team should stay together and not recruit any replacements. The last two jobs a Pastor-Search Committee have is

  • To plan a departure event of the pastor when he or she leaves whether it is due to retirement, resignation, or even death. A nice symbolic gesture at the farewell is for the committee to receive the “mantle” from the departing pastor and then give that mantle to the next Search Committee who will pass it on to the next pastor.
  • Finally, the search committee must meet with the next Pastor-Search Committee and give them suggestions and ideas of how they failed and succeeded so that the next search committee and pastor can succeed even more.

Lead On!

Steve

 

Filed Under: church staff, leadership, wisdom Tagged: , ,

The Immediate

Posted on April 8, 2014 Written by

Western civilization, especially the United States, is an immediate culture. Since WWII, we have wanted things faster and better (and cheaper). If we’re not satisfied with the immediate, then we’ll move on without waiting to see if the intended results came in just a few minutes, days or hours – within a respectable time period. Instead, our society increasingly wants things now – news reports, weather updates, weight loss, health wellness, financial accumulation, home improvements, marital bliss, political change, etc.

This trend is extremely disturbing because the chase for the immediate will usually lead to frustration and dissatisfaction with the present and even with the eventual results, all because it didn’t happen right away.

Good doesn’t have to be immediate. Patience is often rewarded with great results. Slowing down life is much needed in our day and age – we are too much in a hurry and it is usually because of our desire for the immediate.

Let me challenge you to focus on the pursuit of excellence even if, as it usually does, require time and perseverance. Persistence is a good trait (but not stubbornness) in the hunt for wonderful outcomes. The immediate is tyrannical – it insists on getting its own way. Do not be ruled by the immediate.

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: future, strategy, wisdom Tagged: , ,

Interim Executive Administrator

Posted on April 1, 2014 Written by

When a pastor leaves a mid-size or larger church, the pastor vacates three critical roles (and a myriad of smaller ones): the primary preacher, the chief of staff, and the staff person who coordinates the decision-making bodies of the church. Below is a description of the reality and non-traditional solution for churches whose pastors leave.

Reality

  • A mid-size to larger church will have 18-24 months without a senior pastor before the next one comes
  • The current staff needs to remain focused on their primary areas using their skill sets without the distraction of meetings outside their respective competencies
  • The church will experience a vacuum of someone who can coordinate and administer the church governance and personnel due to the absence of a senior pastor

Concept

  • The church hires an Executive Administrator (the title is flexible) whose focuses on
    • Working with decision-making teams
      • Church business meetings
      • Coordinating Council
      • Personnel and Finance Teams
      • Pastor Search Team
      • Other teams as necessary
  • Communicating, coordinating with, and leading campus staff members
  • Assisting, as needed, with Pulpit Supply Committee to find speakers
    • The traditional model is to find someone who will speak every Sunday during the interim
    • Alternative solution – to get speakers for three months at a time. That lets the church see a variety of styles and people. It also prevents the church from “falling in love” with their interim and asking him or her to be the permanent pastor.
    • The role of the Executive Administrator is to help the church resolve any lingering baggage from the previous pastor and help the church leadership set the stage for the next pastor. The goal is to set up the next pastor for success.
    • The church must have a point person who, “in the meantime” can make or at least suggest tough decisions. Otherwise, the current staff will be inundated with requests for which they are unprepared.
    • This person must have experience in working with large churches, multiple decision-making teams/committees, and finance and personnel management. Business experience is valuable but non-profits use the legislative process more than executive directives (source: Jim Collins).
    • This person will not be a Sunday pulpit person since those roles should be filled by interim preachers and existing staff. This person will work with decision-making groups. Together they will keep the church informed regularly and invite church members to provide their input and attend meetings as they wish.

Coordination

  • The last verse of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
  • The church does not need a king, but it does someone to lead the staff and who can work with the church leadership so that the church and staff work together to achieve goals together instead of each person doing what they want to do.
  • The departure of a pastor puts the church at its own crossroads – there are multiple paths from which to proceed, even backwards. The church needs someone with knowledge of churches and their inner workings but who can also help the church leadership determine what is needed in their context to help the next pastor and the church grow for the next generation.

Lead On!

Steve

 

 

Filed Under: church staff, strategy, wisdom Tagged: , ,

Creativity Within Boundaries

Posted on March 25, 2014 Written by

In beginning: God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Genesis 1:1

As a church administrator there is a certain order to this story of creation that warms my heart. There is a goal of conquering the chaos, there is organization to what must be done, there are daily tasks to be accomplished, there is a time of sitting back and admiring what’s been done (crossing it off the list, if you will), and then getting ready for the next day. There is good administration and organization to this job and I like that (I tease my colleagues that Genesis 1 proves that God loves church administrators the most because the first thing God did was get organized – they don’t laugh much).

But look at this story from another perspective: each day had specific things to be done but within those boundaries, there was a fantastic amount of creativity. This shows God’s balance between being right-brained (creative, artsy, subjective) and being left-brained (logical, analytical, objective), the creative and the logical. God established boundaries (left-brain) but within those boundaries, God was massively creative (right-brain). Humans tend to be either right- or left-brain oriented. Very, very few people are both (think Da Vinci as a rare crossover: artist and engineer).

Churches need to use:

  • volunteers who are creative and who are analytical
  • staff who think outside the box and those who are the guardians of tradition
  • people who bring new ideas to the table and those who retain institutional memory

As children learn to use crayons and markers, parents and teachers encourage them to stay within the lines but use whatever colors they want. Staying inside the lines helps with fine motor skills which children must develop but using a variety of colors helps add spice and variety to what is being done. Just as God worked within specific lines, churches must do the same – establish the boundaries and then be creative within those borders.

Churches must establish their boundaries: finances, space, leadership, location, and anything else that will be a constraint to them. No two churches have the same restrictions, but all churches have some limitations. Once a church has defined the lines within which it will work, then it must unleash all forms of creativity. “Blue sky” thinking should rule the day and when ideas bump up against the reality of the borders, then those ideas should come back to reality.

I don’t know how all of this is carried out. I do know that it is possible because I’ve seen some churches do this – they dreamed big, knew what they could and couldn’t do, and then accomplished some incredible feats for the Kingdom. So, be creative but always within the proper boundaries – just like God did.

Lead On!

Steve

Filed Under: church administration, leadership, wisdom Tagged: , ,

Church Budgets: Top 10 List (part 2 of 2)

Posted on February 25, 2014 Written by

[See last week’s post for part 1.]

6. What are the percentages that should be used as a rule of thumb?

A church spends money on three things and the rule of thumb is that you should spend the following ranges on each of these areas:

  • Staffing: 40-60%, ideally about 50%
  • Programming: 20-35%, ideally about 30%
  • Buildings: 15-25%, ideally about 20%

Percent of WHAT? There are two ways to measure this

Operating Budget – the budget is an easy and pre-defined way to measure. These percentages can be seen even before the first dollar has been given to the budget for that year.

All Actual Receipts – a better way is retrospective by looking at the prior year’s expenses on all areas and all receipts. This is more complicated but it gives a better result.

  • Look at ALL RECEIPTS not just operating budget (all monies received for all causes and purposes): operating budget; mission offerings; events, trips, and activities; food service; designated gifts; etc. Count everything that comes in.
  • Look at ALL EXPENSES for each area. There are many expenses paid from designated funds which are not part of the operating budget. Count all those expenses.
  • Do the math to get the most accurate percentage of where the church is spend all of its money. Most churches will end up spending far less on staffing and building than what is in the operating budget and a lot more on programming.

 

7. What about capital budgets?

  • Capital budgets are monies that are used for major building expenses such as new heating and air conditioning equipment or gutting and overhauling rooms.
  • Capital expenses often don’t fit into the operating budget and thus are paid from capital campaigns, the generosity of some members, creative finances, funds leftover at the end of a fiscal year, or a combination of some or all of the above.
  • Most churches cannot afford to put a line their operating budget for capital expenses – their current operating budget is too tight. However, all churches must face the reality of capital needs and thus must have a plan for how to handle these expenses.
  • All churches should have a list of capital needs facing the church over the next ten (10) years. That gives the church’s leadership an idea of how it needs to plan financially to face the certainty of aging equipment, leaky roofs, inefficient heating units, etc.

 

8. Can you use designated funds in the budget development process?

Yes and you should. Some people prefer to give to specific purposes and not to the operating budget (a better term is “Ministry Budget” or “Mission Budget”). It impossible to pre-determine how much will be given to designated funds but you can have an educated figure.

Designated funds are secondary, not primary sources of the budget for that purpose. Plan your operating budget first and then plan the “what-if opportunities” for monies given to the designated fund.

 

9. To whom is the budget presented?

  • The more the better. Tell as many people as possible about the budget. The more people that know and understand the goals of the budget, the more “buy in” you’ll have when it comes to funding the budget.
  • Use different times and places. Be creative in how, where, and when the budget information sessions are held. Different groups meet at different times, so leverage those meetings. Use different people to do the talking, too – it shouldn’t ever be the same person doing all the speaking.
  • TELL STORIES – budgets are never about numbers. Budgets are ALWAYS about people. So, when you make the presentations, tell the stories (beginning, middle and end) about how people will be changed and helped because of the money given to the church.

 

10. How do you anticipate and prepare for the questions will you get?

You can’t. But you can be prepared by knowing as much about the budget, its process, and its leaders as possible. Don’t spend time trying to anticipate questions; spend time with people (especially young leaders) so they’ll understand the goals of the church and how the budget plans to work toward those goals.

When you have Q&A times with the church, don’t let just one person handle all the questions. Ask all committee leaders (missions, worship, youth, education, etc.), all Finance Committee members, all staff ministers, and other key leaders to come to the platform.

  • The church will then get to see who made the decisions regarding the budget. Usually, those are a score or more of trusted leaders, not just one committee working in isolation.
  • The people on the platform can best answer detailed questions about their respective area. The Budget Committee leader may not know why the guest musician budget line has that figure, but someone else does.
Filed Under: budget, church finances, church financial statements Tagged: , ,
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