Someone told me once, “You can’t see it till you see it”.

MARGIN

Today I want to start unpacking a model I use in helping church leadership “see it”. Before we dive into the model specifics, here’s the concept: MARGIN. It’s a key life and leadership principle…one must have enough margin to accomplish the important things.

With relationships, you’ve got to have time (margin) to develop them. You have to plan that time, which is to set limits in other areas – work, for example. If you overload your schedule with too much work, there won’t be time enough for relationships.(Like with your spouse, kids and friends).

With home finances, you’ve got to have enough margin (leftover), which is to spend less than you make so you can invest in your life goals.(Serving in Ministry, Retirement, Vacations, College for kids and so on).

It’s the same with the church’s money. At least it should be.

Here’s the deal, you can’t spend all the resources God’s people give to the church. There has to be adequate funds in order to achieve what God has called your church to do in the long term.

A PLAN

Having a Plan for Margin means providing ministry guardrails and quite frankly, this teaches patience.

The concept is to identify a margin % and begin ministry planning to that percentage. The objective is to sustain the present and fund the future of your church. It’s a great exercise for leadership to pray and work thru. It also shifts the focus to %’s and away from just dollars.

If the church sees leadership setting limits on spending, particularly on Salaries & Benefits – and is setting aside funds for the future, the trust factor this generates makes it worth going thru this exercise.

This process builds trust and it also models what you want every family doing in your church – spending less than they are earning. It also fits very nicely if you’re preaching and modeling life priorities and margin for relationships and ministry to your church families.

In Part 2, we’ll dive a bit deeper. [Read next post here]