January 28, 2002
Offering plates full despite ills of U.S. economy
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___While the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a struggling economy might be expected to hurt church offerings, many Texas Baptist congregations report the opposite has been true.
___Texas Baptists remained faithful to their giving commitments to their churches in 2001, according to an unscientific, random telephone survey. Rather than reporting decreases, most churches across the state apparently saw record giving in 2001 and increased their budgets as they looked at 2002.
___Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas is one example.
___"I don't think any uncertainty about the nation's economy has affected us at all," said Jerry Spivey, minister of administration and education at Cliff Temple. "It might have if not for 9/11, but after that, it seems people are needing to feel closer to God. This last fall was a tremendous fall for us--not only in people giving, but also in people joining. Beyond that, not only did the numbers increase both financially and in attendance, but it also was a time of great spiritual growth."
___Fairview Baptist Church in Grand Prairie had its best giving year in the last decade, Pastor Howard Daniel said.
___"Things can change rapidly in a church, but right now things are going real well," he said.
___Central Baptist Church in Carthage also had a banner financial year, Pastor Bill Everett said. The church not only received more offerings than were budgeted but also exceeded all missions offering goals. Total giving for the church, which averages about 300 people, well exceeded $1 million.
___"Our giving patterns have been very good here," Everett said. "Getting a full staff on board and a full ministry program in place had a lot to do with that. Also, Panola County, where we are located, is big in gas and oil production, and that part of the economy has been doing pretty well."
___Even in the Houston area, where the collapse of Enron Corp. has dominated the news, pleasant financial reports were given by churches. First Baptist Church in Friendswood had a record December, receiving its largest offerings ever during 2001. Not only were budget offerings record-setting, so was the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions. The church increased its budget by 7 percent for 2002.
___"There really is an optimism that we're going to meet our giving goals and the people are going to continue in faithful giving," said Pastor Norman Fry. "We haven't seen any major number of job losses. At the present time, we don't have a greater number of unemployed members than is normal."
___While First Baptist Church in Amarillo met its budget for 2001, Pastor Howard Batson said it did seem to be a greater struggle than in recent years.
___"We started this fourth quarter farther behind than we usually do, but somehow we made it up," Batson said.
___He is not surprised, he said, that some churches did not make their budgets in 2001.
___"When people start looking at their stock portfolios and see their net worth is 60 percent of what it was two or three years ago, that affects their giving sometimes," he said. "Sept. 11 added to the uncertainty."
___The Amarillo church's strong finish to the year has added a bit of confidence to what lies ahead in 2002, Batson added. "The fact we made budget at the end of the year has given us some degree of confidence. Unlike many churches our size, we didn't freeze or cut our budget but increased it on faith."
___The generally rosy financial picture discovered in the Baptist Standard's random survey was confirmed by Roger Hall, chief financial officer of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. In past years, churches have called Hall to say they were significantly behind budget and seeking guidance. Those calls didn't come last year, and the reports he has heard have been largely positive.
___"Generally, churches are doing well," Hall said. "The circumstances of the year seem to have jolted people into becoming more serious about their faith. Now, that isn't to say that there aren't people who have lost their jobs or that our families don't have too much debt, but their faith seems to be a priority."
___Hall used his own church, First Baptist Church in Midlothian, as an example.
___"We had a record-setting December at the church I attend and met our budget even though we were without a pastor for six months. As chairman of the finance committee, I was glad to see that."
___That does not mean, however, that every Texas church found 2001 to be financially uplifting.
___"In my past studies of the economy, you can have two churches sitting almost side-by-side, but for some reason their people react totally differently to economic difficulties," Hall said.
___And although the year turned out to be a record-setter for many churches, that did not translate into the same sort of year for the BGCT's Cooperative Program unified budget.
___"Every church did not have a good year, and at the convention we received 85.9 percent of our budget. So some churches have apparently backed off their giving to the Cooperative Program," Hall said.
___In addition to the shifting political climate among Texas Baptists, another reason Cooperative Program giving may be down is the rising costs of health and property insurance as well as utilities. These fixed expenses are eating up a larger portion of churches' income, several pastors said.
___"The cost of insurance is definitely affecting the percentages," asserted Daniel, pastor of the Grand Prairie church. "It's making personnel a bigger piece of the pie, because those are costs we can't control. It's the same thing for utilities. As those numbers go up, there's less for other areas."
___Batson, who also serves on the BGCT Administrative Committee, agreed with that assessment. "The things that are hurting churches the most are health insurance and utilities, and this year, property insurance."
___"Some of our major increases in our budget were in the personnel side of things due to health insurance," confirmed Fry, the Friendswood pastor. "There is a hope that with deregulation of electrical power we might see a decrease in our utilities."
___On the giving side, however, Texas Baptist church leaders expressed the belief that what goes in the offering plate is more of a spiritual matter than a financial one.
___"Giving is definitely a spiritually driven thing," Spivey said. "Toward the end of the year, people might start thinking of it in slightly more financial terms as their giving affects their tax situation. But on the whole, giving is a spiritual matter."
___Everett is certain of this truth.
___"When you stay in the ministry for more than 50 years, you learn some things," he said. "Many times in my ministry, it was a push to raise money when we needed to build more buildings to keep up with our growth. Now I realize if we had spent more time in discipleship, the money might have come easier. We were often trying to motivate many people to give who didn't have the spiritual base to build on."
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