Smart Strategies for Church Finances

Smart Church Finances: A Pastor’s Guide to Budgets, Spreadsheets, and Other Things You Didn’t Learn in Seminary by George M. Hillman Jr. and John Reece 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, welcome to the Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture. My name is Bill Hendricks. I'm the executive director for Christian Leadership at the Hendricks Center, and I want to welcome you to this podcast, which is going to talk about organizations. Now, many of those organizations are going to turn out to be churches and nonprofits. And when you ask people what is a church, many people will say, well, the church is a cause and it is, it's the cause of Christ, it's mission driven. We have a message. We're trying to push that out there. And other people will say, well, actually the church is a community. It is, it's an organism, it's the body of Christ, it's the family of God. 

And then somebody will also perceptively say the church is a corporation, which is actually true because most churches, at least in the United States, are under the IRS code labeled as 501(c)(3) organizations. So there is an organizational dynamic. Well, that's the circle that we want to focus in on today, is that organizational life. And specifically we want to look at what we're going to call the name of a book that our guests have put together, Smart Church Finances, and I love the subtitle, A Pastor's Guide to Budgets, Spreadsheets, and Other Things You Didn't Learn in Seminary. The two authors are George Hillman and John Reece. George is the vice president. I want to make sure I get your title right here. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

It's a long title. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Vice President for Education and Professor of Educational Ministries and Leadership at DTS. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yep. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Welcome George. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Thanks. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And John, you have a consulting practice called WayQuest, 

John Reece: 

Yes. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Which helps organizations be free from business distractions to accomplish their mission and purpose. I go way back with George, so I'm actually going to start with you and ask how in the world did you land on WayQuest and this work to help organizations be free from business distractions? 

John Reece: 

I started out with a name even it's the quest for the way. And so there is something embedded in that. And when I was working mainly with corporations early on in the consulting practice, I had opportunities to share what that meant and open up more of an evangelistic conversation, even with VPs of finance of multi-billion dollar companies. And so that was one entree into it. And then the work that I've been doing, I keep on getting drawn into working with churches and ministries. I've been a part of launching ministries or serving in churches my whole life pretty much. And so that was the beginnings of that. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Now you've picked a really interesting word though when we talk about churches and this whole matter of their finances and the organizational side of things. It sounds like for me it's a distraction. Tell us more about that. 

John Reece: 

The distraction is, folks that are in ministry that are serving in ministry are not, like we talked about, they're not equipped to typically understand what a spreadsheet is and the numbers and everything else. And it gets distracting even in leading an organization and how to put the plans together of, it's almost as if it's, well, this is where we're being led, whatever the context is, and we're just going to trust that God's going to do everything for us. I believe there's something more to that that we can work together with God, but he has also provided structure and order for us to follow. And so to be able to do that and use some of the things that corporations use, and there's a balance. One of the things I'm constantly fighting against is it's not to have the business corporate feel of things come in and either displace, not that this could happen, displace the Holy Spirit's leading, but sometimes it feels that way, but it really is the distractions of having to mess with filings with the IRS, tax filings, making sure things are in compliance. 

I was talking with chairman of Deacons a couple of months ago and they were bombarded, just stepped into this role, bombarded with the, oh, we need to make sure we're doing our payroll taxes properly, and it's 1099 versus W-2 and all these different pieces. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So George, you're on the academic side of this whole equation and you put in your title things they don't teach in Seminary. Why are they not teaching these things? 

Dr. George Hillman: 

That's a great question because the irony of it all is that I'm even sitting here talking about a book on money that I wrote. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I understand. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Because I don't do the money thing. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's not your- 

Dr. George Hillman: 

No, it is a distraction for me. And my dad was an accountant. I did not get any of those genes and I don't know what happened along that side, but it was guys like John that would come alongside to help me understand spreadsheets and tax role. And a lot of the start of this book was actually us helping a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary plan a church. How do you negotiate with the local school board to be able to use their facilities and liability insurance and all those types of things. And so we kind of joke with the book is that really John wrote the book, I translated the book, if that makes sense. And so John was able to- 

Bill Hendricks: 

You translated it for the ministry types. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah, translated it for people like me, who, I don't like math, I don't like doing budgets, I don't like dealing with the personnel thing, but it is a reality. You have to do these things or you're out of business or you're doing things unethically and you're begged this whole premise of stewardship, you're not stewarding God's resources, you're wasting them. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I want to come back to the thing of stewardship, but I guess I camp on that it's not in Seminary, but even if it were, it might not take. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Well, and that's one of the things too. So how we started this is John would come into my classes and I'd say, "Well, hey, come teach a lesson on how do you put together a spreadsheet?" And really for most of the people in the classes, they had never been exposed to anything like that. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Interesting. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Part of the thing is I think it's felt need, you come to Seminary to learn bible and theology, but then when you leave, then you realize, oh, there's things that- 

Bill Hendricks: 

There's boards, there's budgets- 

Dr. George Hillman: 

All those things. 

Bill Hendricks: 

There's fundraising. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And you don't spend 40 hours a week writing your sermon, you're having to work with a board, you're having to work with city councils, all those types of things. Part of it is just we do have classes that teach this type of stuff. Students just don't take them at that point. They come back later when they had the felt need. And really that's how we started with this was based on felt need of our graduates. 

Bill Hendricks: 

It sounds like a good idea for a certificate. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

It does sound like a good idea for a certificate. Well, that is definitely an inside joke on that one. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So I said I was going to come back to this issue of stewardship, and that's really where you guys start. And stewardship, most people think, well, what's that? That's like the money part. That's like stewardship is, oh, they're going to raise money for the budget or a building. Stewardship is far beyond that, right? 

John Reece: 

Yes. Far beyond that. So stewardship really is leading, well, the people, and I don't necessarily like the resources being the human resources, but people are a resource. In some ways they need to be led well. Decision-making has to be something that is walkthrough and not just based on a lot of opinion, but with some kind of logic and structure and some disciplines and analyzing what is valuable, what's a priority within the organization as well, and how does it fit with the overall mission. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I just want to camp down briefly on let's call it a theology of church management. If I could, because there's a stream out there. There's probably several streams out there. People say, "The Holy Spirit's going to show us what to do. Why do we need to get into the weeds? That seems like that's going to limit God somehow." 

John Reece: 

Well, God created business and one of my favorite verses is Proverbs 16:11, "All the weights and measures are his." 

Bill Hendricks: 

There you go. 

John Reece: 

So everything. So he's a God of order and structure. Even though the process and all the different pieces are applied in business, he created all of that. He created us to implement that. And it's something if we cut that off and don't include that in any of the conversations in the planning and the management of what God has provided, then we're actually cutting off what he has created and not using that fully. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well. And then there's 1st Corinthians 12 and other passages, God also created people to whom he gave gifts. And among those gifts, at least one of them is called administration and George you know I grew up in the church. I've been going to church since nine months before I was born. So, I've been around lots of churches and it's my, not just opinion, it's been my experience that some gifts, just like 1st Corinthians 12 says, they get a lot of promotion, particularly the communication gifts, the dynamic, the spectacular gifts. Administration is one of those quiet gifts. And it gets short shrift in many churches and many nonprofits because let's face it's quiet, it's often behind the scenes. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Well, and I'll throw this out as well, is that most of our graduates do not get fired for heresy. They get fired because they don't know how to work with people or the church runs out of money and they can't pay for their program anymore. I literally have an email from one of our graduates right now. Their church is going to close their doors because they don't have the finances to actually pay the people to do what needs to be done. And so that's all part of that stewardship aspect as well. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That reminds me of something that Peter Drucker said, and many of our listeners may not know who Peter Drucker was, but in the 20th century, nobody knew more about management than Peter Drucker. He's really the godfather, I think, of modern management. And if you have an executive pastor in your church, Peter Drucker actually was part of a small group of people that created that whole role. And a lot of people pushed back as I guess you do. It's like, Oh, let's not bring business principles into God's work kind of attitude. And Drucker simply said, "The reason the church needs management is not to make it more business like, it's to make it more church-like." His point was, if the church isn't run well, it doesn't accomplish its mission. That's what we're trying to accomplish. And what you've done here is try to begin to put together resources to help pastors and church leaders and para-church ministry leaders do that. 

John Reece: 

And the center of that framework that we developed is mission. And without that, that is a driving focus. And with churches, I always say it's a secondary mission. We're called to go and- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Preach the gospel, 

John Reece: 

Preach the gospel. So the secondary mission is a contextualized mission wherever that church has planted. And we have churches in the area almost on every street corner, but what is that contextualized mission? And part of that is who are the people that you're serving? And that is the first step in our process of walking through understanding who are you serving, what are their needs, what are the things that are important to those? And within a church, it's not even just the church members. It may be that you are serving a community that they may never be a member of the church. That's still part of the calling of that body. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And the mission of the church. It's already been set. We- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Make disciples. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah, make disciples. But each individual church is a unique expression of the gospel in that context. And so that church, why does that church even exist? And I always tell this to students, every church is A church plant. You think about here, first Baptist downtown, there was a church plant at one time. Every church is a church plant because a group of individuals said the gospel needs to be presented to this people group, to this location, whatever the case may be. So how do I take the gospel and make it an expression of the gospel in that unique context? And then out of that flows, the strategies and where are the resources we need and who are the people that we need? 

Bill Hendricks: 

And that mission is not just a set of good intentions, the are good intentions, but good intentions go nowhere until you begin to put actual practical feet on them, which includes money, people, time, physical plan, often, all those resources. 

John Reece: 

And boil it down to it. The mission is really what problem or problems are you solving and who are you serving? And then from that you can build on what are those pieces that are needed? What are the resources that are needed? What are the programs? And that word gets kicked around a little bit as far, Oh, just put a program on it. And there's also a process of we've been doing this program for years and years and years. We need to keep on doing it. And so even the process of assessing is this continuing to fulfill our mission. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

We'll even give you a real practical example of this. So a church that we used to be a part of was across the street from a very large church here in the Dallas area who did an amazing job with vacation Bible school. Our church chose not to do vacation bible school because why? 

Bill Hendricks: 

It's right there. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Same neighborhood, same everything. We actually would tell people, go volunteer at that church's vacation Bible school. Now we came up with a different avenue to reach a different population, but we have to evaluate all of our programs of what are we doing? And just because the church down the street has this great program doing this, you might be called to something else. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So knowing why you're here. What your particular church plant is called to do. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And who has God brought to your church? Who are the people in your congregation? They're a resource. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. Talk to us about budgeting because it seems like a lot of things boil down to let's get a budget plan going. 

John Reece: 

Too often churches start with this is how much money we've been receiving through tithes and offerings. And then from that point, we can build programs and ministries and everything else, and we suggest that that is the wrong approach. I worked with too many organizations that do that, but as the wrong approach. It's from a corporate speak, it might be a zero based budgeting, but it really is starting with the mission and then how are we going to accomplish the mission? Maybe different strategic initiatives, programs that are underneath that, that would be put together to accomplish that. Once those are defined, who are the people? What are their other resources? Facilities, technology, curriculum, what have you. With all of that, then you can apply a dollar amount to it. Money is a transitory resource is what I would suggest. It is not the thing that should be focused on. What are the things that really can be used to fulfill whatever activities and programs to fulfill the mission. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

What I was going to say as well is another thing that will happen is that use it or lose it. So I have to spend all this money left over or- 

Bill Hendricks: 

They'll take it away from me. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Or they'll take it away from me. And that's terrible stewardship. You're wasting money instead of actually using it in a almost say a God-honoring way. 

John Reece: 

Well, along those lines, it was actually in one of the classes that I was speaking with and a woman was serving in their ministry youth group, and they had a fixed budget for the year for pizza, let's say. 

And they had grown, they doubled the number of students showing up by June. And so halfway through the year, she started pulling money out of her pocket to buy the pizza because the budget was locked in place for the year, instead of on a monthly basis or at least quarterly looking at it, what is going on? What are these? Reassessing, what could happen? Because a lot of times the budgets that are set could be 15 months old by the time you get to the end of the year and everything, 15, 16 months old. And so things change. There are things that are happening within the ministry that you want to be sensitive to. And so part of that is not taking that this is how we just lock in a budget and stick with it, be sensitive to what's happening and the response that is going on within the ministries. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And I'd even say this of the members of the congregation using church for example, they want their resources going to the things where God is at work. And so they see the youth ministries exploding. And to be able to go back to the church and say, "Look, this ministry is exploding." God, I truly do believe God will provide. But you've got to make people aware of, and we talk about this in the book of telling the story of your ministry, of here's the things, here's the impact that you're having. And when people understand they're able to connect those dots they want to give, I think God places it in their heart to give. 

John Reece: 

Just to follow on with that, one of a thought is, too often I believe boards and let's say pastors are looking at it from the standpoint of that is such a big number that we can't do that, whatever program it is. And I would suggest by going through a process of really understanding what are the resources, breaking it down and defining what that, and putting a dollar amount to that, that provides a very specific ask and a prayer request. And the more specific it is, I have just from a stewardship experience on my own multiple times where through prayer, specific dollar amounts have been prayed for and provided over a span of many months. And it's amazing how God can do that. And I know we are familiar with that, but it is something that I think too often we're too vague. We don't think about that. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Well, again, example, so church I'm currently a part of, we're involved with a ministry to Pakistanis who are living in Dubai, and this is crazy a story. And so we are training Pakistanis in Dubai who then go back to Pakistan to pastor and lead these churches. And so we are doing pastor conferences there and we have it down to, for $75, you can buy the curriculum for one pastor, almost like not the adopt a child, the sponsor a child type of thing. And people caught the vision versus saying, "We need $10,000 to do this." Hey, people would come up to church, "I want to buy 10 notebooks and I want to sponsor these two pastors." And we had the cards, just like your sponsor a child, here's the pastors that you're investing in. We told the story well, we made it manageable. And so it could be something as simple as $10 to $300. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, you made it manageable is the key there. You Put it in bite size, personable numbers. The pastor stands up and says, "We need to raise one and a half million dollars as a church this year." I'm like, "Well, boy, I hope we do that because I don't have that." As opposed to, "Here's part of what we're doing, and for $75, here's what you can do." I can look at my budget and go, "Well, yeah, that's about what I might spend on a Christmas gift for somebody. So let's spend it on this." And it breaks it down. And then also, by praying specifically, I mean, let's not leave God out of this equation. When we pray, we're asking him for specific things. 

And according to what Jesus says after the Lord's prayer, like a father, he loves for us to come and ask him. He already knows what we need and he's also wants to give us what we need, but he loves us to ask him. And I've seen situations like that as well, John, where man, it's a big target. It's a big goal, but we're trusting God to do it. We're praying, we're talking to people, people are talking to God themselves. And over time, you get down to that deadline and you think, are we going to make it? Are we going to make it? And then, oh my gosh, we exceeded it. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And everybody gets to play a part. 

Bill Hendricks: 

What would you do in churches that I've seen and been involved where like you mentioned the youth group, and I'll just ratchet that age bracket up a little bit, a church where there was a substantial number of college students coming. But some people in the church were like, "We really shouldn't be investing all this staff time on these college students, because they don't give or they don't give much. They don't have any money." It was that sort of attitude and you're like, "Yeah, but look at the impact we're having on these lives at a formative period. And so there was a clash of, I guess it's a mission clash. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah. For seven years, that's what I did, The College Ministry at University of Georgia and the impact that those students had who came through for that short period, it impacted the world. The number one school that sends students to Dallas Theological Seminary is my alma mater, Texas A&M University. There are churches down there that get it and invest in those kids, those 18, 19, 20 year olds, that was me, that I had a pastor who invested in me, and now the dividends are paid tenfold. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And you had people in those churches that who were giving to support that pastor investing in you. So by proxy, they're contributing to your life. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Absolutely. And to be able to tell- 

Bill Hendricks: 

And all the people that you impact. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And to be able to tell that story. Absolutely. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's fantastic. 

John Reece: 

When I think about impact, I think about evaluating performance and the metrics. And too often we just look at attendance or giving units, what have you. And one of the things that needs to be reminded of so many is when we talk about impact, that is generational impact. So the outputs of here's the performance of whatever it is, the story I like to always tell is, we have a dirty water is a bad situation. And so in order to put resources, poke holes in the ground, filter, bottle clean water, what have you. An output is a bottle of clean water to measure, an outcome is that people are not getting sick. But that impact is that they're able to live in the community, grow, go to school, expand their family, and invest in the community. It's that generational impact that I think we lose that connection with even within a church context. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I appreciate your saying that because I think too much of what we do in life in general, we take the short view. We need to take the long view that God seems to move at my church on Sunday, the pastor to read the book where a Japanese theologian said, God seems to move at three miles an hour. And his point was, the walking speed. There's just a time element that's slower than most of our current technologically driven culture moves at, which may be why we don't hear God's voice very much, but God's taken the long view. You mentioned every church is a church plant and you mentioned First Baptist downtown has been there a long time. It's still planted. It's like a little acorn that grew up into a tree, but that tree's now real big, but it's still there. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And I can look at other churches that came off of that church and I mean, just the impact. 

Bill Hendricks: 

There you go. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

We kind of joke that in the Dallas area, there's a family tree. When you look at the core churches of Dallas and how they have planted churches and planted churches and planted churches. I'm at a plant of a plant of a plant that goes all the way back to Gene Getz from the early 1970s. And any church in Dallas that has the word fellowship in it probably is connected in some way to Gene Getz. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, and across the country. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And across the country as well. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, that's beautiful. You mentioned a minute ago metrics and how we measure success. I wanted to come back to that. You're right, so often it boils down to just what we can kind of count numerically. Pretty easy to count attendance, pretty easy to count the money. And for many pastors, I can feel it, some who are listening are thinking, guys, this is all well-intended, but it stands or falls on noses and people in the pews. 

John Reece: 

There is some aspect of that because if the organization is going to continue, you need to share what is happening, what that impact is so that they want to participate in that financially to support it. But I would suggest that while you're tracking the numbers, look at the right numbers, but also this idea of the stories. The stories are what you can capture more of that impact, and you need both. And some people, the numbers go over their head, everything else, and okay, yes, it's a number, we're hitting it, what have you, but the stories and even boil down to a story of one as an example. 

But then you can extrapolate that to the impact that is being made through that organization and don't lose sight of that when measuring the performance. It is a both end, the data and the stories, not just the numbers. And being able to put that together in a way that I was talking about, the output, outcomes and impact, metrics in all three of those categories are Important. The metrics of impact are not going to be necessarily a number driven, but it could be what are those story impacts? 

Bill Hendricks: 

Of changed lives, of transformed lives, of transformed families. 

John Reece: 

And to get really nerdy and everything from a data standpoint, you can also analyze textual data numerically. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Say more about that. 

John Reece: 

So the simplest way to describe that is, and I haven't seen a lot of them lately, the word clouds with the bigger words? That is what's happening in some form of analyzing textual data, but describing it in a way where, oh, these are popping up more. So you can do a sentiment estimates or surveys with that, just analyzing the textual data, roughly speaking, a church may not do that, but looking if you can capture those stories, you're going to see certain themes that pop up. And those themes would be like those word clouds. And then being able to highlight those themes would be important to share what's really going on that's connecting with the heart. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And those could be sermon illustrations, they could be videos, they could be testimonials that people give prayers, all kinds of ways of sharing those stories. Yeah. George, you've been in churches, you've pastored church. Were you in the pastor before? 

John Reece: 

No. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Okay. 

John Reece: 

I'm a business guy. I'm a business guy with a heart for ministry. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, we're coming back to business guy. 

John Reece: 

So anyway, 

Bill Hendricks: 

So you've been in that hot seat and you've already admitted you're not a numbers guy, and yet this made a whole lot of sense to you. Talk to me through a pastor's. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Oh yeah. It made sense to me just because it becomes a stark reality very quickly that I've got to have money to be able to do some of these things. I've got to have space, even things as simple as scheduling rooms to figure out, oh wait, I had an event planned but the gym's already taken because of another event and I didn't plan well for that. Or I was planning to go to this event and oh, I forgot to reserve a van. It's just some simple things, logistical things like that's some logistical things. So I learned very quickly I need to have someone on my team who comes alongside me that can handle some of those things that I can just handle those things over. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So we're back to giftedness, 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Then it's back to giftedness, and there's things I'm not good at and I am- 

Bill Hendricks: 

It's okay to say that. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And it's okay. Again, this is how our friendship started. I'm not good at the stuff that he's able to do. He likes Excel spreadsheets. I can't do a formula on Excel spreadsheet if my life depended on it, but if I'm trying to do all those things, I am actually taking away from him an opportunity to serve. And joy. We talk about this in the book as well. There's joy with the stewardship as well. Illustration I use in class is I'll draw boxes, and I say, most churches only have four jobs. You can work with the kids, you can teach an adult Sunday school class, but there's only a certain number of those people who are teachers. You can park cars or you can be an usher. That's it. And how do I know that? Because that's the announcements every Sunday. And so when I have a chief financial officer who we're not using because he doesn't fit in one of those four boxes, and what happens is a lot of these business guys, why do they disconnect from the church? 

Bill Hendricks: 

Because you didn't give them anything to do. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

We've communicated we didn't need you. And how incredibly sad is that for us as a church, we lose that benefit. So yeah, early on in my ministry, I realized because I was staying up late, doing all these things and serving outside of my giftedness, and I had to learn really quickly, no, I need to bring people who actually doing these things and I need to empower them and let them go do it, and they do a much better job. 

One other thing I'll say as well is that every great idea that was ever in my ministry, I didn't come up with, every great idea. It was because someone else in the ministry, they had the idea and it popped up and I just got to empower it and I got to watch it. That's a major shift. And I'll say this as well, most of our graduates don't make that shift. They think it all depends on their talents, their charisma, and sometimes they're the greatest hindrance from their ministry. The ministry is going to look differently than maybe what you had planned. But I think sometimes that individual is a hangup actually versus a release. I know that connects with all your stuff with giftedness. And so back to stewardship, this all is connected with one another. 

John Reece: 

I'm reminded of a story. I'm going to share one of our stories as we were writing the book, we were at the coffee shop, met at multiple coffee shops many times, but it was amazing when I might say something and I'm speaking English words, and he looks at me cross-eyed and break that down, whoa, slow down. Let's unpack that. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah, what's a cash flow? What do you mean by this? 

John Reece: 

And all those different pieces. And so working together on the book really opened up and shaped my vocabulary as well as I engage. But that story right there of it doesn't matter. Understanding from a business perspective, from a pastoral perspective, coming together and having the patience to work through that instead of being intimidated sometimes or pushing off because of whatever kind of guards that are up. It is worth working through that. And I think that's exhibited with what we put on the book. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

The intimidation can go both ways, especially young individuals who graduate from Seminary and their elder board is a bunch of 50 and 60 year old men who are very successful in business. They're scared. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, that's the question I was going to ask is, I think for many, particularly younger pastors, if I let my board of trustees or elders or deacons or whatever it is, if I let them know that I don't really know anything about handling money, they're going to fire me. They're going to think, well, we don't want you incompetent person here, so I guess it's maybe I should fake it till I make it, but you're never going to make it. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And I would say the opposite thing is to go to them and say, "Guys, this is what you do for a living." 

Bill Hendricks: 

Exactly. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

This is what you do for a living. Help me. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, and the wonderful thing about giftedness is that they not only bring just the skills to be able to do that stuff, it's the mindset. They get money. They understand how money works. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

They're in real estate. 

Bill Hendricks: 

They're in real estate. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

They're in these businesses, they're lawyers, finance, all those. 

Bill Hendricks: 

They're in deal, all of that negotiations. They understand stuff that I think many of our students at the Seminary, they don't have those marbles. God just didn't put those marbles. He put other marbles in that, great and some of the people you're working with, you're like, "How did he know the Bible that well?" 

Dr. George Hillman: 

That's what I was going to say. So we were part of a Bible state for years at Rudy's Barbecue, and now we're living in different parts of the area, and he's doing a Bible stay in his local community. And I've still got a Bible study that meets on Wednesday mornings, and it's all business people, and it's not rocket science what I'm teaching them. But for these individuals, it is like I have opened up this goldmine of the Bible and how to do bible study methods and the stuff your dad used to teach those types of things. And they also to the pastoral care, people are hurting. This is a hurting world. And so it becomes, you're not adversaries, you're partners with one another- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Members of the same body. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And These businessmen, business women, they are desperate for relationship. They're desperate for community and connection, and they're looking for that. And even if you're that younger minister, you have so much to contribute to that older, wiser business person who's in the context of your local church. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And then it works the other way. When they can open up a spreadsheet or a budget or a profit loss statement, they can tell you a whole story out of those numbers. Yeah. And you're like, I didn't see that. 

John Reece: 

It leaps off the page. But one of the things though that I think is a caution, and that is the trump card, so the business guy using this spreadsheet as a trump card because that young pastor does not understand it and say, "Oh no, this is it." And then railroading through say a decision, no. But also in fashion where pastor would say, "No, God told me this." 

Bill Hendricks: 

God told me. 

John Reece: 

And so it really- 

Bill Hendricks: 

There's a mutual submission of- 

John Reece: 

Submission and working together, collaborating, partnering together, and understanding if you think about it from a mentoring standpoint, there is this idea of reverse mentoring where a lot of times a mentoring relationship is an older person, a younger person, and especially it came about with the millennials where that reverse mentoring is the older person. What I experienced in leadership is I can learn from the younger generation as well and applying that with the business folks and the pastors saying, "Yeah, we can learn from each other," because the ultimate purpose and mission that we are called to do is to accomplish the first mission, go and make disciples, whatever that contextualized mission is, and go from there. And we're on the same team. And it's not personal kingdom building of it's expanded. 

Bill Hendricks: 

It's not my church. 

John Reece: 

Its not mine, it's not an oriented program or what have you. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Whether it's my idea or your idea or your idea, that's a great idea. Let's go for it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

This brings us to this whole thing of volunteers. I mean, I think there's been a trend. Maybe this is changing, but I'm not sure, where we just keep hiring more professionals. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah. I think COVID especially, we can't do that anymore. We can't hire out everything. And again, back to that thing of I am taking away, I'm going to say a discipleship opportunity for an individual, and it's based on volunteers. It's based on volunteers and equipping these incredible godly men and women who are gifted and have a calling in their life as well, and to give them the resources they need to be able to go and do ministry. In my own life, the men who had the greatest impact in my life as a high school student was a gentleman who owned a toy store at the local mall, a gentleman who worked at a hardware store in downtown and a gentleman who sold class rings and caps and gowns. It wasn't my youth minister. 

It was these godly men who were my Sunday school teachers, my sophomore, junior and senior year of high school. That had incredible impact. A guy who discipled me throughout college, he's in the oil business, wasn't a pastor. And an example I always use as well is that even with our own daughter, I look at two college students who invested in my daughter when she was a college student, and they had an eternal impact in my daughter's life. And these are what we say, the common lay folk, that's who's doing the ministry, the ministry's happening at that level. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's great. 

John Reece: 

But there's a challenge with volunteers as well. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yes. I was going to bring that up. 

John Reece: 

And an approach that we talk about is recruiting, matching and equipping. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And managing. 

John Reece: 

And the managing leading of that. Yes. Getting that out there. Because if from a recruiting, there are opportunities, not stealing opportunities by staffing. So there are opportunities to serve. I remember when growing up, we were putting chairs, stacking chairs, and doing all the things that sometimes that doesn't happen anymore. Cleaning the restrooms and everything, but also the matching, and that's the giftedness as well. Where should that be? But the opportunities really from a planning standpoint can be defined from an organizational development. I always start with an org chart and too often that org chart, the organization chart is just- 

Bill Hendricks: 

The paid people. 

John Reece: 

Staff. And that is missing the point of put all the roles that are needed on the chart. And how is it going to be? 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah, we talked, every job has a job description. Every job at the church has a job description. 

John Reece: 

And too often there becomes then a class structure within the church, "Oh, I'm on staff. Oh, you're just a volunteer." 

Bill Hendricks: 

Just a volunteer. 

John Reece: 

That's how it comes across, right? Instead of, we are all working together, you've chosen, this is a full-time. It's how God is providing for your family through say, a full-time position versus I'm volunteering. But that role and the impact on people's lives and whatever the requirements are, and then matching and then equipping, and it's more of don't just throw somebody out. Oh yeah, best of luck. But there's an equipment and then the managing the feedback on coaching, just all the things you'd think about with an employee, you can do that with volunteers and not run them off if you do it the right way. 

Too often it is, well, if you want to be sensitive to volunteers and you don't want to say, "Well, I think there's a better way we could do that." There's a way to say that that works. That the overall, I'd say the excellence of the organization, of the ministry can be raised without being rude and saying, "Oh, well, that was dumb. Don't do it that way again." 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I hope somebody wouldn't say to a volunteer something they wouldn't say to somebody who's paid. In other words, you wouldn't say that to a paid person, hopefully. 

John Reece: 

Agreed. But too often that there are two different ways of thinking. It really is because, yeah, it happens, unfortunately. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And I suppose we don't have a lot of classes in how to lead volunteers. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Well, I mean, again, we've got a core class in the Education Ministries and Leadership department, and we do one lecture on- 

Bill Hendricks: 

On volunteers. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

On the volunteers. Now, again, we hope that they will take those other classes, but a lot of times it's that felt need of after they've graduated and they go out to the church, then it's that idea of, oh, I don't know how to do some of these things. Again, there's nothing in this book that the two of us haven't sat down many times here on the campus of Dallas Seminary with our students getting ready to graduate and helping them think through these types of things of not just budgets, it's the volunteers and the job descriptions and what do you need for this and what do you need for that? 

Bill Hendricks: 

I think probably most of the work of the church really is, and could be done with volunteers, and probably in many ways should be done. But you talked about equipping. There's also a real role for pastoring people who are volunteers because it's in the moment, on the way, the teachable moment situations that something comes up and it's a wonderful opportunity, you talked about connecting with the people that you did. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Well, again, don't know if this is the direction you're going, but for example, when there's a death, 

Bill Hendricks: 

Absolutely, 

Dr. George Hillman: 

And you're on pastoral staff, that's three days. You have lost three days because that's what you're going to be doing. But for- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Gain three days of ministry. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

That family, you'll never have a more impactful- 

Bill Hendricks: 

They'll never forget it. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

They never forget it. And I always say this as well, that the ministry is in the interruptions. It was never in the things I had planned. It was the interruptions. It was those divine, I would say those divine moments that would happen. And to free yourself up enough by equipping the saints for the work of ministry so that you're able to do those types of pastoral things that only you can do. There are some things that only you as the pastor can do. 

And I would say this as well as that for, let's say you're going to be a senior pastor. Your immediate flock is your deacons and elders. That's your immediate flock, and then you shepherd them so that they can then help to shepherd the people. And you have to be real careful, and you know this as well, once you get beyond the size of 150 to 200 people, you as a pastor, you can't make every hospital visit. You can't be at every potluck and you're going to have to equip your under shepherds, you're an under shepherd yourself, you've got to equip your under shepherds so that then they can go out and do the ministry. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And then that even expands beyond the church because there's so many pastoral needs in the world. As you pointed out, this world's a big hot mess and there's just spiritual needs all around us. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah, lost people are not showing up at my church. 

Bill Hendricks: 

They're right where we are in the workplace. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

They're in the workplace. 

Bill Hendricks: 

In the neighborhood. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

They're my next door neighbors. I've lived now in a neighborhood that's becoming very multi-ethnic and incredible needs and different world religions and all that's happening. It's in my neighborhood. And how do you equip the people in your church to go and minister in their neighborhood, in their local school, in their businesses? 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I had one last question here. You have this whole set of what we call field notes in here. What are those? 

John Reece: 

Those are the templates that we've put together that actually can walk you through the different topics of either putting a plan together, all the different stages of the book. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So this is like paint by numbers. This isn't complex. It's just put this information in here and- 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah, it's simple enough for me to do. And that's saying something. Yeah. We really tried to think through what are the things that a young minister, a ministry director, here's the spreadsheets, here's the checklist. Even things of, as you think about it, here's a ministry, a program we're going to be doing. Have you thought about how many goldfish do you have? If you're going to do a children's ministry and how many juice boxes and things you don't normally think through. Somebody has to pay for this technology. What does it look like to have the technology? You're going to have a Bible stay. Well, did you think through, you actually have to buy the curriculum and you think, oh, well, is this Xerox it? Well, that's illegal. You're cheating out somebody's livelihood by illegally xeroxing the sheet music or the curriculum or whatever. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, the thing I love about this is that you've put the cookies on the lower shelf. There's 350,000 Protestant congregations in the United States with an average attendance of 75, which means that the vast majority of pastors and church leaders out there are working with fairly small churches, not churches of a thousand or more. Yeah, they're out there. But that's almost a whole different, really not a different conversation, but for somebody who is just getting started and has a small church, this is the kind of thing that can set them up and put them in business. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah. It's the thing I wish I had had. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Absolutely. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I want to thank you guys for putting this resource together and having this conversation to kind of talk through the spirit of how we not only do church well, but we lead church well. We run churches well, and we know that excellence is something that God puts a lot of emphasis on. It's a value for him, and he wants us to steward this world well. He wants us to steward the body of Christ well, so thank you very much, gentlemen. 

Dr. George Hillman: 

Yeah, thanks for having us. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yes, and I want to thank you for joining us for this podcast on the table where we discuss issues of God and culture. Feel free to download us from your favorite podcasting platform and we'll see you next time here on the Table Podcast.