Income and expenditure?
Puzzler
Shipmate
Most churches will be experiencing a drop in income this year. Our place is missing out on cash collections and substantial rent from hall lettings, and other fundraising opportunities. The Treasurer has accordingly reduced the payments of the Parish Share to the Diocese.
It is now proposed to purchase two portable 65 inch LED screens, which will be useful to display words of hymns etc. A generous parishioner has offered to lend the money, approx £5000 for the whole installation. Others are offering to contribute.
The term “ speculate to accumulate” has been used.
Any thoughts?
It is now proposed to purchase two portable 65 inch LED screens, which will be useful to display words of hymns etc. A generous parishioner has offered to lend the money, approx £5000 for the whole installation. Others are offering to contribute.
The term “ speculate to accumulate” has been used.
Any thoughts?
Comments
I'm not going to address whether the number, type, or size of screens are appropriate - you'd know your own building and needs better than the rest of us. I would caution that you should be clear that the repayment terms are clearly written down and agreed to - you don't want to end up in a situation where a formerly-generous parishioner can cause problems for the parish by demanding repayment.
Of course, some will say that the church has (or should have) other priorities than buying screens...you know, the tale of the expensive ointment that could have been sold, and the money given to the poor...
FWIW, there may be some justification for reducing the amount of the Parish Share, if it is necessary to do so in order to meet other existing commitments.
Yes, there are existing commitments to be met, hence the reduction of the Parish Share, but starting on a new expense? Not sure. People are being very generous however.
It has been clarified that the lender is in no hurry, and if the church cannot manage the repayments, they will accept that. Without wishing anything on them, I am not sure what would happen in the event of their early demise.
Speculate to accumulate? Is the thinking that by going hi tech the congregation will increase? And/ or increase its giving?
This varies from place to place, but in our diocese that amounts to saying that it doesn’t matter if we don’t cover the cost of paying the clergy ‘in order to meet other existing commitments.‘
This may be a tangent, but what are the primary means of income in British churches? Here (the US), at least in my experience, it’s very normal for the bulk of an average church’s budget to be based on annually pledged contributions. That’s what we do at our place, and as a result we’ve had no drop-off in giving, and I’m not sure we’re unusual in that regard.
As regards @Puzzler's question, I'm afraid that, if I were involved, I'd jib a bit at such an expense - even if it is underwritten by generosity. The lender may be in no hurry, but his/her executors/heirs might not feel the same, and it seems to me imprudent to take on a possibly unnecessary debt whilst income is reduced. The screens would be of limited use at the moment, anyway, with singing being forbidden...
OTOH, investing in a parish Smartphone, or whatever, so that future services could be live-streamed, might be more easily justifiable these days.
Most of our giving is done through weekly offering envelopes and cash donations from visitors. I've tried to push donation by standing order and we're now up to 3 on that, including me. A fair chunk of our income (maybe 10-20%) comes from fundraising e.g. sale of baking and the like at community events. If we can muster the numbers we might take on providing teas at the agricultural show or regatta and that brings in a substantial sum by our standards.
Except that, AFAIK in most dioceses in the CofE (and the CinW where I serve), the Parish Share is what pays the parish clergy, diocesan staff, and pension contributions. Very few parishes pay their clergy themselves and those that do sometimes have, shall we say, poor relations with their diocesan authorities.
As for the OP, had the church already identified screens as a key purchase for the year or two ahead? If not, why are you being offered this now? Will this help your current congregation before you 'accumulate any new worshippers? (Are you likely to get a faculty or denominational equivalent to install the screens?) Also remember that screens have a fairly short life compared to books: are you willing to commit your parish to pay to replace them every 10-15 years?
None of this is to say you shouldn't go ahead, but there should be plenty of discussion before you and your parish decide.
Yes, screens had been mooted before Covid 19, as well as updating the lighting. The state of the boiler has been under discussion in the background for many years too!
The current regime is of the view that prayer will bring in the required resources- and that does seem to be happening.
Post in haste, repent at leisure. We don't exactly 'pay our own priest', but we do pay his expenses (he's House for Duty), so that is, therefore, one of our priorities (along with the utilities and maintenance bills). I acknowledge that other parishes with stipendiary clergy do depend to a large extent on the Parish Share received at Head Office. I think I'm right in saying that, in fact, Our Place has paid the Parish Share in full for many years now.
Our income is derived largely from two sources, to wit - (a) renting the Hall each weekday in term-time to a pre-school Nursery, and (b) generous giving by the Faithful (Standing Orders/Direct Debits from some, £££ in the basket on Sundays from others).
Some extra income is derived from Hall lettings at weekends (children's parties, for example), or from such staple items of English church diet as Jumble Sales and Quiz Nights, but these are all suspended for the duration. The actual amount each year is not an enormous sum, but every little helps, of course.
Offerings made by standing order are continuing to come in and in my situation the treasurer has worked hard to get many of the people who have always given cash to do this. Which is good. Of course it takes away from the theological concept of giving as an offering rather than a collection or, worse, subscription, and we ministers have to work at finding ways to remind people of this, especially when there is no obvious taking or giving of the offering in the online service.
Our pledged contributions are down ('cause some people have lost their jobs because of Covid-19, and so can't keep up with their pledge). Our expenses are also down a bit, though.
Our place differs from @Puzzler's situation - had we not had Covid, we wouldn't even be thinking of installing screens in church. We're planning on putting them up, very much as a necessary evil, because we won't have hymnals, prayer books, or orders of service when we restart physical worship, and the congregation will need something.
I don't know what we plan, in detail, but I know that I don't care in the slightest what would happen when the screens reach end-of-life, because I want to have repurposed them in the youth room or something long before we reach that point.
@Puzzler's place seems to have decided that screens are a good thing in themselves, and if that's what floats your collective boat, then doing it now doesn't seem unreasonable.
I think it's important to clarify what happens in the event of the parishioner's early demise. I'm also deeply skeptical of the idea that screens will draw in new parishioners, but I think in @Puzzler's case, perhaps the screens are one symptom of a change in worship style that TPTB hope will be attractive.
The most common case in which it’s allowed, in my experience, is a youth-led fundraiser for a mission trip or other project. There, the idea is that youth generally lack money of their own to contribute or pay their way, so the fundraiser gives them a chance to make that money collectively. Otherwise fundraisers are still pretty rare.
Thanks, too, @Cathscats. Yes, the lack of opportunity to participate in an offering during worship does present a problem. At that point in our streamed service, the minister always reminds everyone of the alternate ways to give. FWIW, I don’t see people here viewing their annual pledges as any less an offering, even when they use automatic draft to fulfill their pledges.
And yes, @Leorning Cniht, we’ve been lucky at our place. So far as I know, no one in our congregation has lost a job during all of this.
I should perhaps emphasise that the pledge isn't public. The total pledged contributions are available (they're part of our budget process), and the total monthly giving is made available to all parishioners, in the minutes of the vestry meeting, but the only person with access to the details of the individual pledges is the church secretary.
I'll note that one feature of the US is that the church produces annual statements of giving for each donor, that they can use to help them fill out their annual tax return.
I wonder if it's a "national church" thing? There is very much in Scotland a sense that the Kirk is there for everyone who wants/needs it, not just to serve the congregation. That means we maintain a far larger building than we need for Sunday worship because a funeral of someone local will often see it packed to the doors. It means that the Kirk does not charge a fee for conducting weddings or funerals.
True story: When my sister married a Southern Baptist, they decided that the United Methodists would be a good compromise church for them. At some point, their Sunday school class was helping plan a church fundraiser, and my sister expressed a little surprise, and said something to the effect of not being used to doing fundraisers. One of the life-long Methodists answered “That’s because Presbyterians have more money than Methodists do.”
There was likely some truth to that, to the idea that Presbyterians generally could afford to have convictions about all contributions to the church being freely offered.
I'm not sure displaying hymn texts on screens is they kind of speculative investment that would be expected to generate future revenues.
Words of the liturgy, prayers, notices etc can all be displayed, not just hymns. I guess that use of modern technology is deemed to attract the younger generations.
I am not convinced that what goes on inside the building is what attracts people into church, however. Most non churchgoers have no real idea of what goes on and are not interested in finding out.
Indeed, surely there'll be no singing for some months yet, maybe a year?
As for notices, as far as I know there is no ban on having printed leaflets available as long as they are taken away and not re-used by different people. And most parishes have, or should have, an e-bulletin these days.
Weekly news-sheet/readings are available to pick up and take away, and we do send out an e-bulletin version, too.
The old aircraft-building advice to 'simplicate, and add more lightness' is applicable to liturgy as well.
Contactless payment device is probably the more necessary device at the present time.
Over here the nattering nabobs of negativity have largely given up on surface contact transmission as a serious method of transmission. The current thing is "aerosol" transmission, hence the bloody muzzles, which actually makes more sense. I have noticed that churches are getting very little gip about deep cleaning, though we have been advised not to use the same space/books for worship twice on the same day, and to leave at least 72 hours before using the same space again.
And yes, I am feeling a little grumpy this morning...
YMMV. My experience as a cradle Catholic and still occasional visitor is that many worshippers use Missals and the leaflets to participate in the Mass. I suppose these are not 'congregational' in that everyone is given the same book as they enter, but they are in essence the same.
Deep cleaning isn't necessary precisely because the virus doesn't survive past 24 hours on porous surfaces and 72 hours on non-porous.
An overhead projector is cheaper
On a slightly different tack, one or two at Our Place recently helped a student in our congregation to overcome financial difficulties connected with her fees etc. We made it quite clear that the sums provided were unconditional gifts, not loans to be paid back at some unspecified time.
TBH, this made the whole thing a lot more palatable to everyone concerned, IYSWIM. No strings attached...
(The student concerned achieved a First - despite great difficulties, not altogether connected with The Plague - so we are all Very Proud of her!)
Just spotted this - possibly true, so an alternative worth considering?
...and it seems that the requisite retro-screens, acetate sheets etc., are all still available, too.
Who knew?
Unless you're planning to re-open in the next few weeks, have done all the risk assessment and all the extra bits and bobs those chucked up, then spending money on two big screens at this point seems a bit daft.
Even if you do, you can only have a certain number of people in the building at one time (30?) and many of the usual congregation may still not come. A friend usually gets about 100 attendees per week and the first service he opened got 17. When he asked the congregation, many of them had no intention of returning quite yet.
OTOH, some who are still away have increased their Standing Order (or begun one), so income is not dropping too far.
Using less gas, electricity, and water helps keep expenses down, of course.
A wonderful opportunity to sing Shine Jesus Shine upside down
A data projector may be more useful: they're relatively inexpensive at somewhere between £50 - £70 each. There's no doubt a clever way of linking two or three to a laptop device so that a worship space can be conveniently covered.
A cheap data projector is generally only any good in the dark. Fine for evensong in winter but not much good for anything else.
Learnt the hard way.
PS If you really want to be "retro", you could project the words from a hymnbook onto a screen with an old epidiascope - now they were really wretched!
O dear. I'm old enough to remember Ye Auncient Epidiascope - the cutting edge of technology back in those dear, dead days beyond recall.
There are some for sale (at various prices) on eBay...in the Vintage Photography section...
Or it can be presented as an idea for which prayer is sought, then, Praise God, the funding appears so it must be God’s will. Or am I being cynical?
The e- mail conversation about the screens has come to a halt, so I am not sure where we are at. I am not against the idea but I feel it is not the right time for several reasons. A professional firm has surveyed the building and quoted for what seems to be a sensible proposal for a medieval building, the money is offered, though of course the right terms need to be drawn up. So we shall see.