Do you worry how money is spent in the Church? Does that make you Judas?
Our new Vicar got us to do some guided meditation on the account of the anointing of Jesus' feet with expensive stuff. We were asked who we might identify, and with me it was - who else - Judas. Because I worry about how money is spent in the Church, and I would probably have reacted as Judas did. The worries come in two flavours.
The first, which I am not so much focussed on, but is probably most relevant to the cited incident is the spending of huge sums of money to beautify worship. And we must be talking billions in terms of art words alone. I love them but I sort of sympathise with those who thing we've got the wrong priority here.
The second is the rather cavalier attitude towards spending money on pet Church projects/people on the basis that God (aka the congregation) will provide given enough hints that we need your money. My local C of E is probably insolvent. This is partly through deficit funded building projects, and then more people to do jobs. And here I do really wonder why a Minister with a smallish flock who maybe preaches once per month and leads say twice a month needs a paid PA to keep from being overworked. Or why we need a paid operations manager to do what is usually done by volunteers in other Churches. It is not polite to ask such a question.
Then there is the problem that you may get several roles equally time consuming, but some get paid and others don't. Notably the Treasurer is not paid and does more than some who are.
Finally there's the tendency of Bishops to hoover up cash. Except for a clarification that some might shed light on. I was told (on the radio) that the overhead cost of the Episcopacy in the US Church is around 5-8% tax on local congregations. In the UK is around 40% because the Bishops are all building up staff to do a lot of the stuff that should be done locally. If so that's sad, but I may be talking bollocks here. Is there an expert on C of E finance out there?
But does that make me Judas?
The first, which I am not so much focussed on, but is probably most relevant to the cited incident is the spending of huge sums of money to beautify worship. And we must be talking billions in terms of art words alone. I love them but I sort of sympathise with those who thing we've got the wrong priority here.
The second is the rather cavalier attitude towards spending money on pet Church projects/people on the basis that God (aka the congregation) will provide given enough hints that we need your money. My local C of E is probably insolvent. This is partly through deficit funded building projects, and then more people to do jobs. And here I do really wonder why a Minister with a smallish flock who maybe preaches once per month and leads say twice a month needs a paid PA to keep from being overworked. Or why we need a paid operations manager to do what is usually done by volunteers in other Churches. It is not polite to ask such a question.
Then there is the problem that you may get several roles equally time consuming, but some get paid and others don't. Notably the Treasurer is not paid and does more than some who are.
Finally there's the tendency of Bishops to hoover up cash. Except for a clarification that some might shed light on. I was told (on the radio) that the overhead cost of the Episcopacy in the US Church is around 5-8% tax on local congregations. In the UK is around 40% because the Bishops are all building up staff to do a lot of the stuff that should be done locally. If so that's sad, but I may be talking bollocks here. Is there an expert on C of E finance out there?
But does that make me Judas?
Comments
In my admittedly limited sample size, TEC parishes tend to have more paid staff than C of E ones, so a C of E Episcopacy on the same scale would be a proportionately bigger slice of the pie.
So @Anteater you are not judas
Those must be some pretty expensive royalties for the right to say "Baroque" and "Abstract Expressionism" in a sermon!
Well, assuming the details of his overall biographical story include a bit of literary flourish...
I think the intended lesson of The Story Of Judas might be that if someone is obsessed with saving money, even ostensibly for the purposes of helping the poor, it might be an indication that he's not someone you can trust with money or anything else.
(Though that story does some somewhat buttress my theory that the gospels are really just reportage about some deranged and debauched cult leader, re-written by the guy's admirers to make him out to be a saint.)
You don't criticize your host, whatever you may think privately.
You don't criticize people publicly for things they can't fix now, what's the point?
You don't criticize someone who is honoring either you or someone closely connected with you (that is, Judas' rabbi Jesus).
All this before we even get into the question of whether Judas was on the take.
* Mary's family appears to have given a cooperative dinner party at Simeon the Leper's house with Simeon providing the premises and Martha doing the cooking. On MM&L's side, it was a thank -you for raising Lazarus; on Simeon's side, most likely a thank you for a previous healing of his own--since a leper who still had an active infection (that is, hadn't been healed by Jesus) would not be in possession of a home to host anybody in. His nickname "the Leper" must therefore refer to what he used to be, not what he currently was.
What I would like to see is more funds going to mission and/or service projects. We also have deferred capital maintenance projects that also need to be addressed. But this will have to come through improved stewardship.
A little trick I learned a long time ago. If you take the total amount of giving to your congregation and divide it by the national percentage of giving to income, you will get a rough estimate of the cumulative income of the congregation.
I will take my congregation as an example
Our total contribution to the congregation is $200,000
Divide this by the national percentage of giving (2.5) and you will get $ 8 mil in total income.
That means there is a $600,000 gap between actual giving and a Biblical tithe.
Now, if we were to hire a stewardship consultant, the consultant would work to try to increase the giving to meet at least a portion of that gap.
In truth, our budget for the coming year is approved in January. Our financial secretary will post our monthly giving and our expenditures. Midterm we will take a look at the health of the budget and make adjustments for the end of the year. In October our Financial Committee will start compiling the proposed budget for the next year. An audit committee will review the books at the end of the fiscal year and report back to the voting body.
Now, there are stories of how other, independent churches give the power of the purse to the minister in charge. This is not a good idea. I know of a pastor of an independent congregation who skipped town, taking his congregation's moneys. They could not recover it because of the why the congregation was structured.
The parishioners were not impressed.
I'm sure the current bishop would not do that.
Are you at liberty to say where this was and/or who was involved?
But we do have a clear guidance on this, which is it must be spent to further the purposes of the charity (the area meeting).
OK, not so clear. But that is always at the forefront of our minds - and if the money is being spent to forward Quaker purposes - which are very flexible - then the money can be spent. If a local meeting believes that spending x money is furthering Quaker purposes in their area, then it is fine - I am not interested in more detail.
I think church-like people spend a lot of time with a) being worried about buildings and b) being worried about money, and not enough time c) being worried about people. So I want to free the concerns on money, enable support for the buildings (which we do have responsibility for), and let the people be focussed on others.
A previous church has no funds to fall back on, so if money is not currently available it can not be spent. When a need arises, people are more generous.
Neither church systematically gives a portion of its income to (other) charitable causes, saying they do not have the right to give away money given for their specific church, unless from a special collection or project. Other churches systematically give away one tenth to missions and charitable projects.
This, I think, puts a different complexion on things: Mary’s generosity to Jesus should remind people not just that they have a responsibility to support the poor but also that this is nothing less than God’s command. Her action should be an inspiration rather than a target for criticism. In any case, if Mary had given that perfume to Judas and asked him to sell it for charity, not one penny of the proceeds would have gone to the poor anyway.
Your worries do not make you Judas.
I heard a really good episode of Tim Harford's excellent "Cautionary tales" podcast about what went wrong with the famous, now maybe infamous, Captain Tom charity. For those unfamiliar (i.e. non UK where it became very famous) it was a charity during COVID that raised unheard of sums (£30m+) for the Health Service, but after he died (he was near his 100th birthday when it all kicked off), it passed to others and no longer functioned as it should, with money being diverted which should have gone to charity. Listen to the podcast, which is excellent.
Obviously blame attaches to some individuals, but Harford made the point that givers to charities are very negligent at doing any due diligence on what happens to the money. He refers to several studies which basically agree that for most people, charity giving is more about feeling good than doing good, and have a naive belief that it's bound to be well spent.
That is one perspective, but there is another, admittedly more for giving in a religious context. I can't sources here. (I heard it was a staple of Jewish ethics, but can't prove that). This taught that when we give as part of our commitment to God, we are not to worry about the outcome. That is not our responsibility, which is to give. Others have the responsibility to spend wisely and for us to try and second-guess whether it is being spent wisely, hardly ever leads to good. And often, it is not because we are concerned for the poor, as that we object to being asked for (more) money even when we can easily afford it, on the basis that if it was better spent we could keep more for ourselves.
I can see both sides. Our Church is a smallish C of E which requires around £100k pa to keep the show on the road. Should we be asking if it is money well spent? Or does that take us into a wrong place, where we are judging God's Church as if it were a business?
As for the complaint that this is judging God's church like a business, I'd argue that God wants EVERYTHING to be handled with intelligence, research and ethics, not just businesses. Nothing ought to be a black box, where we throw money or effort into it blindly, and just accept whatever comes out the other side. And Christians of all people ought to know this, given the doctrine of sin, and how it affects every aspect of human life.
You see, that also needs context. If it is a small but very wealthy church, with income of half a million a year because everyone who is part of it is a millionaire, then this money is probably being well spent. If there is a lot of the churches effort being spent in raising this basic level, then maybe it should be looked at.
I don't think it is about "its this church a viable business". I think it is about "this is the income we have as a church, are we spending it wisely, and in accordance with a) charity law and b) what we understand as what Jesus would want us to.