Fast growth and multilocations need new solutions to pastors' challenges

As the multisite church trend continues to grow, leaders are faced with the challenge of sustainability. Excitement for expanding the reach of the church to impact lives rallies support not only through generous giving but also through an increase in volunteering. But launching a satellite church is the easy part. This fast growth, church plants, and multiple locations and entities require new solutions to pastors' challenges.

Once the reality of maintaining the day to day operations of different geographically located churches sets in, leaders are faced with added responsibilities and financial requirements. Effective multisite churches create a replica of the original campus in both vision and mission. So creating an extended mission environment in another location doesn't require any new thinking regarding the “how” to execute. The area that begins to feel the pain and increased demands from a multisite environment is the finance or business office.

The back office shouldn't be back of mind

Back office efficiency isn’t at the forefront of the leadership’s minds until it becomes a problem. When leadership has a lack of visibility into the financial health of the entire church, poor decisions are made. Without clearly defined internal controls and approval workflows, spending can quickly spin out of control. The finance team tries to do more with less. More transactions, more reconciliations, and more reporting requirements have to be processed without an increase in available man hours.

Ministry is a moving target

Ministry is a moving target and, in the best of times, needs extra attention to manage cash flows and forecasts. As a church grows and expands its reach, either through satellite church efforts or outreach ministry initiatives, the need to have a finger on the financial pulse increases. The risk factor rises when real time visibility into financials is unavailable. Without good, timely data, leaders are forced to make decisions blindly. Going out on faith is generally a good thing in church, but running church finances on a “wing and a prayer” is never ideal.

Without good financial benchmarks and budget controls, cash can easily decrease while mission critical needs are increasing. The result is an escalating weekly cash burn rate that forces leadership to cut costs. Typically the first things to get cut are staff and then programs. Neither solution is beneficial to the growth of the church.

Cutting programs for a church is like cutting an artery