Over recent decades churches around Australia have had the benefit of being supported by baby boomers. This has frequently brought significant financial benefits with church members being faithful and consistent bringers of tithes and offerings to the church.

And as the baby boomers have aged, there have been those amongst them who have come into wealth as a result of inheritance, property sales and successful businesses. But will this continue into the future or do we need to explore different financial models?

Mark DeYmaz pointed to some critical issues and potential solutions in his 2019 book “The Coming Revolution In Church Economics”  and has now released Church Economics, a White Paper developing these themes.

What he has to say is of critical importance for church planters (and church leaders) to consider as we see:

• a rising cost of living and the potential for further interest rate increases affecting the capacity of many to give,
• high property prices making it harder for church plants to afford quality premises
• increasing overheads making it more expensive to maintain church properties
• younger generations (Gen Z and Millennials) are significantly more inclined to direct their generosity toward specific causes, social justice, and immediate, tangible impact rather than making regular financial commitments to a local church.

In Church Economics, Mark DeYmaz suggests a “Three Teams Approach” that sees churches being purposefully structured to fulfil :

• the “spiritual” functions normally associated with a church including Gospel proclamation, making disciples and multiplication.
• the “social” functions where the church seeks to love its neighbours, being engaged with programs that meet community needs with acts of compassion and justice.
• the “financial” functions where the church seeks to generate a financial return from the assets it owns and the opportunities that arise “through responsible business activity ordered toward the common good, including initiatives such as leasing underutilised space, monetising existing services, or launching business enterprises”.

Mark says:

“To benefit from the practice of Church Economics, local church leaders must move beyond isolated revenue ideas and adopt an integrative framework capable of holding multiple expressions of ministry, resourcing, and impact together without fragmentation. What follows is not a new funding model, but a way of organising how churches steward resources.

In line with Mark’s thoughts, a question that church planters should consider is “how can we get an economic return from ministries that we would like to provide?”. A second but related question is “what ministries could we provide if we had the financial resources?”

A church plant may not be able to put in place the spiritual, social and financial functions from the beginning, but it may be possible to begin with this in mind and to take small steps over time. For example a church plant may be able to:

• provide and operate a coffee wagon or food trailer as the Seventh Day Adventists in Geelong do,
• utilise their facilities as a film studio as well as conduct other revenue raising activities as Future Church
• utilise an op shop and food bank as a long-term ministry for connecting with marginalised people in the community as other church plants have done.

The opportunities from embracing the Three Teams approach are endless. Tailrace Community Church, the church that my wife Sharon and I planted and are still involved with, operates the Tailrace Centre and has developed many activities that take the church out to engage with the community in a way that produces a financial return. A few of the opportunities include:

• Baby Sensory and Toddler Sense, ten-week programs that families enrol in and pay to be part of that provide support as well as assisting with the sensory development of babies and toddlers,
• Date Night where couples can have a date whilst enjoying a nice meal and having their children engage in programs run by volunteers form the church,
• Utilising the church facilities as a Function, Event and Wedding Centre.

I think that the times when a church is established purely for the church community will become rarer as churches grapple not just with the spiritual needs of those within the congregation and those who they can attract but also with how they can go and engage with the broader community whilst seeking to financially leverage their assets and opportunities.

To ponder these issues further, I encourage you to read Mark DeYmaz’s paper Church Economics.

Being in a post or even pre-Christian era does require that we move towards different models of church as we plant new churches.