The Church of my childhood had come west in covered wagons in 1803. They built their Church building before they built houses or barns, because they believed that God's house was a higher priority than their own house.

When I lived in a third-world country, I remember a co-worker ridiculing the local people because they lived humbly while their Churches were *magnificent* I, on the other hand thought the people there had their priorities way better organized than we do in the States.

In Orthodox practice, it is simply not acceptable to have God's house be anything less than your best offering. I understand that many feel the Church building is "just a building," but that is not our perspective. Just as the woman in the Bible who poured the expensive ointment on Jesus feet, we see this as a proper way of things.

I agree that Churches can have wasteful budgets sometimes (although, I've read a lot of Church budgets, and have never encountered one of those), but we need to be sure that we are still offering our best and our most to God.

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Asking for people to give an extra percent is not much really and you'd be surprised at how many people don't give the tithe they can and should give. Now that I'm on the finance committee I've seen this for myself. As to the raises it would depend on how much. Our church is not meeting it's budget either but we have discussed raising salaries but only by 1% for our pastor that's about $600/yr. We only have 4 other people on staff. If people in our church gave 1% more tithe they would be able to give the raises and meet our budget. In most cases you're only talking about not going out to dinner a couple of nights a month. Unfortunately you and I believe in tithing but you'd be surprised at how many people are members of the church and don't tithe. It's a lot like getting someone to volunteer in a church. 20% do the work and 80% benefit. Tithing is slightly higher but not much. If you're church has a finance committee or something like that I'd highly recommend you attend a meeting. Most people don't realize they can but you'd be surprised what you learn about church members when you attend a meeting.

We have increased out budget every year, but we have also increased the percentage of it that goes into missions/benevolence/outreach. (I've mentioned this before). Our preacher (who had retired elsewhere and came out of retirement to be able to work with this small congregation) has never asked for a raise. We hired him in a decade ago for $150/week (all the congregation could afford). We have gradually increased that to $350/week (still a bargain for a man with almost 60 years experience preaching and teaching), but over that same time our budget for building and grounds remained stationary (we are in a building we built back in 1914 that has been remodeled/overhauled on multiple occasions paying cash, so no mortgage). Our benevolence/missions/outreach has also increased from about $8K per year when the preacher was hired in to about $30k per year now.

I think every congregation needs to periodically examine their priorities and determine whether they are spending money (and time and energy) in a way that reflects them. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

DH is not going to want to leave. He just does not see that what they are doing is wrong. Kinda makes me mad. I know that they will have to answer to God. But, do not be asking for more money when there is non out there to give.
What they do is they get say 100 new members in a year, they plan their budget with so called extra money from their tithing, if they tithe at all.
That should not be done , that money to me , should be put in a separate account and use as needed.
I am ready to leave, but DH and DD are not, DD I donot think it would matter to her at all. She does not have but maybe one friend out of the whole lot.
If things keep up people will leave, and they will be right back where they were three years ago, complaining about not having money, A 4 mill budget is way too much. maybe two thousand members including kids and 75 percent of that is children and youth, 25 is adults.
If anyone says anything to them, they basically kick them out of the church. We have had friends leave because they have comfronted them and they told them to leave.
So to me donot ask for more money if you do not expect people to say no. You have to have at least half of the church saying no or they do not stop what they are doing.
What bothers me is Sunday School teachers and Deacons walk around like nothing is wrong.
I already see people that used to sit by us in church are gone, there were way less people all summer,
Sunday we start a new church year and will see how many people are there.
It is a sad sad story.

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I don't understand the "asking people to leave" thing. You mean your Pastor excommunicates people for asking questions about money?

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They basically say we do not want you here.
I have wanted to leave the last five years but waiting for it to hit DH against the head to wake up.

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(((Linda))) I sat in a church for 6yrs too many because dh didnt want to leave. It left my older two kids wary of joining any church now that they are adults. Dh was running a ministry that was feeding money into missions, particularly a missionary that wrote to us several times that the small amount we were sending was such a blessing, sometimes it was his only money for food.

After my teens refused to go to that church anymore, I finally left with my youngest (who thankfully doesnt remember that church) in search of something healthier. Dh stayed on a few months and passed the ministry he started to someone else.

That church doesnt really exist anymore if you count going from 300 members down to 13 and now up to 30, a church. The pastor was forced to resign amidst controversy, one of which was admitted adultery. They have two original families still there and a new "pastor", who is really a realtor, but all well, he is probably just after the property.

If there is something rotten-in-Denmark (sorry to any Danes here) there is probably something really bad going on. A local mega church here is having horrible problems, their school closed down AFTER taking registration money from people, the grounds look abandoned. I think there are a lot of unscrupulous people who get into these churches using their 'Christianity' as a front to reek havoc. A friend of ours is a teacher for a big Christian private school that had to have its treasurer arrested for embezzling 10's of thousands of dollars meant for the school's operation.

Our current church is transparent about finances, every quarter we are given financial reports and they get audited by an independent company. We have a $1.5 to $2K budget shortfall every week, we are making cutbacks, our pastor rides a bicycle - his choosing - he purposefully bought a home within a mile from the church to be able to do this. I believe the shortfall was created because we are funding a few projects, parking lot, sound system upgrades, etc. and the money going towards those is combined is what was going into the general fund. So its expected. We have held several fundraisers, a garage sale netted $2900, now for our annual BBQ which the whole community supports, last year we made $15,000.

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"...with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26

The way to deal with this if your dh is not wanting to leave for whatever reason, is to first pray that God will straighten things out from the top on down, because there are people who do not tithe which can be stressful when a church is trying to meet the expense of just keeping the lights on.
Second pray that God will either remove those who are in leadership who are not doing as they should be doing or that God will convict them of what they are doing and that they will change.
Then last pray that if things are not going to change that God will work things out so that your family will be in a different church. *note on this sometimes based on our limited experience this is NOT a very pleasant experience.
We were asked to leave the church we were attending and NOT for any biblical reason, plus it gave the devil ammunition to use against Christians, it was a very not pleasant experience and I would not want to ever go through that again.
But on the plus side because of that experience we are now in a very good church, and we are now living in a very good community, and my dh has applied to attend the college here, he would not start until the spring semester and that is if we are able to come up with the funds to do that.
Also as a result of our moving, our younger children have been extremely blessed by God to participate in many activities they would not otherwise have been able to, such as a missions trip, many services at the college here, (its a bible college) and they have been able to participate in several sports activities that they otherwise would not have been able to, they have been blessed to be in a very good choir that is currently being taught by a man who is very well established in his field, (he is the main music director from the college, if I'm not mistake he is over that whole department) they are also benifiting from music lessons from some of our neighbors that they otherwise would not be, and they have made very good friends their age, who have a desire for God.
All of the kids who are close neighbors to us love the Bible, church, and God, the boys like to have Bible studies, and have been known to pratice preaching to each other, and their younger siblings. *there are a lot of kids in this neighborhood and they are all homeschooled or will be when they are old enough to be in school, or have graduated from homeschools.
*the church we were attending had been bad mouthing this particular college and people from there, based on their own opinions, or maybe someone they met they didnt see eye to eye with I really don't know, but I know for a positive fact that this was being done, because some things were stated to me, that were not very nice.

Anyway, I think I've probably said more than enough, the best thing you can do in my opinion is to pray, and follow your husbands lead, if he is not seeing whats going on, pray specifically that God will open his eyes, and that God will place the desire in his heart to move, or that the leadership will either be replaced or will be convicted and change, also pray that the members will tithe, because even if the leadership is doing wrong God will honour the obedience of his people, and it is biblical to tithe.

Also do your very best to set a very good example for those who are there now, and for any visitors, always be friendly and always remember to refrain from any appearance of evil, because by your actions you may be the very one to bring conviction to the hearts of those who may be doing wrong.

Remember prayer is your most powerful weapon to use for growth, renewal, strength, and for all that is important.

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[i][i]Psalms 28:7
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.[/i][/i]