Church Bulletin info question

The why would be to keep the members informed of how the weekly goals are being met toward the budget.

 

We post our weekly offering, giving YTD, last week's campus attendance, and new members every week.

Our reasoning is that we want to be as open about our operations as possible. Several churches in our area are very closed and have many controversies about how money is spent and such. Even before these things happened we had these numbers every week on our worship guide. Openness about finances is helpful and it lets our members know how they can continue to help.

 

Yes. But in previous churches, it was not - including one I pastored. In the church I pastored, they didn't have Sunday bulletins until I arrived, and I'm not sure they had them after I left. I packed a lot of things into the bulletin for Sunday worship, including the planned order of service, a basic outline of the prepared sermon, and background information related to the sermon topic and the current sermon series we were pursuing. The church had had a long history of pep rally sermons for decades, as well as the previous pastor who tried to remake the church into a personal fiefdom as God's latter day prophet, because he claimed to receive special inspiration from God that countermanded the revelation given in scripture. Almost all of my teaching ministry there was devoted to getting the church back on track and giving the congregation a biblical foundation- teaching them how to read the Bible for themselves and having a healthy skepticism when it came to accepting new teaching. Toward the end, my preaching was interrupted by church members asking questions requesting more biblical background on a comment I had made because they wanted to ensure that was actually in the Bible. I considered that a sign of success (and I could always give a decent response), but I'm not sure if pastors/preachers who followed me appreciated it. :laugh:

Getting back to topic, I'm not sure it they continued bulletins since I did it myself and paid for the materials and printing out of my own pocket.

In another church where I was a member, the finances were kept somewhat concealed. In theory, anyone could ask to see the books, but would likely make an enemy of the pastor.

In my current church where I am a member, the financials stare us in the face every week. You can always tell when the Social Security checks and natural gas royalty checks hit at the first of the month because we often have giving over budget those weeks and somewhat under budget the rest of the month.

So what is the real issue? Lack of trust by the congregation? Suspected misuse of funds by the staff? Concern that someone is being paid too much or too little?

 

Something else more sinister is probably going on if someone is making an issue out of posting a basic financial report in the bulletin each week. Good grief, it's not a "hill to die on" kind of issue or at least it shouldn't be. With that said, I have never been a member of a church whether as pastor or a serving member that they did give this information in the bulletin and make a more detailed financial report presented by a member of the finance committee at a business meeting to be viewed and approved by the church body present at the meeting.

 

Our weekly bulletins contain 4 types of offerings each week. On the top line it shows both the general budget goals for the previous week + the total amount of offerings for the general budget for the previous week.

On the bottom line, it shows the amount allocated for missions giving up to the previous week + in the second column it shows the actual amount of money collected for missions up to the previous week.

We also will supply any member who desires to see one a very complete and extensive yearly budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

We do this so that we can be as transparent as we possibly can be with regard to our financial accountability for anyone who asks for it.

 

Not in bulletin but have a monthly business meeting where ALL the finances are covered. We even line item each staff members salary instead of the old tried and true Salary line item that covered everyone with one number. Transparency is the reason.