(Photo by J. Stephen Conn)
USA (MNN) ― There's a new "normal" facing churches across the United States.
According to a new Barna research study, on the average, Protestant churches saw their budgets shrink 7% due to the struggling economy. That's not as bad as it could be, considering many are enduring the worst economic conditions in recent history.
The Barna study shows there have been three major ways that churches have attempted to weather the downturn: by reducing their budgets, cutting staffing, and cutting back on building expansion projects.
Summarized, it showed church leadership watching spending, eliminating non-essentials, and freezing portions of the budget, among other things.
Evangelist Sammy Tippit says the budget woes have had a devastating effect on evangelism and thousands of parachurch organizations and ministries. "There's not as much income coming into churches, and so what happens often is that the missions budget is one of the first things that gets cut, because it doesn't have an immediate impact on that local church."
The research showed nearly one in every 25 churches said they had reduced their giving to missions or missionaries. "What that means," he explains, "is that missionaries are being hurt. I know multitudes of missionaries who are struggling. Many don't know if they're going to be able to stay on the field."
There have been other reports from the Southern Baptists indicating a crop of new missionaries unable to raise enough support to go onto the field at all. A drop in giving may prompt a pastor to start teaching about tithing and giving as acts of worship.
However, talk is cheap. Tippit asserts that what turns this around is a shift in perspective about the value of the Gospel. "I think that what we have to do, to some extent, is just prioritize what is 'kingdom business' and what is just 'business as usual.' I think they'll discover that missions is a high priority on the heart of God. I think that we need to take a real hard look at it from a Kingdom perspective."
The onus falls on the response of the church itself. Tippit asks, "If you're not taking a pro-active giving approach from the church itself, then how can you expect more people from your congregation to give?"
In his concluding remarks, David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, said, "Like so many others, church leaders have been focused on surviving; now is the time, though, to calibrate ministries and strategies to the opportunities brought by the new economy."
Barna's findings are based upon a nationwide sample of 1,008 American adults, conducted in January and early February, 2010.
