Author Archives: General Baptist Ministries

Cancel Christmas but Celebrate Advent
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November 10, 2020

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Congregrational Ministries, Leadership, Pastoring

Cancel Christmas, But Celebrate Advent

by Franklin Dumond, Director of Congregational Ministries

Long before Christmas became a commercial event that began appearing in retail outlets alongside Halloween, the church developed an approach to Christmas that made it a season of anticipation and preparation in the weeks before the holiday.

As a young pastor, I remember struggling with how to fit all the favored carols and all the special programs of Christmas into the one Sunday before December 25. That was what I remember of the Christmas celebrations in my rural home church. Then I stumbled onto Advent and learned not only the joy of anticipation and celebration but also the beauty of preparing a congregation for that special time of the year.

Advent is the season marked by the four Sundays prior to December 25, climaxing with Christmas Day and the wonderful good news, “unto you is born a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

Many churches mark Advent by using an Advent Wreath composed of greenery and five candles. Artificial greenery is much to be preferred over live greenery, which may present a fire hazard in the later weeks of Advent. Pillar-type candles provide the safest use of candles, as only rarely do they drip or spill.

Lighting the candles one each Sunday allows children to excitedly count the Sundays before Christmas as one candle burns on the First Sunday of Advent, two on the Second Sunday of Advent, three on the Third Sunday of Advent, and four on the Fourth Sunday of Advent to remind everyone that Christmas is almost here!

Many churches will use traditional themes of Advent, but I always enjoyed using Advent to tell the Christmas story in small parts.

The four traditional advent themes for the four advent Sundays are:

  • The Candle of Hope.
  • The Candle of Peace.
  • The Candle of Love.
  • The Candle of Joy.

As a Baptist pastor, I always found telling the story of Christmas leading up to the birth of Jesus was well-received by the congregation and a special treat for the children who hurried to the Advent Wreath for the Children’s Message. Because I used a nativity set with a variety of figurines, the children could help place one or two figures in the scene each week as we explored the Christmas story.

Advent could be organized around some of these elements of the Christmas Story:

Nov. 29 First Sunday of Advent Prophets and Bethlehem
Dec. 6 Second Sunday of Advent Angels
Dec. 13 Third Sunday of Advent Shepherds
Dec. 20 Fourth Sunday of Advent Mary and Joseph

Friday, December 24, Christmas Eve, will be a good time to light the Christ Candle since very few churches have services on Christmas Day. If a Christmas week service will not be held you might consider lighting the Christ Candle at the conclusion of the worship service on December 20. (Additional details for using the Christ Candle at the Christmas Eve Service are included in the Christmas Planning Pack available by request.)

While Baptist churches do not generally celebrate Epiphany and the arrival of the Wise Men, it is easy to introduce them as a kind of epilogue on the Sunday following Christmas which will be December 26, 2020.

It’s Worth Mentioning

Even if you are not using Advent in your church it is worth using the Sundays of Advent to mention some aspect of the Christmas story. The more often Christmas is connected with the church the more often we are able to develop and reinforce a Christian worldview.

Even worship plans and sermon themes that are unrelated to Advent can be given an Advent flavor by adjusting an illustration or changing a song title. While some church leaders do not believe Christmas deserves 1/12 of the annual emphasis in a church, others who recognize the overwhelming significance of the Incarnation believe that the message of Advent cannot be restricted to just one month of the year.

Ready for the next step? Then download our e-book “2020 Christmas Planning Pack”. The 2020 Christmas Planning Pack is a Church Talk Publication designed to help stateside General Baptist leaders cope with the “new normal”.

We Need a Little Christmas
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November 5, 2020

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Congregrational Ministries, Leadership, Pastoring

We Need A Little Christmas!

by Franklin Dumond, Director of Congregational Ministries

Way back in 1966, Jerry Herman released the words to a now-classic Christmas tune. It was first performed in the musical “Mame” by
Angela Lansbury and was later made into a movie featuring Lucille Ball (1974). Since then the song has been recorded by dozens of major artists who have taken up the clarion call that we need a little Christmas.

The musical was set in 1929 just after Mame lost her fortune in the Wall Street crash of that year. In the face of this bad news, Mame insists we need a little Christmas. When I looked back to the lyrics I noticed a couple of things included in some of the lines that have been updated across the years. For example, in the original Thanksgiving is still a week away and everyone back then apparently knew that a spinet was a downsized piano.

Now that 2020 is finally coming to a close we certainly need a little Christmas—right this very minute!

As paternal grandparents, we share grandkids with the maternal grandparents. This means that every year we revisit the schedule of who visits with whom on what day. This often means that Christmas for us will be on Christmas Eve or even an earlier day depending on travel schedules and the other complications of life in an imperfect world. Christmas then is not just a date on the calendar but an event to be celebrated.

If Mame needed a little Christmas in 1929 with the stock market crash, surely we need a lot of Christmas with the Pandemic of 2020! The lyrics say it so well:

For I’ve grown a little leaner,
Grown a little colder,
Grown a little sadder,
Grown a little older;

And I need a little angel,
Sitting on my shoulder,
I need a little Christmas now.

While many Christmas plans for local churches will already be set here’s a couple of observations that can either help speed up or refine those plans.

First, with social distance measures still in place and with hot spots of Covid infection, everyone must ask the question about Christmas that has been asked about every other ministry this year. “Can we safely, responsibly do what we have always done to celebrate Christmas?”

Making a list and checking it twice must become a planning tool for the church calendar just as it is for the ‘visitor’ who is coming to town on Christmas Eve. What have we always done? Who has always done it? Is it appropriate this year? Do we need to suspend some activity for the year or do we need to dispense with traditions that are no longer meaningful or engaging?

Second, we need to give some attention to some important plans. We need a plan for our theme and we need a plan for our communication.

A plan for our theme needs to look both at sermon titles and worship themes as well as other ways we communicate the Christmas message. In this troubled year, we particularly need to communicate a message of hope. Since folks are longing for the good old days we also need to be nostalgic without being trapped in the traditional. One church consultant defined nostalgia as what was fun that brings back pleasant memories. Traditional, on the other hand, often harken back to methods or styles that are now archaic and thus not as meaningful as they once were.

For example, the traditional event of caroling where a group would travel around the neighborhood singing Christmas carols to friends and neighbors was once a popular activity. Back then most everyone knew the words and tunes to the 6-8 most popular carols because that was the sum total of the Christmas music included in church hymnals. Now with the explosion of Christmas titles and with the absence of printed music, it’s hard to do that once-upon-a-time-fun-event of caroling.

So an important question to ask is: “What plan do we have for Christmas content?” Sometimes this can easily be driven by a Christmas graphic that captures the message in a timely way. However it is developed, it is very, very important that this year’s content has a healthy portion of HOPE because we need a little Christmas now.

We also need a plan for our communication. How and when will we share our content? Weekly worship is obvious but are there other ways we need to communicate our Hope-Filled Message of Christmas? Social media posts, newsletters, cards, banners, video greetings…and other communication avenues available to us need to be used.

Communication can be driven by the graphic or logo used to promote the Christmas message. This simple act of branding—using the logo with everything we do—links our efforts into a unified expression. This means selecting a graphic that is easily adapted to the video projector and the photocopier is very important.

Communication also needs to be customized to various constituencies and age groups.

Only rarely does a church over-communicate. Most often churches under-communicate.

One piece of advice that seems unusual may be beneficial this year. After being stuck at home for months of shut down, many people do not react well to the “home” theme so often part of Christmas. For the home for Christmas may not be a time of reunion and may instead bring up too many negative images of the pandemic and its lockdowns.

Developing the content and a plan to communicate it echoes the work of the angels that first Christmas when they announced to the shepherds, “Unto you is born this day a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

Ready for the next step? Then download our e-book “2020 Christmas Planning Pack”. The 2020 Christmas Planning Pack is a Church Talk Publication designed to help stateside General Baptist leaders cope with the “new normal”.

Is Your Church Fiscally Fit?
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October 20, 2020

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Church Growth, Congregrational Ministries, Pastoring

Is Your Church Fiscally Fit?

by Franklin Dumond, Director of Congregational Ministries

Fiscal fitness and financial health are not only important for individuals and families they are also very important for local churches.

Here are a few measures of church fiscal fitness.

  1. Income to Expense Ratios. Does total annual income meet or exceed total annual expenditures? If expenses occasionally exceed income this may be a sign of health as when a building program results in a major expense one year with funds generated in the previous year. Unfortunately, if expenses routinely exceed income by substantial amounts the church cannot remain solvent indefinitely.
  2. Income History. Is the church plagued by a feast-or-famine mentality of giving to special needs at the expense of ‘routine’ ministry? If the folks respond only when the coffers run low this is not healthy.
  3. Income Sources. Do estate gifts underwrite the operating budget? This is not wise! Are a few generous members providing a large portion of the operating budget? Fiscal fitness comes from a broadly supported ministry.
  4. Income Percentages. Churches should expect to spend 40-65% of budgets on employee costs. Factory and retail managers cringe at this since in business the lower the salary percentage the higher the profit.

Educational institutions cringe because, in their model of high-touch personal connections to students, up to 90% of the budget may be personnel-related.

A church spending too low a percentage on staff probably underpays or expects over performance.

A church spending too high a percentage on staff may under serve by reducing program ministry and mission outreach to cover salaries.

Newer churches or newer facilities often have mortgages. Fiscally fit churches generally spend 15-25% of income on regular mortgage payments.

Fiscally fit churches will give 10-15% to missions. In some cases, more will be given. Although there are exceptions, if a church gives more than 20% of its general income, much needed local ministry often goes undone.

When preparing a spending plan every General Baptist Church should consider three broad categories of expenditures:

  • Our Work in the World — Missions
  • Our Work in the Community — Local Church Ministry
  • Our Work in Facilities — Buildings and Grounds

I. Our Work in the World—Missions

Within this category, General Baptist churches should identify their mission giving through the denomination, association, and local projects. Denominational mission giving through the church should be targeted for Unified Giving. Ideally, every church encouraging tithing by its members will in turn tithe to Unified Giving as a means of participating in the larger mission of the Church.

Other mission offerings and mission projects may also be included in this category and should then be funded by special offerings rather than the general giving of the congregation.

Association and Local Mission Projects are developed based on local needs and local traditions.

II. Our Work in the Community—Local Church Ministry

Within this category, General Baptist churches should identify the ministry targeted to the local community. Early in this list, there should be a fair level of compensation for the pastor and staff ministers. Compensation guides based on years of experience and education for the full-time pastor and based on hours of employment for the bi-vocational pastor are readily available from several sources

Professional expenses and personnel benefits should be fairly computed and listed as line items separate from base salary, housing, and self-employment tax.

Other local church ministries such as Sunday School, youth and children’s ministries, church office expenses, and worship needs will be included in this section.

III. Our Work in Facilities—Building and Grounds.

Within this category matters such as utilities, insurance, custodial services, maintenance, debt retirement, and property improvements should be considered. It is also prudent to develop a reserve fund to allow the church to accumulate the dollars needed for occasional high ticket items such as heating/air conditioning equipment upgrades, parking lot repair, or roof replacement.

A final section of the budget should include projected income. Tithes and Offerings should support the general work of the church. Special offerings or project income should support the special needs of the church.

The following parameters, presented on the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability website, can be useful guidelines when reviewing local church budgets.

Salaries/Wages and Benefits — 45%
Facilities — 20%
Ministry/Program — 22%
International Missions — 6.5%
Domestic Missions — 4.5%
Addition to Cash Reserves — 2%

Ready for the next step? Then download our e-book “YEAR AHEAD PLANNING: GETTING READY FOR 2021“. YEAR AHEAD PLANNING is a Church Talk Publication designed to help stateside General Baptist leaders cope with the “new normal”.