Church Financial Red Flags: Warning Signs Your Books Need Attention
Financial problems in a church rarely show up all at once. They build quietly – a report that’s a little late, a reconciliation that gets skipped “just this once,” a question nobody quite answers – until enough of them stack up that leadership is dealing with a real problem instead of a minor one. The […]
Capital Campaign Financial Planning: What to Model Before You Launch
A capital campaign fails financially far more often from a modeling gap than a fundraising gap. Churches are usually good at rallying a congregation around a vision – a new building, an expansion, a renovation. Where things go wrong is in the financial planning that should happen before the campaign launches: what it actually costs […]
Should Your Church Have a Finance Committee? Roles and Responsibilities
A lot of churches operate on an informal version of financial oversight, the pastor signs off on big purchases, the treasurer handles the rest, and the board glances at a report once a quarter. That can work for a while. But as a church grows, that informal arrangement tends to break down at exactly the […]
Church Payroll Taxes Explained: What’s Withheld and What’s Not
If you’ve already read our overview on whether churches pay payroll taxes, you know the short answer is “it depends on the tax and the employee.” This post is the detailed version – the specific tax types, actual rates, and exactly who’s responsible for remitting what, broken down by employee type. The Full Breakdown, by […]
Do Churches Pay Payroll Taxes? A Straight Answer
Yes, with important exceptions. Churches are exempt from federal income tax, but that exemption doesn’t extend to every payroll-related tax. Some payroll taxes apply to churches the same way they’d apply to any employer. Others don’t apply at all. Here’s the direct breakdown, without burying the answer in qualifications first. What Churches DO Have to […]
Purchasing Christian Financial Literacy Curriculum: What to Expect and How Pricing Works
Once a church has decided to move forward with a Christian financial literacy curriculum, rather than continuing to evaluate options, which our buyer’s guide covers, the next questions are practical: how does the purchase actually work, what’s typically included, and how is pricing usually structured. This post answers those questions directly. How Pricing Is Typically […]
How Biblical Financial Literacy Helps Break the Cycle of Poverty
It would be dishonest to claim financial literacy alone breaks the cycle of poverty. Poverty has real structural causes, access to capital, discrimination, geography, health, education access, generational wealth gaps, that a budgeting class doesn’t touch. But it would be just as dishonest to say financial education doesn’t matter. For churches doing real poverty-alleviation work […]
Christian Financial Literacy Courses for Adults: What to Look for in a Program
If you’re evaluating Christian financial literacy courses for your congregation, most of what you’ll find online falls into one of two categories: purely devotional content with no real budgeting mechanics, or generic secular personal finance material with a Bible verse added on top. Neither actually does the job well. Here’s what to actually look for […]
Financial Discipleship vs. Financial Literacy: What’s the Difference
Most churches disciple people in prayer, in Scripture, in community, and say almost nothing about money, even though it’s one of the topics Scripture addresses most directly. Financial discipleship is the deliberate choice to treat money the same way you’d treat any other area of spiritual formation: not a one-time class, but an ongoing process […]
Church Treasurer Training: What Every Volunteer Treasurer Should Know
Most church treasurers didn’t apply for the job, they got asked, said yes because someone needed to, and are now responsible for a church’s finances without ever having been formally trained for the role. If that’s you, this isn’t a criticism. It’s just the reality of how the treasurer role usually gets filled at most […]
