9 Principles For Creating An Annual Budget In A Small Church

With the possibilities for small church budgeting being so flexible, are there guidelines that are universal? I believe so. Here are nine of them.

Big churches and small churches design their budgets very differently.

While large churches spend their time balancing percentages, designing requisition sheets, and tracking an increase or decrease of giving as one measurement of the church’s health, small churches deal with an entirely different set of issues.

For instance, I just Googled “what percentage of a church budget should be salary?” and I found several helpful articles.

One of them, from a very good church consulting ministry, acknowledges that while “…every church is different,” their team “…generally encourages churches to try to stay in the range of 45 to 55 percent of total budget. We’ve seen churches that have gone as high as 65 to 70 percent… (but) these higher percentages raise red flags. These ministries may be in a danger zone.”

This is good advice, based on years of experience and sound stewardship principles. But those percentages mean nothing in most small churches because the smaller the church, the more likely you are to fall into the “every church is different” part that they mentioned. Read More