c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Belt-tightening comes hard to churches.

At most congregations, the belt is already tight, with spending so low as to be self-defeating. How much more can be trimmed from budgets that are barely maintenance-level now?

The burden of tightening usually falls unfairly on clergy and lay staff. What’s the easiest way to compensate for lagging stewardship by members? Cut staff, cut hours, but never, of course, cut expectations of performance and availability.

Charting a fresh financial course usually brings our junk to the surface: festering wounds, unresolved arguments, distrust of clergy, conflicting visions of purpose, and control battles.

Who will have the heart to consider the plunging American economy _ not even the experts can avoid the word “recession” now _ and make a responsible, faithful response? Churches can deal with wars, racial unrest, changing cultural mores, new constituencies, hurricanes and death. But they flail and sputter when talk turns to money. They become paralyzed when the need to reconsider operational basics becomes inescapable.

Recession exposes our fundamental dysfunction. Speaking broadly, we don’t get along. Put another way, we don’t “play well together.” Clergy and laity are at odds. Lay leadership tends to be weaker than we require. Most members see church as a voluntary society that meets their needs, or else they walk. We tend to please people, rather than guide them across wilderness. We cling to old ways as if they were divinely inspired. Except in a few traditions, we tend to accept marginal giving, rather than lead people, as Jesus did, to self-sacrifice and gratitude.

And now a recession looms _ a recession that probably will cut deeper and last longer precisely because politicians have worked so hard to deny it and corporate leadership has been scrambling to hoard cash and lavish one last wad on itself.

What should congregations do?

First, let’s say the word: “recession.” That means worsening unemployment, sagging consumer confidence, cutbacks in capital spending, paralysis in debt markets, unsold houses, declining economic activity, corporate and personal bankruptcies, and tough decisions at home.

Second, let’s accept that recession is a spiritual and pastoral crisis. Those who bought the “prosperity gospel” have some theological rethinking to do. Young capitalists who have known good times will struggle existentially when clicks and cliques don’t pay the rent. Families built on “shopping together” will have only each other, plus a stack of bills to triage. Cult-like devotion to the housing market will yield scant hope or meaning. People need real bread.

Third, it is time to nurture community, opening the doors wide to a troubled world and then engaging new and old in basic Christian gifts: love, hospitality, caregiving, sharing travails, listening. This isn’t a time to be perfecting doctrine or polishing institutional brass.

Fourth, this is a time to reconsider operational basics. Cutting to the chase: do we need the inefficient facilities that we have inherited? Do we need the overhead of denomination? Do we need to continue being in business only one day a week? The answers aren’t necessarily “No,” but nothing, not even a beloved sanctuary, gets a free pass.

Finally, we have got to stop fighting over control. If we can’t work together _ clergy and laity, conservative and liberal, traditional and conservative, new and old members, male and female, rich and poor _ then we have nothing to offer a broken world.

Our fights have corrupted most of human history. Enough of these shameful and arrogant conflicts!

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

KRE/LF END EHRICH650 words

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