Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘It’s not rocket science’

Taking the mystery out of understanding church finances

March 3, 2022

The Rev. Dr. Brandi Casto-Waters (Photo by Gregg Brekke)

The Rev. Dr. Brandi Casto-Waters learned a lot in seminary, but, she admits, not everything.

For example, she didn’t have a full understanding of the effects of asbestos until she served at a church that had some that had to be removed. She said she didn’t know how problematic termite infestation could be until the church’s sanctuary was being tented and treated for it.

And, she thought the bankers and accountants on her session would handle her church’s finances and money matters.

She described her first church finance meeting as “terribly boring.” During it, there was talk of “projected revenue” and the finance meeting conversation led her to believe it was her responsibility to see revenue increase.

“I was supposed to convince people to give more so that we could spend more,” she said, adding she remembered thinking her call was misunderstood.

Casto-Waters, minister at Faith Presbyterian Church in Cape Coral, Florida, spoke at the annual ecumenical Stewardship Kaleidoscope, a conference on stewardship and generosity held in the Cincinnati area.

She remembered thinking, “I was here to do ministry,” she said. “God called me to proclaim the good news, visit the sick, and do justice and love mercy and walk humbly. I did not want to be an expert in church finances.”

She realized she didn’t have a choice so she “embraced the learning opportunity” before her. And, thanks to some elders with financial backgrounds, she learned how to understand the reports, spreadsheets and budgeting process.

And once she learned it, she taught others.

She equipped the saints by “teaching them the mysteries of church finance,” she said, adding, “Church finances should not be mysterious.”

Every officer training class should offer one segment on church finances and how to understand church financial reports.

Understanding the reports is important because transparency is essential when it comes to church finances.

She shared the story about a church secretary who had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars over a number of years. She used credit cards, stole from the offering plate and forged checks.

Casto-Waters told the story to emphasize that fiscal transparency and responsibility are “essential to the life and health of the congregation,” she said.

She suggested churches use two books in officer training: J. Clif Christopher’s book “Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate,” and his subsequent book, “Whose Offering Plate Is It?”

She suggested pastors talk about money and generous giving and encourage their congregations to ask questions about church finances.

And she encouraged churches to hold their financial reports next to their mission statement to make sure the two are complementary.

For example, if a church’s mission statement says it values youth ministry, is there a line item on the budget for it? If the church values mission partnerships, why is less than 1% of the annual budget dedicated to it?

“The church’s annual budget should support the church’s mission and ministry,” Casto-Waters said. “That report tells the story of what we value and how we’re managing the resources that God has entrusted to our care.”

Offering gratitude for what is entrusted to our care is good Reformed theology, she said. Our lives are to be lived as a grateful response to God. We are called to give with glad and generous hearts, she said.

Casto-Waters told the story of a young boy who, after sitting with other children at the front of the church for a children’s message in worship, was heading off to children’s church. He suddenly realized he’d forgotten to put his coins in the children’s offering jar. He ran back to the front of the church, emptied his pocket and skipped out of worship.

The story of the boy was shared as a call to the offering at another church at another time. And, after the ushers had collected the offering and the doxology was played and the ushers were on their way to return the offering to the front of the church, the ushers skipped all the way down the center aisle.

One of the other things she didn’t learn in seminary?

“An invitation to be a joyful giver has to be central in worship,” she said.

 Sally Scherer for the Presbyterian Foundation, writer and communications consultant based in Lexington, Kentucky. She is a member of Second Presbyterian Church, where she is an elder, deacon and a member of the choir.

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Mary Lidtke, Administrative Assistant, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Lora Limeberry, Accountant, Financial Reporting, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

O God who transforms seeds of faith into a great garden of blessings, we thank you for the witness of congregations that see beyond their limit to the unlimited resources you provide. Through Christ our Lord we pray.  Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Celebrating Darrell Guder, a pioneer in mission theology

Longtime educator is the winner of the Excellence in Theological Education Award

November 27, 2020

The Rev. Dr. Darrell Guder

From an early age, the Rev. Dr. Darrell Guder knew he was going into ministry. In fact, in grammar school he envisioned himself in the mission field in the South Pacific.

“It was very romantic,” he joked recently. “I had the island all picked out.”

His childhood dream was never realized. But that turned out to be very fortunate for many generations of theologians, scholars and seminarians — and for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in general.

Throughout his 50 years in educational ministry, Guder taught, authored books and championed missional theology. He is the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology Emeritus and one of the founders of the Center for Church Planting and revitalization at Princeton Theological Seminary.

For his many years of work for the church, Guder is receiving the Excellence in Theological Education Award this year from the Committee on Theological Education with the PC(USA).

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guder did not have an opportunity to receive his award in person at the General Assembly, which was held virtually.

Guder recently spoke to the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty, senior director for Theological Education Funds Development at the Presbyterian Foundation in a Facebook Live conversation about his call, his work and this award.

From his home in Seattle where he and his wife have recently retired, Guder said that he began to focus on missiology and the service and foundation of leadership for the church while teaching at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the 1990s.

The text he was teaching from was “Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission,” by David Bosch. And, at the time, Guder was involved in a nearly formed network of scholars across the country who were discussing the idea of how the Church becomes missional.

It was at that point, at age 51, that he said it became clear that “everything I had ever done was for equipping leadership for the church.”

Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth had a huge impact on Guder. While on sabbatical, Guder discovered the “electrifying theme” that the vocation of the church is witness and he began to explore that idea.

Hinson-Hasty asked why witness matters now.

“The challenge that we’re dealing with as we come out of almost 20 centuries of Christendom is the fact that the whole Christian movement in the West, as I think, bought into a compromised and reductionist gospel,” Guder said, “which focuses on individual salvation and the Church as an institution that manages that salvation.

“What gets lost is what was at the heart of the early Christian movement, which was the vocation of the Church as the witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the equipping of every follower of Christ to join the apostolate, to be a sent one, to be a part of the good news for the world.”

The theological task is to reclaim the centrality of mission, mission as witness, Guder said.

If mission is a part of our vocabulary it tends to be marginal, he said. We tend to keep mission as “one of the several line items of the Church,” Guder said.

Theologians such as Barth and Bosch believe mission defines both the purpose and the action of the Church and “it is all wrapped up in this biblical focus upon witness, our vocation to be Christ’s witnesses,” Guder explained.

Guder, who has taught at Whitworth University, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Columbia Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary, said Scripture, of course, plays a vital role in missional theology.

Hinson-Hasty mentioned preaching stories in Romans and Paul’s letters where the people are not inwardly focused, but outwardly focused.

“The gathered life of the Church is for the sent life,” said Guder, quoting Barth. Barth talks about the life of the Church inhaling and exhaling, he said.

It’s “inhaling the vocation, the equipping the spirit, the vision of the gospel, in order in the world to exhale it. And every Christian can do it,” Guder said. “Every Christian’s vocation is witness.”

“That’s the rhythm of the Church,” Guder said.

A video tribute to Guder can be found on the Theological Education Fund Facebook page.

 Sally Scherer, Writer and Communications Consultant for the Presbyterian Foundation

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Mark Thomson, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Kathryn Threadgill, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Loving God, may we practice the Golden Rule, remembering that you are with us always. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Scripture in a time of pandemic: It’s where to find hope

Union Presbyterian Seminary President Brian Blount has hope because ‘I’ve read to the end of The Book’

August 11, 2020

The Rev. Dr. Brian Blount is president of Union Presbyterian Seminary, with campuses in Richmond, Va. and Charlotte, N.C. (Contributed photo)

When asked how the current pandemic changes the way he interprets Scripture, the Rev. Dr. Brian K. Blount speaks of hope in the midst of struggle.

The question of theodicy — divine goodness in the presence of evil — comes to mind, he said, citing the Old Testament trials of Job.

He is also reminded of his recent experience as a guest lecturer in an Introduction to New Testament class at Union Presbyterian Seminary, where he serves as president. The students were discussing the book of Revelation.

Blount was teaching about the Christian belief that God is sovereign even in times like this, even when the world seems out of control.

“Last week I was telling the students, that’s the question in the book of Revelation: ‘If God is God, why are God’s people being persecuted by the Romans? How does that happen? And how do you witness in the midst of all that?’”

Blount calls Job and early Christians “models of faithfulness in the midst of the question.”

“This is why, I think, it’s important that there is no rapture in Book of Revelation. John doesn’t want his people to think that the expectation for them and their witnessing is to be raptured out of the tribulations in life. The expectation for them is to be a model of witnessing in the midst of tribulation,” he explained.

“If you can witness that God is in control when it looks like God isn’t in control, there you are demonstrating a faithfulness that other people will stand up and notice.”

Blount shared his views during a recent Facebook Live interview with the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty, senior director of the Theological Education Fund at the Presbyterian Foundation.

In this time of pandemic, Blount is focusing on nurturing and caring for the community he serves at Union Presbyterian Seminary, he said.

The author of “Invasion of the Dead: Preaching Resurrection,” Blount said the opportunity to be in the classroom discussing Revelation in this midst of the world’s health crisis was exciting.

So how does he suggest followers of Christ, who believe that God is sovereign and in control, witness to that during this difficult time?

He’d like for the church to reclaim the notion of the apocalypse from popular culture, he said, adding that he read a lot of popular culture apocalyptic materials and saw zombie movies prior to writing “Invasion of the Dead.”

The constant thread in the popular culture apocalyptic world is fear and hopelessness, even in heroic moments, he said. The heroic moments are islands in an ocean of despair.

“In the New Testament there is despair, hopelessness, but those are the islands. The real ocean is the hopefulness that is coming,” Blount said. “This hopefulness is built from God’s invasion in Jesus. And then I think we become conduits of that invasion in the way we replicate Jesus’ ministry in our own lives.”

In so doing, Christians bring into the present God’s future intent, one of wholeness and community, looking out for those less powerful and less privileged.

If Christians emulate that, they become apocalyptic themselves, Blount said, revelatory apocalyptic, not end of time apocalyptic.

Blount makes the case that “the signal place that God makes that invitation is not in the cross, although that is key moment, but it is in the resurrection. Because the resurrection redeems the cross. It claims life over death and that the life is a promise for all of us. The hopefulness of New Testament apocalyptic can counter the pessimism and despair of cultural apocalyptic.”

When asked about his hopefulness, Blount responded, “I’ve read to the end of The Book [the Bible]. There is a great hope I am promised at the end of the book. In my best moments, I feel it. It has been bred in me. While there is difficulty in the middle of the book, there is hope in the end. There is a promise in that. God can and does break through in the present, just like God did with Jesus.”

Sally Scherer for the Presbyterian Foundation; Writer and Communications Consultant based in Lexington, Kentucky; Member, Elder and Choir Member at Second Presbyterian Church

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Melanie Komp, Presbyterian Foundation
Luciano Kovacs, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Most loving and compassionate God, may your comforting presence and abundance of grace be on our service providers, churches and communities who have suffered immense loss from natural and human-made disasters. Amen.