Brother Can You Spare a Million?

Rick Warren must enjoy controversy, or at least subscribe to the “no publicity is bad publicity” view as his latest issue stems from his end of the year plea for members to donate $1 Million dollars over a few days to clear a deficit in his budget.

With 10% of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated. Still, with wise management, we’ve stayed close to our budget all year. Then this last weekend the bottom dropped out.

On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive — leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year, unless you help make up the difference today and tomorrow.

Let’s leave aside for a few moments the number of $900,000 (which may seem huge, but for a large fellowship isn’t really that big) and read between the lines to see what’s actually going on at Saddleback Church — if they were on budget and now in the red $900,000 in one week (in which giving was half normal) we know two things:

1. They normally receive $1.8 million/week or about $95 Million per year. If those numbers are off by 50%, Saddleback still has an operating budget of around $50 million.
2. If a one week reduction in income puts them in a bind, they need new people managing their finances. Certainly with a budget that size Saddleback can afford a specialist to help them manage money.

Later, Pastor Warren said the following about the controversy he created:

The cause of our financial shortfall was NOT a management issue but simply by the way Christmas occurred in this year’s calendar. After 10 packed Christmas services, and with Christmas Day on Friday, many people were out of town or too tired to come back for weekend services, so the unusually low attendance created an unusually low offering. That is understandable.

Since it appears Pastor Warren won’t open his financial books, nobody knows how much he receives, or how it’s spent. Those are obviously problems for a man of God, but for the moment we’ll ignore them. We’ll also ignore the obvious problem of how they manage their finances as a small decline for one week causes crisis mode.

Where is the reserve fund? Are they spending 100% of what they receive each week? Again, as the books remain closed those important questions will remain unanswered — a thought which should trouble members of Saddleback Church as each member is responsible for their stewardship.

In spite of those issues, they’re not the most important, or the ones we’ll focus on as Pastor Warren will answer to God for his stewardship (or lack thereof) of what he’s been given. His members will answer to God for their trust of a situation which utterly lacks transparency and accountability. Some must be comfortable in Pastor Warren’s handling of finances, while others are likely nervous.

However, what does matter (and for regular readers of this blog what we’ve talked about before), is how others see Pastor Warren’s desperate plea for funds, contrasted with his best selling books and the revenue those must generate. The following comments appeared on ABC News’ story about Warren’s request for money.

What happened with “Give with a cheerful heart?” Are we not to give out of love and wanting to worship our Heavenly Father. We are not to give because we are pressured or feel we have to. I find this very sad. This church has spent millions on lighted stairs and buildings with waterfalls outside and so much that used the money HE now is looking for.

I’m surprised he isn’t telling his flock that God will kill him if they don’t come up with the money. It worked for that other weirdo.

I’ve personally had experiences with “Christian” businesses before and I can say that I’ll never use them again. One was a roofer who supposedly built a small church by himself. His crew did a good job, but after I thought they had given me an accurate estimate, they found “more” tile they had to remove, so they ended up ripping me off of $700 extra. Yes, I know, I’m a relatively inexperienced homeowner, but my point is I trusted someone who I thought was a good Christian fellow, but in the end, the money was what REALLY mattered. I’m not knocking Christians in general AT ALL because I do personally know some people who are truly GENUINE. Like anywhere else, it’s the few bad apples that can give a bad name.

HALLELUJA! Make big money off of Jesus. BTW, where in the Bible does Jesus say, “To be saved you must donate lots of money to a church so they can buy a massive chapel with luxurious furnishings plus giant screen TV and mega-audio system.” I’ve looked and he don’t say that.

True or not, the average non-Christian’s view of mega-church pastors like Warren is the stereotypical TV evangelist always begging for money in the sleaziest way (God will call me home, we’ll go off the air if you don’t give, and so on). By the tactics and methods Pastor Warren chose to use he reinforces that stereotype. We’re not stating churches shouldn’t have buildings, or pay the pastor a salary or anything else; each assembly must decide those issues for themselves. But the more visible a group and person is (like Warren and Saddleback Church) the more he must make extra effort to avoid not just overly profiting from his ministry, but the appearance of that image. In that goal he’s failed (rather dramatically).

That’s the real problem with the methods Warren chose to use. If his church truly exists in such a financial bind, it would have been much preferable for the matter to be handled privately. Better still, an adequate reserve fund for such foreseeable and minor (for a huge group like Saddleback) budget variances.

By using the tactics Warren chose to, he reinforced the negative image of the church as money-grabbing scammers. And that’s an issue everyone in the church should agree is a problem, including pastor Warren.