The life cycle of the parish budget
As Episcopal congregations prepare for their stewardship campaigns this Fall, the step which generally follows (and occasionally precedes) it is the creation of the congregation's budget for the coming year. But church budgets are a bit different than the typical business' budget and people highly skilled in business may not always be aware of the differences. And clergy and lay professionals who have worked in the church their whole careers may not be aware of the differences either.
Charles Hambrick-Stowe has a really helpful essay on the life-cycle of the church budget posted over the Duke Divinity School Call and Response blog. The essay isn't written specifically for Episcopalians, so there's few terms that will need translating into our context, but on the whole, it's worth taking the time to read.
He sees six distinct stages in the life of a congregation's budget process: conception, motivation, resolution, plumbline, reconception, and irrelevance.
Read the whole essay here.
