Financial Help for Pastors

RON HAMILTON, CONFERENCE MINISTER

Our Conference has been invited to share in the Financial Health Solutions program sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). This program was developed through a grant from the Lilly Endowment and is now available to six denominations which belong to the NAE. The Lilly Endowment foundation has a history of resourcing pastors and churches with special needs and has identified that most pastors experience significant financial stress in their lives and ministries. NAE developed the program to help pastors discover the best financial practices for their personal lives and their church ministries.

The program provides assessment surveys for pastors to help them and their church identify areas of financial health where they are already doing well, and where there is room for improvement. These assessments are available online and take about 5-7 minutes to complete. The results of the assessment surveys provide a Financial Health Score and help the participant discover best financial practices and valuable online resources. All survey responses are confidential.

The program also provides downloadable resources on personal finances, pastoral compensation, church finances, and church generosity. These resources help pastors learn best practices in setting financial goals, borrowing, health care, saving money or making additional incomes, retirement planning and more. They also help churches discover best practices for pastoral compensation and point them to over 100 practical resources from financial experts on pastor salaries, housing allowance, social security and retirement administration, workplace expenses, insurance and more.

There is also online training available through the program with modules on personal finances, pastoral compensation and the development of church generosity. These six-month plans are to help to improve financial health. The plans are free and allow a pastor and spouse — or a pastor and church leaders — to meet once a month and work together on shared goals. The online training courses utilize assessment surveys and robust resources, and can be started anytime and anywhere.

A CCCC specific website on Financial Health Solutions will be developed in the coming months. Until that time, any member of the Conference can access these resources at https://naefinancialhealth.org/.

We will provide more information about this helpful and stimulating program in the coming months.