Transparent finances are essential for effective stewardship
Photo from Photos.comIt is imperative that the pastor, along with his leadership team (especially the parish business manager and the parish finance council), exhibit the highest standards of integrity and responsibility in handling the parish’s temporal assets.
During my stewardship presentations I provide examples of pastors who used poor judgment and wasted parish resources, frequently with the rubber-stamp approval of the parish business manager and finance council. After my presentation, I’m routinely approached by members of the audience who say something like, “You think that’s bad, let me tell you what my pastor did!” Typically their tales reveal a lack of prudence on the part of the pastor, but all too frequently they also reflect illegal and even immoral uses of parish resources.
The easiest way to guard against inappropriate (whether illegal or not) use of parish resources is to establish transparency and accountability in all parish financial matters. Some parishes encourage parishioner input into the formation of the parish budget by holding open hearings. Still others make their monthly financial statements public, either by making copies available somewhere on parish grounds or by posting them on the parish web site.
Let’s be very clear. If a pastor wants to introduce stewardship into the parish, he must be certain that he and his staff are good stewards of parish resources. This includes caring for parish facilities through preventative maintenance as well as using good judgment in making all expenditures. Parishioners who doubt the stewardship of their parish leadership can’t be expected to develop into good stewards themselves. TP
*This article is excerpted from Today’s Parish magazine (September 2004).
Charles Zech is a professor of economics at Villanova University and the editor of The Parish Management Handbook (Twenty-Third Publications).
