A TOOL FOR BUILDING TRUST, TRANSPARENCY, AND CONNECTION AS TOLD BY REV. ROBIN BLAKEMORE, INTERIM REGIONAL MINISTER FOR THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN NEBRASKA
Stewardship is often a loaded word in ministry. It’s far too easy to equate stewardship with money so that financial concerns become the sole focus of conversations or campaigns or the complexities and fear of money drive dialogue to anything but the bottom line. In either case, scarcity is often the root of our approach to stewardship. We don’t have enough… Everyone needs to do their fair share… If only…
This is magnified in middle-judicatories, where the value—the benefit of remaining connected regionally—is harder to articulate. Telling the stories of ministry, transformation, and purpose becomes even more critical; that’s where a narrative budget is essential. Narrative budgets that reflect the spirit of ministry can inspire and engage people to invest their time, energy, and money in ministry. I believe this is true for every expression of the church, but I am speaking specifically to my own experience in Regional Ministry.
When I began ministry with the Christian Church in Nebraska, they already had an Annual Fund in place for individual donors as well as consistent participation in the Christmas Offering. The Annual Fund appeal was made through a letter sent once a year inviting people to pledge/give.
In initial conversations with regional leaders, they prioritized strengthening connections with local churches and individuals, so we decided one way to address that disconnect would be to use a narrative budget outlining what we accomplished in 2024 and setting goals for 2025. The plan was to send this with a stewardship letter to share a bit more about Regional Ministry and its impact on Nebraska.
We began the narrative budget with a theme that went hand-in-hand with our Regional Assembly theme, “Celebrating Connections” because it built on the work we had done and embodied what we were hoping to accomplish. An effective narrative budget is built on the structure of your ministry. The Nebraska Regional Board is organized around four “centers”:
- The Regional Church
- Church Leadership
- Church Development
- Church in Mission
This established the way we would structure our budget for the publication. Your structure will be different, but the principles are universal.
Our financial leaders sat down to redistribute our line-item budget, allocating each expense to one of these four “centers.” This included a time study by each of our staff establishing how much time they devoted to each “center.” For example, I had to classify which “center” Sunday morning worship visits would be assigned. We decided it was based on the purpose of the visit.
So, a visit for worship only would be Center on the Regional Church, but a visit that included meeting with leadership or the whole church would fall under the Center for Church Development. (This was the best decision for us, but certainly not the only way to do it.) This is a time-consuming step, particularly for ministry staff, but it is an important one. You should be able to take those percentage allocations and determine a dollar amount to include in each category/center as you calculate the dollar amounts and overall percentages.*
Often, our budgets are administratively heavy, and congregations/individuals don’t always translate salaries or Pension Fund payments into ministry. This is how you help them make that connection. This step then allows you to create a pie chart that shows dollar and percentage allocations for all your categories/ministries.
Then, as you build the narrative budget, you share stories that explain the purpose of each of your categories/ministry areas. This is the place you highlight the ways the Region is engaged in ministry: share numbers, include pictures, remind people of the ways you are fulfilling your mission. Let people across your region see how their ministries are interwoven. Be sure you share ways that people can engage with and support ministry! This is also where you can include ministries and money outside of your regular budget, like endowments, designated gi.s, or partner ministries.
From a publication standpoint, best practices teach us that quality matters, so here it’s worth investing in a bit higher quality paper with full color printing. I have found local print shops are often the most cost-effective way to go.
In November 2024, we mailed copies of the narrative budget with a thank you note to all our congregations and ministry partners, because we wanted each faith community to be connected. In addition, we mailed a copy of the narrative budget to each of our Annual Fund donors with a letter from the Regional Board that included an invitation to support regional ministry. (It is important for regions to remind donors that this should not impact local church commitments!)
We believe we are already seeing benefits from this investment. Nebraska has seen a slight increase in our giving (about 4.5%), but more importantly, we seem to be building trust with stakeholders in the region and have more people participating in the life of the Christian Church in Nebraska. A Narrative Budget will not solve all the challenges facing Regional Ministry, but it is an important tool of communication in building trust, transparency, and connection.
*The time study percentage results for the Interim Regional Minister in 2024 were 28% Regional Church, 25% Church Development, 32% Church Leadership, 15% Church in Mission.