The responsibilities of the finance department at Elevation Church include accounts receivable (depositing and recording contributions), accounts payable (recording the expenses and paying the bills), and reporting (keeping track of budgets for each ministry area).

We use ACS People Suite to record contributions. We send out a quarterly giving statement to the church that includes their year to date giving, as well as an end of year statement for tax purposes. We began using Fellowshipone and were very satisfied but switched due to an inability to get internet in the school we meet in thus not allowing us to use the check-in feature (very important to us).

For accounts payable, we use ACS Financial Suite to record all expenses. ACS has some limitations for “multi-site� churches. We’ve used Quickbooks in the past and may go back or another avenue if ACS can’t meet our “multi-site� needs. All of our controls are designed to maintain the integrity of the church. For example, I, as the finance manager, cut checks and our Executive Pastor signs them. The goal that no one person can do anything “funny� with the church finances alone.

Each ministry leader is responsible for his or her budget at both campuses. The approved budget (approved by the Board of Directors of the church) is entered into ACS Financial Suite in December for the following year and the ministry leaders are given monthly updates of the status of their budget. Our goal in the budgeting process is accountability not to limit ministry.

Balance sheets are created monthly and reviewed as part of the budgeting process. Our fiscal year runs the same as the calendar year. We have an external audit firm perform an audit of our financial statements and controls. Most people wait until they need a loan and the bank requires an audit. We do it annually for the accountability.

We outsource our payroll to Paychex (a move I highly recommend). They send out W-2’s and 1099’s for us annually as well. Payroll is performed biweekly and we enter the payroll biweekly into ACS Financial.

We perform bank reconciliations monthly and create a cash flow report weekly that informs the Executive Pastor of our financial position. We maintain a fixed asset list in Excel as well as in ACS that includes depreciation expenses. The journal entry for depreciation is made annually for the fiscal year and is reflected on the balance sheet.

These are just a few of the basics. This is not the glamorous part of running a church but it is very important in maintaining the integrity of the ministry.

Joel Salter, Finance Manager

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Who approves debt and the final budget at Elevation?
In accordance with government regulations under the IRS’s section 501(c)3 and as indicated in the church bylaws, the board of directors of the non-profit corporation (Elevation Church) make the final decision on debt and the annual budget. The board is referred to as the Ministry Leadership Team.

Who sets the Pastor’s salary?
Pastor Steven has a Board of Overseers that he is accountable to and their primary purpose is to set the salary of the Lead Pastor as indicated in the church bylaws. The Board is comprised of five members. Three of the five are senior pastors of large churches in the Southeast and understand the pressures of a fast-growing church.

How does Elevation allocate funds in the budgeting process?
We budget according to a fairly simple yet effective model. Everything is allocated according to percentages. The goal is at the end of the year to give away 10% of the annual income, use 40% for all personnel, operate on 20%, and use 30% toward facilities. Being portable is a less expensive model of church from a rent/mortgage perspective, however equipment costs are expensive and that along with saving toward future site acquisition make up the 30% total for facilities.

Chunks Corbett, Executive Pastor

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Every church eventually does some semblance of a “capital campaign�. Typically, it is a project to raise money for a new building, an educational wing, the church bus, or land. But what do you do when there is no project? How do you raise money without a set of blueprints or a track of land to show people? And for the readers of this blog who mostly work in portable church environments, there are a whole set of different questions or reasons to wait to do a capital campaign:

We’re too young to ask our people to give. People will think we’re all about the money. If we built the building we can afford, we’d outgrow it on the first day. How do we even begin the capital campaign process? We’ll loose people. Is our church ready for this? What are we even raising money for anyway? We don’t even know what the next step would be.

At Elevation we have said them all and decided to enter into a season of generosity anyway. We want to see our church demonstrate revolutionary sacrifice through this “capital campaign�. There is no project that we are asking people to give towards. But there is a vision.

Sure, we want to position ourselves so that when God does reveal what the next step of Elevation is that we are ready to move financially but it’s not all about the church needing money. It’s about the people who need to give it.

Every church leader that has gone through an effective campaign will tell you the same thing. They’ll talk about how much the faith of their church was increased during that season. You’ll hear them say they wish they had done it sooner. But it still won’t make sense until you see things unfold for yourself.

My message in this is simple. Don’t wait for the ultimate building or land to take your church through a major fundraiser. Put your finger on the pulse of the church and decide when it’s time to take renters and make them owners, to give people an opportunity to invest in something with eternal impact, to run off some stingy Christians that weren’t going to give anyway (lost people get that it costs money to do church), to take your people on an faith journey, to see a culture of generosity permeate your culture. Â

Don’t let the age of your church or your fears of what people will think keep you from developing giving leaders in your church. You don’t under develop the small group leaders, the set-up and tear-down teams, the greeters and ushers. So why under develop the gift of giving.

If you don’t have a project to raise money toward, is that a bad thing? This is for the church planters trying to figure out how to not be portable (which isn’t so bad). Elevation will probably raise money toward a project one day but right now what better thing to leverage than the vision God has given your church. If people won’t give to that then you have other problems.

Strategies will change every day and when they do you can bet you’ll loose people that were giving to a strategy. But the vision remains the same. At Elevation we exist so that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ. And to see thousands of people’s lives changed, and that costs money.

Chunks Corbett, Executive Pastor

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Each weekend we have church planters from around the country come to Charlotte to see what God is up to at Elevation Church. With each of the visits there are a few things you can always count on happening. First, they will be given the VIP treatment from Chunks Corbett, our Executive Pastor. He will spend hours with each team answering every one of their questions and explaining every element of what we do. The second thing that happens is the church planters will experience our volunteer force firsthand. The question they will invariably ask is, “how do you get your volunteers so committed?? The answer to that question is easy to say, but extremely difficult to engineer. The answer is vision, but it goes way beyond a tag line or a rah-rah session. It comes from a place a calling and a singular focus on a common goal, “seeing people far from God filled with life in Christ?.
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To see how well a church believes in the their vision don’t start with the Pastor or the staff, start with the guy in parking lot or the lady changing diapers in the baby room. Go and ask them, “why do you park cars? and see what kind of response you get. That’s where you’ll learn how powerful the vision is in a church; how deep does it permeate through the organization. Is the parking guy just as passionate about his role and opportunity as the Lead Pastor? If he is, now you’re onto something, because everyone in the organization is moving in the same spirit with a singular focus. That’s called unity; as a house divided against itself cannot stand.

At Elevation Church, we’re becoming even more passionate about moving forward with a singular vision and here are a few practical things that have been guiding us along the way.

1. Check the flow – Ask the guy in the parking lot “why do you park cars?  What do you hope to hear from him? At Elevation we want to hear two things: 1) People are coming here today who are far from God and need to be filled with Jesus Christ and 2) My role as a parking guy is a vital link in the chain of people coming to faith in Christ; they connect what they do to the vision with passion and excitement.
   
2. Be slow to appoint – The key to having your vision permeate through the organization is directly linked to who you put in your leadership roles. You need to be slow and put in place only those who believe in the vision of your church. Learning the vision is a process and takes time, here’s a simple filter I am beginning to use in communicating the concept:Â
        A. Understanding the vision – Do they clearly understand the guiding
   Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â principles behind the vision?
        B. Embrace the vision – Do their actions show they understand
   Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â the vision?
         C. Communicate the vision – Will they speak it to those around them?
        D. Defend – Will they correct someone who is speaking contradictorily ofÂ
   Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â the vision?
   Only appoint leaders who have gone through the filter and will defend the vision. Time on the front end will save a mess at best or a mutiny at worse on the backend.
   
3. How are you training – Look at your training systems for every area and evaluate how much time you spend teaching the x’s and o’s of how to perform their role and how much time is spent on vision casting? How often do you do retraining? How frequently will they hear the vision? Is the vision communicated as pieces of information or as a compelling call to action that connects people’s hearts with what they do and the vision of the church?

The biggest commodity you have in your church is vision. It needs to be constantly communicated, demonstrated in the leaders, and always defended. The influential capacity of your church will be determined by how deep the vision permeates your organization.Â
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Larry Brey, Assimilation Pastor
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