It bothers every time I hear a church’s success being equated to its growth in numbers or financial giving. I don’t believe that this is God’s metric for success in ministry. I was grieved to discover that a Pastor I hold in high esteem felt that one of his churches was failing due to its failure to become self-sustaining.

Like any other organization, the Church must return to its Mission and Vision statements as a guide for measuring its success. Unless the objectives encapsulated in its mission include growing to 2,000 people in 2 years, that metric has no place in the evaluation of its success. If financial stability is a chief consideration, but is not a key objective within its Mission, then the Church should look into ways of establishing income generating projects. This happens to be an approach I favor.

But what income generating projects should a church seek to establish?  There are many options available but I feel they do not include charging the congregation for access to the basic ‘equipment’ for successful Christian living. Ephesians 4:12 says in reference to the leadership of the church that, ‘Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.’  Every Church must include in its mission the instructions in Ephesians 4:11-12 and should ensure the cost of accessing the ‘equipment’ is zero.  For instance, Prayer is essential in the Christian faith and is an area in which every believer needs to be well equipped in. Charging people a fee to learn how to pray is just plain wrong. Charging for prayer is even worse (premium service prayer hot-lines for instance). Income generating projects must not include anything that can be described as ‘equipping the saints for the work of the ministry’.

I figure that any church looking to start income generating projects should consider setting up a kindergarten / day care as a service to the congregation and the community in the area. A coffee shop is another idea that would do well depending on the location of the church. And how about a tape/book table?  There are many creative ways a church can raise money to meet its objectives.

The more churches push essential services into the income generating bracket, the worse they do at meeting their real objectives. Consequently, no matter how big the church grows in numbers, the believers attending that church would never grow to the level God wants for them to be. The church’s leadership would be failing terribly. The role of the church is to provide, as a free service, any thing that qualifies to be labeled under ‘equipping the saints for the work of the ministry’ and the success of the church should be in how well its members are equipped. All 10 or all 10,000 of them.