A look back at the articles that mattered most to our readers in 2024
By RaeAnn Slaybaugh
In the past year, Church Executive has covered a lot of topics. Among them, a handful resonated best with our readers.
With the help of our thought leader partners, we’ve written about rapid expansion, building projects, and the financial partnerships needed to navigate both with excellence. We’ve delved into how to respond to a child sexual abuse allegation from the past and minister to victims of sex trafficking in a meaningful way, today. We’ve explored technologies and managed services that save valuable time — yours and your church family’s.
We’ve guided you in how to maintain your church’s insurability, examined ministry transition/supplemental options you might not have considered before, and helped you avoid falling victim to a phone, text or email scam.
The subjects vary widely, but the metrics speak for themselves: they all deserve a second look.
#1: STEPPING OUT — TOGETHER — IN FAITH
By RaeAnn Slaybaugh
For Pastor Ron Johnson, Jr. and his congregation at Living Stones Church in Crown Point, Ind., massive growth came about in a highly unlikely time: during COVID.
When churches were deemed by the Indiana governor as non-essential, Johnson and his team shut down Living Stones for several weeks. Not long after, they committed to keeping the church open instead.
“All I knew for sure was that we couldn’t keep living this way,” Johnson recalled. “So, we stepped out in faith.”
Droves of new people attended each week; instead of 25 new members, quarterly in Living Stones’ Starting Point program, that figure grew to 100 new members per month during the two years during COVID.
To keep up with the growth, Johnson introduced a third service. As of press time, that service had been in place for four years and counting. Even so, it was evident that the church was out of space — especially in the areas that housed worship, children’s ministry, administration and fellowship.
More sanctuary space was the first order of business. To get the project underway, Pastor Johnson enlisted Rodney James, president and founder of Master’s Plan Church Design & Construction, who not only led the church’s previous renovation project but had also become a close friend.
After ensuring enough parking was built into the expanding church footprint, James and Johnson determined that, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be possible to expand the existing sanctuary. So, a new, 1,000-seat, 14,000-square-foot sanctuary was added.
Next came 6,200 square feet of preschool / nursery space — a big relief for the Sunday School ministry, which was previously so full that the church had to turn children away.
Living Stones then added 5,200 square feet of administrative space, including (amazingly) transforming the square footage previously occupied by the women’s restroom into the receptionist’s office.
In total, the church added more than 33,000 square feet of ministry space to its thriving campus. To find out how the project was finished under budget — even as COVID drove sharp price increases and supply chain delays for building materials — it’s worth revisiting this inspiring story.
#2: HOW TO NAVIGATE A SEXUAL ABUSE ALLEGATION FROM THE PAST
By Gregory Love and Kimberlee Norris
At this point, no church leader is unaware of (or immune to) the threat of child sexual abuse on their campus. But what about sexual abuse allegations related to abusive behavior occurring at the hands of staff members or volunteers from the past?
For many pastors, this is unchartered territory — especially if the alleged bad actor is no longer involved in the church, has passed away, or if records are minimal or nonexistent.
“Many ministry leaders do not understand sexual abuse, sexual abusers, or what an appropriate response to an allegation looks like,” advise authors Gregory Love and Kimberlee Norris, partners in the Fort Worth, Texas law firm of Love & Norris and founders of MinistrySafe. “Consequently,” they add, “wrong responses to historical allegations abound.”
First, as Love and Norris assert, the church’s response must be victim-centric, not ministry- or abuser-centric. But what does that look like?
“Keep in mind: when an allegation is received, there are very few ‘neutral’ statements or positions,” the authors explain. “The ministry’s response will be either victim-centric or other-centric: actions and statements that clearly demonstrate a priority for something or someone other than the victim.”
That’s some very good advice, and there’s a lot more where that came from. For instance, did you know that false allegations are rare? Or how to create a pre-existing plan … or even what that entails? What about community with the congregation in the aftermath of an allegation? Or more difficult yet, the abuse survivors and their families?
To find out how to best respond when an allegation of child sexual abuse that stems from behavior occurring in the distant past — and how to help prevent new occurrences — be sure to read this crucial article.
#3: USING TECHNOLOGY TO MANAGE YOUR FINANCES
By Angela Park
With busy church executives’ time at premium, it’s no surprise that an article spotlighting technology to help manage personal finances would be so popular. But with so many apps and programs out there, guidance from an expert — like Angela Park, who leads a team of Member Service Specialists within MMBB’s Service Center — is welcome.
“Choosing the right financial app can feel like finding the perfect pair of shoes: it needs to fit just right,” Park advises. Part of ensuring that fit is examining your unique financial management needs.
In this article, the author introduces readers to several apps:
• One that helps you stop living from paycheck to paycheck, pay down debt, and “roll with the punches” if something unexpected comes up
• Another that connects all your bank accounts, credit cards and investments in one place, giving you a complete overview of your financial life
• A tool developed by financial expert Dave Ramsey providing a straight-forward, no-nonsense solution for tracking and reducing debt, emphasizing planning by assigning each dollar a purpose
• One that makes tracking bills, savings goals and cash flow simple — and lets you add as many people as you want to your budget, including your spouse or financial planner
• A handy tool for couples who want to manage their money together, offering transparency, easy budgeting and helpful reminders, all while promoting financial communication and collaboration.
If any of these sound like something you could use yourself, go check out this helpful article.
#4: MEETING OF THE MINDS
By Jeremy Moore
For The Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville, Fla., many lessons have been learned ‘on the fly’ as the church enjoys faster-than-expected growth in the 13 years since it was founded with a single campus.
Today, in-person attendance averages more than 21,000 weekend across 11 campuses and three prison campuses — including one located 100 miles away. This is not to mention Eleven22’s online footprint, of 40,000 viewers per weekend.
From a financial perspective, such monumental, quick growth has created some challenges — including what Chief Financial Officer Paul Williams describes as a “series of one-off mortgages.”
“We now had a ministry that was going to be here for the long term,” Williams explains. “We needed an institution that could refinance all of our campuses into one loan and extend it out to 10 years, so that we had a longer maturity base for our business plan.”
He and his team found what the church was looking for in BMO Commercial Bank’s dedicated Religious Institution Banking group. Staffed with bankers who are experienced in serving churches, this relationship eliminates the learning curve inherent to working with more traditional lenders.
“From the beginning, they understood exactly where we were and where we were headed,” Williams says. “They were able to partner with us to get our term loan in place based on the facilities we had. And as we’ve been growing campus by campus, they’ve been able to help us structure our ownership so that they can finance it.”
Since switching to BMO, the church is now doing ground-up construction. This includes a master-planned community north of Jacksonville called Wildlight, which is expected to be completed in 2026. As Williams points out, the church also plans to start campuses in Orlando and St. Augustine.
To learn more about how this banking relationship helps the church forecast its growth plans — as well as provides informed estimates of what could be provided so the church can finalize its strategic plans with an assumed level of financing — revisit this informative article.
#5: PURPOSE-DRIVEN PRODUCTION
By Christina Kennedy
When a church executive hears the word “stewardship,” it often conjures up finances. But technology tools can also translate to good stewardship, as discovered by The Belonging Co., a Nashville-based church that’s internationally renowned for its high-energy worship experiences and multimedia-rich conferences.
DigitalGlue’s Christina Kennedy presents (in plain English) the story of how this trailblazing church has overcome immense challenges related to fragmented storage, manual data transfer, and bottlenecks that slowed down their post-production process by weeks.
“With the help of DigitalGlue’s creative.space storage, The Belonging Co. team completely transformed its workflow,” Kennedy explains. “From managing hundreds of terabytes of footage to remote editing literally on the fly, creative.space provided a seamless, user-friendly storage solution that has redefined their production efficiency.”
Even if the subject seems outside the realm of what a typical pastor spends his or her time thinking about every day, this part should surely resonate: shifting to this new storage solution has already generated anticipated savings of more than $600,000 over the next five years.
Learn more by revisiting this in-depth article.
#6: COULD PART-TIME U.S. ARMY RESERVE CHAPLAINCY BE A FIT FOR YOU?
By RaeAnn Slaybaugh
By their nature, church leaders are service-oriented. It stands to reason, then, that an article delving into the opportunity represented by U.S. Army Reserve chaplaincy would land in our top 10 articles of 2024.
“Across the board, the U.S. Army Reserve is for those individuals who want to remain in a civilian capacity but also to serve in the Army,” explains CH (MAJ) Walter McCall, Senior Chaplain, U.S. Army Chaplain Recruiting South-Central Station. “For the Reserve Chaplaincy role specifically, these are ministers who — like me at one time — are in pastoral roles, who enjoy serving their local churches, yet still feel the call to do Army ministry.”
Even better, anyone in the Reserve serves in an Army Reserve center closest to their home of record. McCall says this was conducive when he was an associate pastor. “As the chaplain for my soldiers coming to my one-weekend-per-month worship service, I questioned them: ‘Where are you going to church?’” he recalls. “For many, I was their only pastor, so I invited them to the church where I was the associate pastor.”
The same was true for his mentor, who — according to McCall — told his home church: “This gets me out of these four walls and makes me a missionary to our community.”
And, McCall adds, U.S. Army Reserve chaplaincy is also a great fit for people who are already institutional chaplains in hospitals, in the VA system, in the workplace, prisons, and so on.
If this sounds like something to explore, check out this helpful Q&A to learn what it means to commission as an Officer from the get-go, plus citizenship requirements for Reserve chaplaincy, and even the possibility of age waivers based on ministry experience.
#7: TOP 5 WAYS FOR YOUR CHURCH TO MAINTAIN INSURABILITY
By Travis Tjepkema, CIC
Increased weather-related claims. Economic and social inflation. Each factor has driven US property and casualty market carriers — including those whose clients include churches — to significant rate increases and increased non-renewal activity.
According to Travis Tjepkema, CIC, president of Church & Casualty Insurance Agency, non-renewals are higher than ever in the house-of-worship market. In fact, he says, right now is “the most unique time” he has ever experienced in his 30 years in the church insurance marketplace.
Like any problem, understanding the reasons behind it is the first step. To this end, Tjepkema says, church non-renewals are typically due to one or a combination of the following: (1) a church’s physical location is in a catastrophe-prone area; (2) the deteriorating care and condition of a church’s facilities, or lack of risk management; and (3) a church’s claims history.
“While an insurance non-renewal is not a death sentence, it is, unfortunately, a scarlet letter,” he adds. “[A]nd getting replacement coverage with other carriers can often result in premiums that are two to three times higher.”
To get ahead of the issue before it becomes a crisis, Tjepkema offers five solid strategies to keep your pricing as competitive as possible. Revisit what those are here.
#8: SCAMS ARE ON THE RISE: How to stay safe
By Sharon McDowell
These days, scam texts, spam phone calls and phishing emails are a daily danger for Americans. With more than 50 billion phony calls made per year, in excess of 376 million spam text messages sent, and a nearly 30-percent increase in phishing emails, victims lose nearly $40 billion to scams every year.
And that figure just keeps growing as the attempts become more and more sophisticated.
Sharon McDowell, the business liaison and technical trainer at MMBB, encounters these nefarious efforts every day in her role. She says text messages are especially effective because everyone is always on his or her phone. “Scammers know this and use highly emotional language filled with urgency and danger to trick us into acting without thinking,” she explains.
With these attacks coming at us left and right every day, how do we keep ourselves safe? As McDowell points out, even the savviest person can be fooled by a scam message that looks like it’s from a big, known corporation — Amazon, FedEx, UPS, Chase, Bank of America, and so on.
As a first step, it helps to know the four main components of a scam message, according to McDowell:
#1: It usually claims to be from a well-known organization or company.
#2: There is a problem, or a prize involved. “In addition to the examples above, you might also be told you earned a reward, are getting a tax rebate, or someone wants to give you a gift card,” she points out.
#3: There is an urgency to the message with pressure to act immediately.
#4: Payment is required or requested in a very specific way.
Now that you know what to look for, McDowell has specific recommendations that can keep you safe from even the most sophisticated scam attempts. Check out that article here.
#9: DRIVING BETTER STEWARDSHIP WITH MANAGED ACCOUNTING SERVICES
By RaeAnn Slaybaugh
Any church leader is, rightfully, focused day in and day out on good stewardship. While it might seem like keeping functions like accounting in-house is a good stewardship move, what if it’s not? What if your church could actually save money — and valuable staff time — by outsourcing that process?
Well, this is exactly what happened at Immanuel Baptist Church in Pace, Fla.
As of press time, on-campus attendance at Immanuel had doubled to 800 per week in four years. Blessed growth, for sure … but also a challenge when it comes to efficient, effective money-management.
Making matters more complicated, the church’s financial representative on staff had chosen to depart. Church leaders were caught without a backup solution.
All were challenges, to be sure; but Pastor Jeremy Holley also saw this time of transition as an opportunity to do things differently — and maybe even better.
For instance, the previous pastor focused almost entirely on ministry, leaving business dealings and financials to be overseen by the aforementioned employee functioning as financial representative. “Some staff felt that’s the way it should be,” Holley says. “But as the pastor, I felt I needed to be involved in the financial decision-making of the church. It’s just a personal conviction.”
Before long, he discovered WatersEdge Ministry Accounting Services and began a conversation about the church’s needs, followed by a proposal. According to Holley, the solution was not only simple to implement, but it met all of Immanuel Baptist’s needs, and then some.
In this in-depth case study, learn all about how church leaders are now benefiting from cost savings — not to mention better oversight, increased efficiency, and more transparency/accessibility — since they switched to managed accounting services.
#10: RELIEF FOR VICTIMS OF SEX TRAFFICKING
By Gregory Love and Kimberlee Norris
For individuals being trafficked, countless churches, ministries and nonprofits can (literally) be lifesavers.
Countless such organizations are committed to rescuing men, women and children from the sex trade — beginning with the extraordinary challenge of helping them simply get out, and then moving on to restoration.
Now, in response to a momentous 2022 law and a ready-made process, they can play an even more proactive role.
“After breaking free, the trafficking survivor is heavily dependent on others for shelter, clothing, medical attention, counseling and other life necessities,” explain law partners and MinistrySafe co-founders Gregory Love and Kimberlee Norris. “Ultimately, however, the survivor must move toward a life characterized by independence and stability. In this process, the survivor encounters additional obstacles that must be overcome: criminal records and negative credit reports.”
Fortunately, a 2022 federal law is a game-changer for the trafficking survivor — and churches, ministries and nonprofits can help to ensure that survivors actually receive the benefits of the new law. In short, the law provides a pathway to block the reporting of adverse information stemming from trafficking: the underlying records are not expunged, but simply blocked, if the appropriate process is followed.
This is where churches come in.
MinistrySafe began creating the forms and processes for a trafficking survivor to access the benefits of the new law but needed a trafficking survivor to partner with them in testing the new process and forms. As a service to survivors, MinistrySafe is making all research, sample forms and step-by-step instructions available to all churches, ministries and nonprofits with a mission to rescue and restore individuals who have been trafficked.
To learn all about these documents and the research necessary to initiate this process, revisit this crucial, timely article.
