28 March, 2024

The Blessings of Scarcity

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by | 28 March, 2010 | 1 comment

By Stephen Bond

I meet for lunch every month with four other senior pastors who serve in my community. I”m surprised by the openness of each pastor in sharing the unique hurdles and challenges his church faces. But one challenge we”ve all wrestled with in the past two years is finances. The economic downturn has affected our churches in different degrees””but we”ve all felt the crunch.

In our state, Nevada, unemployment hovers near 13 percent. When people don”t have jobs, it often means they don”t have money to support their local church. This inevitably affects the financial resources churches have for ministry, often with dramatic consequences.

Countless churches have laid off valuable long-term staff members because they can no longer pay their salaries. Many other church staff members (including myself) have taken salary reductions. Ministry budgets have been slashed, and some ministries have been axed altogether. All in all, the economic downturn has resulted in one of the most challenging seasons of ministry in recent memory.

However, all is not lost””not by a very long shot. God is still gloriously on the throne. The gospel of Jesus Christ is still changing lives. And the church is still advancing victoriously against the forces of darkness. As much as I enjoyed the go-go years of robust financial growth, I now see that scarcity also has its virtues. Here are four things we are discovering about the blessings of scarcity.


We can do more with less.

The ministry budget in the church I serve has been reduced each of the past three years. Yet, amazingly, during that period our congregation has grown by hundreds of people. The scarceness of finances has not slowed our church”s advance. We continue to find creative ways to accomplish all of our mission-critical ministry efforts.

For example, our worship pastor discovered he could recycle stage set decorations, slightly modifying how they were used, to give an entirely new look at virtually no cost.

Our outreach pastor wanted to provide 1,000 printed T-shirts for a major service project in our community, but no budget dollars were available to purchase the T-shirts, so he found private party sponsors. The sponsors paid the entire bill in exchange for their company being recognized on the back of the T-shirts. It was a win-win for everyone.

We”ve seen creative examples like these in every ministry in our church.

However, this newfound creativity has raised nagging questions in my mind: Did we inadvertently squander some of the precious finances God entrusted to us during the times of plenty? How are we serving more people more effectively now with smaller ministry budgets?

Perhaps it”s a case of God miraculously multiplying our loaves and fish. But I still wonder if we didn”t truly need all the money we spent to fuel our ministries three years ago. One important blessing we are learning in this season of economic scarcity is it”s possible to do more life-changing ministry with less money.


We appreciate more the value of every dollar.

Another blessing of scarcity is we are learning to better appreciate the value of every dollar. We think more carefully before we spend each dollar people have invested in our church. We realize more acutely than ever that we can only spend a dollar once. This has been a profoundly important lesson.

Things I used to think were essential I now realize may not be necessary. For example, we stopped printing our weekend bulletins in color. This resulted in a substantial cost savings, and no one in the congregation even seemed to notice. As for new people, I don”t imagine anyone ever made their decision to plant themselves in a church based on how “cool” the bulletin looks.

We value every dollar now more than ever. As a corollary, we also appreciate more those who give their hard-earned money to advance the mission of our church.

Until recently I didn”t fully realize that when people give money, it is a sublime act of selflessness. People don”t have to give. They choose to give. My appreciation of this selfless act has increased in this season of economic scarcity.


We are more dependent on God.

I have always prayed for God”s blessing over the church”s finances. But I have never prayed more passionately or more fervently than I do now. The same is true for the entire staff and elder team. Since the economic downturn, everyone in leadership is more keenly aware of our finances. You can almost hear a collective sigh of relief on Monday when the offering numbers from the previous weekend are announced””if the offering has been strong.

Prayer reflects our sense of dependence on God. But when times are easy, we generally slacken in our prayers. We may delude ourselves, forgetting we literally depend on God for every heartbeat and breath. Yet, when a crisis crashes into our lives, it can abruptly change our perspective. When tough times hit us, we more readily see how much we depend on God, and we cry out to him more earnestly in prayer. This is very good.

Not long ago, we asked the entire church to fast and pray for jobs to open up for members seeking work and for God to prosper local businesses so they could hire more people. The response was amazing. Scores of people reported finding employment””and many of them had been looking for months or years.

One silver lining during tough times is we cry out to God more. This opens the opportunity to see the Lord move in extraordinary ways. This is another blessing of scarcity. A profound awareness of our desperate need for God has erupted in our church during this recession. We are learning to be much, much more dependent on God.


We are more sensitive to hurting people.

Every week we collect communication cards with prayer requests from people attending our services. These prayer requests are typed up and distributed to our prayer teams.

It”s not uncommon to have several hundred prayer requests from any given weekend. Times are tough. People are losing their jobs and their homes. The economic downturn has made us much more sensitive to the pain and fear people wrestle with.

Not long ago I received a comment from someone in our church. The person was out of work and broke””they were hurting. The person mentioned numerous references I had made about regularly going to Starbucks for my devotional time and said they would like to go to Starbucks sometime, but can”t afford it. This comment heightened my awareness to not thoughtlessly flaunt my personal economic stability.

With this in mind, I now think more carefully, for example, about what I wear when I preach. I do not want anything I do to obscure the message of Christ for hurting people.

I once heard Bob Russell challenge a group of pastors not to live in the biggest house they could afford, nor drive the nicest car they could afford. Financial modesty for those in ministry has always been wise, but now even more so in these tough times. Yet another blessing of scarcity is we are learning to be much more sensitive to hurting people.


God works for good.

I hope the economy turns around soon. It”s painful to have so many of our congregation out of work. But until the recovery happens, at least we are learning valuable lessons about the blessings in scarcity. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).




Stephen Bond serves as senior pastor with Summit Christian Church in Sparks, Nevada.

1 Comment

  1. Jeffrey Cheah

    This is a good economics lesson and I trust more of God’s people would learn the basic of economics!
    The study of Economics did not begin when Adam Smith who had been described as the ” father of modern days economics” by the experts in the field of economics!
    Did anyone know that when Man was driven out of the garden of Eden, the practice of economics had just started!
    God said to Adam: by the sweat of your brow you will toil the ground until you until you return to the to the dust, and from dust you were taken out and to dust shall you return!” Thus, we can infer that man has to work for his living!
    When Adam discovered he was naked and saw that his wife Eve. Was naked, they were ashamed and Adam had to make some covering for himself and his wife from the fig leaves he had plucked from the fig tree! Man started to make his own clothing and I suppose when he and his wife got hungry after making clothing for themselves, they had to look for food! Thus the activity of looking for food to fill his belly is a form of economic activity!
    Thus the practice of economics predates to the days of Adam and Eve! Strangely, the person whose name is Adam Smith has
    Been given the honor of this title the Father of Economics! The better person to be given this title should be the Adam of God!

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