Although religion in the United States is a $1.2 trillion dollar industry, I’m not making this case just because churches and other religious institutions bring in a lot of money. Churches meet many more criteria for being considered businesses.
(In this article, my goal is to refrain from drawing conclusions about whether it’s a good or a bad thing that most of our churches are businesses. As a business owner, I happen to believe business is an ideal place for Christian ministry. However, I do believe it’s disingenuous to operate a business and attempt to convince its stakeholders that it’s something somehow more noble and spiritual than a business.)
People pay billions of dollars to experience great music and great public speaking, which are two primary things people are pursuing when they attend a worship service on Sunday morning.
The Struggle Of Church Business
For example, I went to a phenomenal Chris Tomlin music concert not too long ago, whose music is played/covered by music groups in churches all over the world every Sunday.
At this concert, Pastor Louie Giglio preached a powerful message about God’s love. The entire experience was the type of unforgettable, Christ-centered move of God many churches strive for every Sunday morning.
I recently tracked down revenue and expenses data for 609 average-sized churches from a foundation that provides grant funding to small/average-sized churches. (
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Let’s assume you attend a church where 162 people will show up on a typical Sunday morning (I’m not talking about Easter Sunday). Your church’s cost for you to attend is $23.80. If you have a family of four, your cost would be $95.20.
Clearly, most people attending church aren’t covering their own family’s costs to attend through what they give in the offering. This means a small percentage of the attendees are footing the bill for the majority of the attendees. I think this arrangement is fine as long as the church entrepreneurs/CEOs are giving everyone informed consent about the reality of this financial arrangement.
Unless they simply don’t have the financial wherewithal, I believe every regular church attendee should give the actual per-person cost for your church weekly, assuming you can get this information from your church’s finance department (which may be difficult). I believe churches should publicize this information.
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Now, if you’re saying, “There’s no way I’m paying $23.80 per person every Sunday for my family to attend because we don’t get that amount of value out of the experience”, I suggest finding a different church or finding a more cost-effective way to worship with your fellow believers on a regular basis (e.g., gathering with Christian friends in a home for worship, attending a church that keeps is costs lower, attending a larger church where the per-person cost is lower, etc.).
When I say “church” in this article, I’m not talking about the universal “Church”, the sum total of God’s people around the world who confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and have repented of their sins (i.e., the “Bride of Christ”).
I’m talking about “church, Inc.”, legal entities located at a particular address (usually located within a few miles of another church), that typically host a gathering on Sunday mornings that includes rehearsed music and a speech delivered by a financially compensated public speaker, during which there is usually a collection of money requested from the attendees.
Annual Church Business Meeting
I would also consider the church I attend on Sunday morning to be a business. It provides value to our community, seeks to obey the laws of the land, creates jobs for the local community, generates profit to benefit more people, and aims to make disciples of Jesus Christ … just like the Christ-centered businesses many of God’s people operate.
When churches reach the requisite $23.80 in revenue per attendee each week, do they stop taking offerings? Of course not. Why? Because they want to become as profitable as possible.
Yes–like hospitals, universities, retail stores, investment banks, etc.–churches generate profit. If the church remains operational, you can be sure there’s profit. When they run out of profit, they close the doors.
Special Called Business Meeting — Fbc Desoto
But a primary difference between the local churches most of us attend on Sunday mornings and the other Christ-centered businesses carrying out the Great Commission in society (e.g., Christ-centered construction companies, Christ-centered fast food restaurants, etc.) is that the organization’s leaders are legally prohibited from putting the profits in their own pockets. That’s what it means to be a 501c3 tax-exempt organization here in the United States.
(Perhaps they would pocket at least some of the profits if it weren’t against the law. After all, many of them are the entrepreneurs who founded the church, which required just as much effort as it took for an entrepreneur to build any other small business of similar size.)
But the profit is still there. It’s just allocated in different ways (e.g., new buildings, paying guest preachers who will often return the favor by having your pastor come preach at his church, giving to “strategic ministry partners”, etc.).
First Baptist Suffolk: Suffolk, Va > Quarterly Business Meeting
Profit is frequently allocated to cover the pastor’s travel expenses. For example, I know one megachurch pastor in my city who travels to Africa every single week to preach in partner churches there. That’s at least $70, 000 per year just for airfare.
If there is benevolence giving to a member of the church in financial need, the applicant’s giving history will typically be taken into account, partially to ensure the person is not withdrawing from funds he/she has not deposited in the past.
This seems like a logical approach for a business. I wouldn’t expect a health club to allow me to take a dip in their pool just because I’m feeling hot. They would first check their records to see if I had first paid my dues.
Church Family Business Meeting
How many people can you count in the picture above? These are all people employed by one single church. This image above demonstrates the economic power of one megachurch in Charlotte, North Carolina to create jobs within its community.
Because there are so many church job openings to fill, there are dozens of employment agencies that specialize solely in recruiting staff members for churches.
It just so happens that churches typically have the most lucrative tax classification possible: complete tax exemption. They pay zero taxes on any revenue they bring in.
Annual Business Meeting Rescheduled
I believe the main reason churches don’t charge admission–or make more forceful appeals for money–is to avoid deterring visitors, who are the prospective members and givers who will ultimately contribute extra funds to help grow the church. It’s a “taste and see” approach.
Again, this makes good business sense. A health club typically wouldn’t charge a prospective member for the first workout in its facilities.
Likewise, many churches mention to first-time guests that they shouldn’t feel obligated to give during that initial visit. But for everyone else at offering time, it’s time to open those wallets and pocketbooks (or text to give, give through the church app, setup automatic billing through the church website, etc.).
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In addition to courting visitors with the hope of them becoming new donors, church entrepreneurs also launch full-spectrum financial giving campaigns periodically throughout the year … especially when the church is building new facilities. These campaigns often involve money collections separate from and in addition to the standard money collection during the Sunday service plus a series of sermons on the theme of giving and/or supporting the leader’s vision (e.g. citing Bible passages such as Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, Solomon’s building and dedication of the temple, etc.).
, Pastor Mark DeYmaz suggests that his fellow pastors should start exploring new opportunities for generating revenue beyond weekly donations, pursuing multiple streams of income. Some of his suggestions include…
Many churches require new pastoral staff members to sign non-compete clauses to prohibit those pastors from starting a “competing” church across the street.
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Those churches work hard–and frequently spend enormous sums of money on direct mail campaigns, billboards, radio/tv ads, movie theater ads, and much more–to attract new attendees, and they don’t want some ex-employee trying to steal them and their weekly giving away.
If you hired a new sales manager in your car dealership, you wouldn’t want that sales manager to leave your company and start a new one directly across the street and bring along the relationships built while working in your company.
The dream of most church entrepreneurs/CEOs I have met is to govern more than one church campus. This may occur through having “satellite campuses” where the preacher’s sermon is live streamed into church meetings at other geographical locations.
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Typically, the mother church will appoint a pastor for the new location, help with recruiting a “launch team”, and provide startup capital to rent a venue, purchase a sound system, etc.
1 – We generally have a low view of business as a tool for social and spiritual impact, and we want to assume that our churches are above businesses on the mythical sacred-secular hierarchy.
Some church entrepreneurs/CEOs go as far as to refer to their church buildings as “the house of God”, implying that every other institution outside the church building is something less than the house of God. Of course, this is
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