‘The Religion Business’ – Do Churches Focus on Money or People?

Megachurches have long been the focus of financial criticism: how much is the pastor paid? Why do Sunday services feel like rock concerts? Is it really necessary for leadership to do so much international travel? Who is this helping?

Key points

• Instead of letting a distaste fester, what if we let our questions inspire genuine consideration of church financial models?
• The Religion Business investigates how Christianity became institutionalised, and what financial approach most effectively uses donor dollars to impact local community.
• According to Nathan Apffel, 94 cents of every dollar given to churches is currently being used within the church walls.
• Listen to the full episode of UNDISTRACTED with guest Nathan Apffel in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.

Reading between the lines of the concern, is the sense that churches should be doing more for others than themselves.

That if they were truly “not for profit” the property portfolios of some of their most famous faces would be smaller.

It’s easy to attack the biggest elements of “the institution” and let a distaste for faith fester, but what if we let our questions inspire genuine consideration of church financial models?  Should churches be “businesses”? And, if we applied a business mindset to church, would we be more fiscally effective?

More to the point, what does Jesus say the church should be? Does our management of money reflect that?

Instead of letting a distaste fester, what if we let our questions inspire genuine consideration of church financial models?

Nathan Apffel is a filmmaker and follower of Jesus, who in his early twenties began to feel uneasy with the “undergirding business model” of church. Working in travel TV for many years, he’d visit congregations in some of the most remote, impoverished parts of the world and come back to something very different.

“In Matthew 25 Christ says you fed me when I was hungry, you gave me water when I was thirsty [and] you visited me when I was sick,” Nathan told Hope 103.2’s UNDISTRACTED podcast.

“It’s very straightforward when you look at Christ’s teaching that it’s the ‘least of these’ He came to help – He didn’t come for the righteous.

“The church as an institution is the antithesis to that.”

The Religion Business investigates how Christianity became institutionalised, and what financial approach most effectively uses donor dollars to impact local community.

Nathan’s series The Religion Business investigates how Christianity became institutionalised – especially in America – and what financial approach most effectively uses donor dollars to impact local community.

Right now, “94 cents of every dollar is used on ourselves” in the form of wages, overhead costs and events with only 6 cents of every dollar “making it outside the institutional walls to help the laundry list of individuals that Christ commanded us to help”.

“The model needs to be flipped,” Nathan said.

According to Nathan Apffel, 94 cents of every dollar given to churches is currently being used within the church walls.

What Nathan would love churches to be focused on, is something The Religion Business calls “local social capital”.

“’Local’ meaning your local community, ‘social’ meaning the welfare of the community, and ‘capital’ meaning resource [in the form] of time, energy, whatever that is,” Nathan said.

“Most churches and non-profits now look global, and they’ve forgotten this idea of local social capital.

“I think if we all focused on our close-knit ministry, the world would look radically different.”

Follow @religionbusiness on Instagram for updates about its April release.

Listen to the full episode of UNDISTRACTED with guest Nathan Apffel in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.