www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Church expenditures

Do we have any Church treasurers or financial people on this forum? Some questions have been raised on another thread about the cost of operating a parish. I do realize that some items are covered outside the budget but I wonder if people could offer some realistic estimates about the cost of running a Church. I suggest that you not be specific to the penny and not reveal what Church or even what eparchy. I think there may be a difference between rural and suburban or urban and that information might be helpful. Also, if you know that you are subsidized in any way include that figure as well.

I could give you Annunciation's breakdown but instead I'll give the yearly total. It takes between $178,000 and $182,000 per year to operate the parish. If all expenditures are accounted for I'd be very surprised if that is much different from the average Church in the metropolia.

Here is an average breakdown of expenditures at the last couple of parishes I served which were both a bit larger than the average BC parish but a bit smaller than Annunciation.

Pastoral expense, including salary, housing, insurance,pension, continuing education, and supply pastor when we were on vacation. $65,000 (My salary never exceeded $28,000)

Local ministry and Operating expenses for the Church including religious items, education, evangelization, utilities, maintenance and repairs and loan repayments. $63,000

Mission both in our area and worldwide. $40,000

Our average yearly expenditure for Churches with about 130-170 families was $168,000

We never received judicatory support. We were self sufficient.

There is no grade or judgment. I'm just desiring to learn. My suspicion is that except for mission the costs are about the same if judicatory support is factored in.

CDL

So far this is pretty self limiting. No one has responded. I mean this thread to be for Eastern Catholics only. I intended the poll to be for ECs only as well but since I did not state it the poll is not particularly useful.

ECs only, please.

CDL

Though I can't contribute, I am very interested in this topic and thank you CDL for raising it.

But I do have to ask, isn't the expenditures for an Orthodox parish basically the same for a BC parish?

I would think so. Go ahead and share what you have. I can't see that it would hurt.

CDL

In the Van Nuys Eparchy, the parishes give an annual statement of income/expenditures to the registered parishioners. Most other non profit organisations I have been active in (as an officer reporting to the board) I have received annual income/expenditure statements. While a parish is not a business, IMHO, it is good business to let the 'shareholders' (parishioners) know where their money goes.

Steve

I know this was the norm in Passaic as well for most of its existance...however, I know of parishes where they had not received these annual financial reports for several years and formal complaints needed to go to the chancery to get them.

I don't know, nor do I actually care at this point (in the BCC at least) if this is mandatory or if it is just a best practice that most have implemented...I only ask to hopefully help get CDL's thread started...

FYI...for anyone reading this...I think it should be known that CDL and myself agree on many things...but we strongly disagree on others...please don't read my postings on other threads as a dislike of CDL...just passionate responses...

Carson...would you see the same expenses applying to a parish of 50 families? Keeping in mind that many of the parishes are established and no longer have mortgages...

Could you share those figures for the parish you attend or if the figures are published for a typical parish in Van Nuys?

CDL

Chris,

On the surface that is correct. But are we really talking about a Church or a social club? Churches have life and are ever renewing. I show a film on Orthodoxy in Romania in my Comparative Religions classes. The narrator asked some seminarians if the Church needed to be reformed. Their answer made me set up and take notice. "The Church never needs reform only revival of the Spirit. The Church has the capacity to ever renew its spirit." One might change a word or two but not really. I agree with this.

What you call an established Church looks more like a dying club. Here's the pattern of a social club and that applies to far too many Churches. 1. The first generation has great energy. They have a mission and a vision for fulfilling it. They urge the priest forward. They build. They evangelized. They grow. 2. The second generation begins to rest upon the laurels of their parents generation. Some drift away from boredom. Some hold themselves to fairly high standards similar to their parents. Some even evangelize but most do not. 3. The congregation grows old together. They are more affluent and have put away some money. They are almost uniformly complacent. They know they aren't need but they like the familiarity of the setting and want a place to be buried. Every so often they get a twinge of conscience but they quickly put that to rest by the green sleeping powders that set in their bank accounts. They build nothing. They don't evangelize. They even express some irritation with converts. 4. They die out.

For many of our Churches stage 3 is the norm.

Contrast that with a Church. They never leave stage 1 except for temporary slips into stage 2. Stage 3 is no longer a Church.

Churches build. They may reach a point at which theosis is best promoted but then they begin to help build other congregations. They are constantly evangelizing. They don't shrink their budgets just so they won't have to spend money on expanding the kingdom of God they rather increase it so that new congregations in new areas can be raised up. They doh't make loans to other Churches they send their money and some of their members into areas not yet evangelized and watch the Church continue to grow and revive itself. They know that if 100 families is their optimum number in their local congregatin that when they reach that point they send some of their members elsewhere to form new congregations. BTW I don't know how many families in one congregation is the optimum number. I don't even think that is a particularly relevant issue. What is relevant is this as long as the Church is continually cooperating with a renewal of it spirit it remains a Church. When it slips into self sufficiency and complacency it ceases to be a Church and becomes a social club.

I say this with great empathy for the way your church was closed. It was secretive and wrong. However, when you look back at your former congregation asked yourself were we a Church or just a stage 3 club. You can answer that. I cannot and am not pretending to do so.

God has given you now a wonderful opportunity. You are in a new congregation. Is it a stage three social club. Or is it ever renewing and helping to build new congregation. If it refuses to be renewed it too will die and you will face death where you have moved.

Don't shoot the messenger. I may be wrong in some particulars but enough research has been done that these observations are essentially correct. I've seen enough to know that they are true and it has nothing to do with the name on the Church door. It is universal.

Now to finally directly answer your question. If $160,000 represents a tithe of 50 active families then yes the budget would not change. If the local Church does not have a mortgage the extra 30-50,000 should be used to start new congregations or to help the Church in some poor or devastated area of the world. The expenditures should be a statement of the Church's life and faith and not of its convenience or sloth.

CDL

Doesn't anyone have any facts and figures for their own congregation?

CDL

All I got is what our local RC parish has done. Sorry.

How would your studies, universal as you claim that they are, explain the remarkable success of small parishes that went on for centuries and continues now among both eastern Catholics and eastern Orthodox in the United States and in Europe?

You've explained the death spiral, which I contend is the same for a wide range of parish demographics, but you have yet to yield to the reality of the successes, except to deny that they are successes, rather forcing them, without any real data, to rest on some point in your continuum of demise and eventual death.

I think that is where you've not followed through, nor have the studies which give you such personal confidence to make the kinds of assertions that you've made for months here, speaking for this very particular Church. By your own admission you really don't know the Church very broadly. In fact you claim there is no need because you've studied Methodist churches.

I don't know any sociology department worth it's salt that would take that as a thesis defense. I think you'd be told to go back and do it properly.

I don't see where your conclusions are warranted, scientifically or statistically speaking.

Eli

Eli,

First, why are we not growing? Second, can every Church closing be blamed upon evil bishops? Third, it is easy to explain why some Churches remain small yet vital. In some areas its because village life remains about the same as it always has for centuries. Hence the Church remains stable as every generation continues. In other areas small churches follow precisely the pattern I outlined. They bring in new members and they export some of them to start new congregations in new areas.
Fourth, this isn't a college class.

Now, you keep suggesting that there are factors for which I have not accounted. That is good. Show us what they are. This isn't some game. We are all I thought looking for ways to make our church more vital. I didn't know the game was "I gotcha!" If that is your game, and it often seems to be, go play with someone else. I'm not interested.

CDL

I guess you think this passes for adult conversation.

Yes. I challenged your basic assumptions and assertions. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.

You're reply was predictable I suppose, but it came as something of a shock, nonetheless.

Thank you.

Eli

Eli,

Stop playing this insulting game. Make your point or I'll simply ignore you.

CDL