Creating a Narrative
Budget in Your Church
Stewardship Commission of the ECC
What is a Narrative
Budget?
•It is the sacred story of the ministry of your church
•One of the most important ways we can affect on-going
stewardship education
•A tool to expand the budgeting process by telling the stories
of our ministries and showing where our donations were used
Narrative Budgeting…
Donors don’t give money TO the church…
…they give THROUGH the church to touch the lives of other people
People give generously when they feel their money is having an impact
Sacred story…
Much of Scripture is the sacred story of God’s care for the people of
God. ie. Exodus 16 and Manna from heaven.
Just as individuals have sacred stories of God’s providential care for
them…
…a narrative budget is the sacred story of your church’s ministry and
how we are giving through their church to touch the lives of other
people
We have a theological
starting point…
…and that starting point is that we are NOT a secular
institution.
Our faith calls us to view the deployment of money
much differently than secular institutions
Together,
…we can begin to view money from the
perspective of a faith community rather than a
secular perspective
This has a serious implication…
We need a whole new way of
thinking about the line item
budget in the local church!!
A new way of thinking
Line item budgets are an accounting tool
Narrative budgets are an educational and
visioning tool
We need both but we must be more intentional in
how we use both
Line item budgets have
limitations
They do not show how money is being invested in
ministry
They do not show how volunteer time and talent
are impacting church and community life
Worst of all – they do not inspire!
The Narrative Budget
Clearly shows how money is being invested in the
various components of church life
Helps donors to re-frame what the church is all
about
Inspires donors and helps them see their
donations are really making a difference
Is a proven tool for increasing financial
commitment to the ministry of the church
The Narrative Budget
Recognizes that congregations are not inspired at
the prospect of funding administrative costs,
postage, heat, electricity, cleaning supplies,
photocopying, etc.
And helps donors see their investment in the
ministry of the church in a different light.
The Narrative Budget
So how does Narrative Budgeting work?
Each church has several
key components to its
ministry…
Your church’s ministry might easily be segmented into these six
components:
• Pastoral Care
•Christian Education
• Worship
•Evangelism and Hospitality
•Outreach
•In-reach and Fellowship
All church expenditures can be
assigned to one of these six areas:
•Pastoral Care
•Christian Education
•Worship
•Evangelism and Hospitality
•Outreach
•In-reach and Fellowship
Experience shows Six Categories
seem to be Optimum
This means you will have to make some decisions about what
categories are right for your church.
•Some churches like a youth ministry category. Some
have found it easiest to fit both Youth Ministry and
Stewardship Education into the ‘Christian Education’
segment
•However, you could put Youth Ministry in the
‘Outreach’ or ‘Evangelism’ categories if that makes
more sense for your church.
Notice what category is
NOT included in a
Narrative Budget
•Pastoral Care
•Christian Education
• Worship
•Evangelism and Hospitality
•Outreach
•In-reach and Fellowship
Do you see the ADMINISTRATION category on
this list??
If you use ADMINISTRATION as a
category in your Narrative Budget
•You will be defeating the entire purpose of
Narrative Budgeting!
A small team can put
together your church’s
Narrative Budget
•Start by getting your full time staff to diarize
how they spend their time for a month. They can
also review their day planners for the previous
month
•Allocate their time among the six areas of
ministry
•Treat that as directional for how other
expenditures in the line item budget should be
allocated among the six areas of ministry
•Some line items in your budget will be easy to
allocate (Sunday school supplies to Christian
education for example)
So after a month of diarizing by the full
time staff you will have an allocation
formula
• For example the pastor might spend 15% of his/her time on
Christian Education; 10% on Outreach; 30% on Worship and
Worship preparation; 10% on In-reach and Fellowship; and 15%
on Evangelism and Hospitality and the remaining 20% on
Pastoral Care
•We then take this formula and use it as a blueprint for line
items that are difficult to allocate
Don’t get caught in a
trap
• Many churches implementing Narrative
Budgeting for the first time miss a big point –
they get too caught up on delivering accuracy
and don’t give themselves permission to treat
the Narrative Budget as directional.
•Its not that we deliberately try to be
inaccurate. We try to be as accurate as
possible but we also recognize that, as an
educational tool, helping reframe minds and
getting donors to think about how their
donation is used is more important than
accuracy
Here’s what you will have when you are
done with your first Narrative Budget…
Sample line items in a church budget…
PROPERTY
Util. (Light, Heat & Water)
Telephone
Insurance
Maintenance & Supplies
Actual
$ 7,983.00
$ 821.00
$ 1,620.00
$ 6,854.00
…are allocated via the six categories of
ministry
Actual
PROPERTY
Util. (Light, Heat, & Water)
Telephone
Insurance
Maintenance & Supplies
Outreach Worship
$ 7,983 $ 2,794
$
821 $
164
$ 1,620 $
567
$ 6,854 $ 2,399
$
$
$
$
798
164
162
685
These calculations are fed into a software
spreadsheet to produce the following pie chart:
First Cov's Investment in Ministries in
2004
Outreach
Christian Educ.
$23,412
$47,673
Music & Worship
$11,869
$19,506
Pastoral Care
Evangelism
$21,078 $18,415
The software also permits the budget to be expressed
in percentages:
First Cov's Investment in Ministries in 2004
Outreach
Christian Educ.
Music & Worship
Pastoral Care
Evangelism
$23,412
$11,869
$19,506
$21,078
$47,673
$18,415
Or the software lets you look at
individual slices of the pie…
Our Investment in Outreach in 2004
Outreach
34%
Other
Ministries
66%
The net takeaway we want donors to
have is this:
• 14 cents of every dollar I give goes to Pastoral Care
• 34 cents of every dollar I give goes to Outreach
• etc.
And the good news is we have made the
whole process very simple to do:
• By accessing the ECC web-site you can download
all the Excel software already programmed so
that all you have to do is fill in your own figures,
and pie charts will be generated for your church
• You can access it through the stewardship link at
www.CovChurch.org/finances
Time and Talent Worksheet
You can also find a template for calculating and reporting
volunteer hours against the five categories of ministry at the
same web address and link www.CovChurch.org/finances
We tell the story of the individual
slices of the ministry pie
• There is a narrative for Outreach, a narrative
for Evangelism, a narrative for Pastoral Care,
etc.
•We funnel the story from the macro story to
the micro story
The Pastoral Care narrative might look
something like this:
The ministry of Pastoral Care at First Cov. involves
the following services:
•taking of home communion to three local nursing
homes each month
• on call at two local funeral homes and follow up
with the mourners from 30 funerals in 2011
•frequent visiting at three local hospitals to care
for parishioners recovering from illness or surgery
More pastoral care ministries
•counseling services to couples and individuals in
marital crisis
•care of college students in crisis due to stressrelated pressures of school
•self help group set up to care for unemployed in
the area
•bereaved families support group
•etc.
Then we get even more specific and tell
the ministry sacred stories
Kristen is a first year student in Biology at NPU. It’s
her first time away from home and her family is in
Lumsden, Saskatchewan. She has been having a
difficult time with her classes and her grades have
slipped dramatically since high school. Her mother
was badly hurt in a car accident last month and
Kristen is not coping well. She walked in off the
street last Wednesday morning and all her pain
came gushing out in the pastor’s office. She and
the pastor connected and she has showed up in
church the last few Sundays feeling like she has
found a “family” to care for her
We tell the stories of the real people
touched by our ministry
•Tell a few stories for each category of ministry
•Donors begin to get a better sense of the impact
the ministry the church is having on peoples’ lives
•Experience shows they become inspired and
take a much greater ownership of the many
ministries of the church
There are many ways to get the story
out
•Executive Board reports
•Church newsletter
•Bulletin inserts
•Church website
•Fall Stewardship mailings
•Narrative Budgeting pamphlets
•Personal contact
•Include in intercessory prayers
Use Sunday worship to tell the
sacred stories
•Put a bulletin insert out each week for six
weeks highlighting a different category of
ministry
•Pray for that ministry
•Tell a specific story of a person being
touched by that ministry
Adding Time and Talent
•You can do special charts that illustrate
volunteer hours against the six categories of
ministry
•Parishioners get a sense of how vital and
vibrant the local church is when looked at in
the context of volunteer time
Let’s look at one aspect of Volunteer
time
Sunday Morning Worship
•Ushers – two people X 2 hours= 4 hours
•Choir, Worship team, Organist– ten member X 2
hours of worship and two+ hours of practice time =
40 hours
•Readers, servers, counters, sides-people, 10 X 1.5
hours = 15 hours
•Almost 70 hours of volunteer time in one week X 44
weeks =3,080 hours of volunteer time in Sunday
morning worship alone
In an average size church
When you factor in all ministries, we estimate that
10,000 – 15,000 volunteer hours per year are
accumulated
That’s a significant impact on any
local community!!
Narrative Budgeting is an Evolving
Process
•Each year you will get better at it as you add stories
and volunteer time and talent
•It improves with each cycle
•People will begin to think of the funding of the
ministry of the church in a new way
A Word about Council Meetings
We must change how we view money and ministry
Long before council, you will have begun a job of
education and awareness around the Narrative
Budget
The ECC Stewardship office strongly
recommends…
…that you leave the line item budget in the
church office at your annual member meeting.
Take only the Narrative Budget to your annual
meeting
You can still make the line item
budget available
…tell the left brain accountant types in the church
that there are five copies of the completed line item
budget available in the church office to be signed out
by anyone interested. You are not compromising
transparency.
As a faith-based organization be determined in your
desire to talk about money and ministry in a new
way. Don’t vacillate and fall back on the line item
budget for decision-making.
Make a leadership decision to leave the line
item budget out of your next Annual Meeting
…Then have the church council affirm the
leaders’ decision.
That way you can tell the church members that
the church council voted in favor of talking only
about the Narrative Budget at the annual
meeting, and the leaders aren’t standing alone in
making this decision
Maybe in your church…
…Business meetings will no longer be viewed
as the annual BUSINESS meeting of the
church, but will become
THE ANNUAL MISSION AND MINISTRY
MEETING
You may actually find…
…members get excited and start looking forward
to your annual ‘business’ meeting!!

As donors are engaged by the efforts
we make to show them…
…their money is having an impact on the lives of
people in need
