June Spending Fast

Pastor came to me a few months ago with the crazy idea of going on a spending fast for a month. Well we’re really doing it. We have entered into the month of June with the hopes and dreams of not spending a dime. Well…not exactly. We have, however, taken up all credit cards and given strict instruction that there will be no reimbursements for the month.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to have the power cut off or get evicted and everybody is still getting paid. What we are doing is going back to our roots. We moved to Charlotte to plant Elevation Church with no money and no sense. We didn’t turn in receipts because we didn’t write a check out of the checking account until we bought our first sound system.

We were scrappy and had to be creative to make things happen. God has blessed Elevation and we want to remain blessable. We aren’t reacting to any over spending issues. In fact, we just finished a financial review and things are good. We are simply trying to take some of the newer staff back to the beginning and remind some longer tenured staff what it was like to have a shoestring budget and a big dream.

We’ve always run it pretty tight at Elevation. We had over 900 people coming to the church before we made our 3rd full time hire- myself. Here are a few of the details of how we are conducting the June spending fast: No meals will be covered by the church. We are going on our Staff Advance in June (we never retreat) and we are splitting gas, paying for our own hotel rooms, and having to look at the prices on the menu at the restaurant because it is every man for himself. Volunteer appreciation will be done with hand-written notes and not Starbucks cards. And we are using credit card points to buy gas cards.

This is also a season to strengthen our stakes and plan better. Anything needed for our Sunday worship experiences had to be ordered before June 1st. We aren’t lowering the standards on Sunday just requiring the staff to plan ahead and learn to get out in front.

Don’t be confused, the spending fast has very little to do with saving money. In the end it is likely that we will not save a dime. The operating expenses we are fasting from actually make a very small portion of the budget and many things were purchased ahead of time.

In the end, we may make June our “no spending” month every year. It will show our staff where we came from and require them to plan ahead. It will also keep them from taking God’s blessings for granted.