What’s in this Episode?

Have you ever said to yourself, “if we just had a little more money, we could hire someone full time?” Well, the reality is churches can’t always do that, but they can compensate people in different ways. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how a church can stipend some people and the reasons why they should consider doing so. We are talking about paying stipends to key people.

---

Read the Transcript

Jonathan Hardy 0:00
Have you ever said to yourself, “If we just have a little more money, we could hire someone full time?

Jonathan Hardy 0:03
Well, the reality is churches can’t always do that. But they can compensate people in different ways. And so, in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how a church can stipend some people and the reasons why they should consider doing so. Here we go.

Jonathan Hardy 0:22
So, in 2013, I was part of starting Summit Park Church in Kansas City, as you know, and that was a new experience for me. I’ve never had been a part of a church plan before. And one of the things that I came to learn as kind of a strategy for helping the team out was by by giving people some stipends, financially, to be able to help them when the church can’t support a bunch of people full time.

Jonathan Hardy 0:46
And so, you know, the way that played out practically was, you know, the church was able to be at the point where financially it could support the lead pastor, but not the other team members that were key leaders overseeing different ministries and such. They’re all volunteers and and so on. You know, we began as we could financially, to be able to give people a gift here and there financially, maybe even make it more consistent on a monthly basis where we were helping people out before we could bring people on full time.

Jonathan Hardy 0:58
And so, that was kind of a new concept for me. And it really is one of the things that we’ve started to share as an idea with churches. And that’s what we want to talk to you about today, here on this episode, because there are some ways that you can make this work and it can be a big win for you and for the church.

Dick Hardy 1:11
Absolutely.

Jonathan Hardy 1:18
And so, specifically, we want to give you three reasons on why to pay people stipends. They’re at your church and so, Dick why don’t you kick us off?

Dick Hardy 1:39
Absolutely. We have the first one and we’re not saying this is an exhaustive list of reasons but these three really are very foundational for you to be able to put a good stipend kind of policy or to set in motion for your church. The very first one is that stipends help you move quicker. Okay, here’s the reality. I’ve never come across the church that’s got so much money, they don’t know what to do with it all.

Dick Hardy 2:05
When churches like Summit Park would have been a classic case, growth and attendance of the church always leads revenue. It’s never the other way around. I shouldn’t say never, but seldom is it the other way around where money is way ahead and growth catches up with it. So, your church is growing, and you need to bring some people on to help the pastor. And yet you don’t have the money to do it.

Dick Hardy 2:30
And if you have to wait until you get enough money to bring a person on full time, well, maybe you’ll get to that point and you could bring one on full time. But if you’ll utilize the stipends you could maybe stipend three or four people.

Dick Hardy 2:42
Yeah.

Dick Hardy 2:43
For a much lesser amount of money.

Jonathan Hardy 2:45
And then yeah, than it would be for one,

Dick Hardy 2:48
One full-time person. Exactly. So, it helps you move quicker.

Jonathan Hardy 2:52
Hold on. Oh, what I was gonna say on that. I thought you were getting ready to jump to our next point. I was like, “Oh, hold up. We got stuff to talk about here.”

Dick Hardy 2:58
That’s right.

Jonathan Hardy 2:58
No. Well, I think to even during, you know, you look at the whole COVID-19 pandemic situation. One of the things that I think during this season of ministry, churches were realizing as well, we nedd to move stuff online, all of a sudden. They didn’t have an online pastor quote, unquote, or you know, someone who is able to do that. And so, you know, that’s an idea. That’s a that’s an example, where you may say, you know, what we need to, you know, someone might volunteer their time to do it.

Dick Hardy 3:26
And for a period of time, they’ll do well.

Jonathan Hardy 3:28
Yeah. But you know, it can help if you have you know, something where they’re kind of almost become like contract labor to be able to help you keep that going on a regular basis. So, that’s just an example that came to mind as you were talking about moving fast because COVID you know, happens, then boom, we got to make a decision. We can’t hire a full time person to run all this.

Dick Hardy 3:47
So now, we’ve talked about these kinds of things, not in the COVID context here, but in episode seven, how to balance a church budget. Because you’re in there dealing with your budget, your revenue, your expenses. Stipends can fit in, much easier than a salary would in that particular episode and episode 27. The top four places to cut the church budget. Now you may be saying cut the budget, okay?

Dick Hardy 4:14
There may be times where you’re having to maneuver things around and squeeze it down. Stipends, really just trust us on this. It can help you be able to accomplish things that you really wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. So, the second one is that stipends, communicate appreciation. Now, here’s the drill. You’ve got to be sure that the pert the recipient of the stipend, and this starts with you. You have to communicate, thank you. You have to communicate how much we appreciate what you’re doing. This is not trading dollars for hours.

Dick Hardy 4:50
So, this is not “Oh, you give eight hours a week to the church and therefore, we’re gonna pay you $20 an hour.” It’s not that and in fact, if the recipient to think that way, you know, you’re gonna give somebody a, you know, $100 stipend, you know, and they’re working 50 hours a week. They’re gonna say, “Man, this is a lousy rate per hour.” No, you can’t you can’t think of it that way. They can’t think about that. And you’ll prevent that from happening, ifyou communicate that this is not payment for your time. This is the church saying thank you for what you’re doing. Stipends communicate appreciation.

Jonathan Hardy 5:30
Yeah. Another one well, and on that, too, I think it’s important that all of our viewers and listeners know on this whole issue, you have to, you know, you have to sort this out with your CPA, at your, you know, your church. Because it just can be sticky from an HR standpoint, if you’re saying that they are, you’re treating them like an employee, but you’re paying them like contract labor. So, that’s something I we probably should have mentioned at the beginning.

Jonathan Hardy 5:59
We just have to, we’re going into this thinking in terms of more of the contract labor types standpoint where there is a little bit of the ability for you to do that. If you’re treating them 100% like an employee, then you just, you have to figure that out with with your people, but you know, because of the laws and all of that. So, I think that’s something we probably should have mentioned earlier. But the point is, you know this is a way to show appreciation. And it’s huge.

In our case, when we were launching the church, I mean, that was a great little benefit.

Jonathan Hardy 6:30
It was like, “Hey, man, you’re giving a lot of your time. You know, here’s 100 bucks, here’s 250 bucks, here’s, and it just because it’s like, well, it’s something something’s better than nothing. So, if you can do something, that’s great. Another thing I might mention, this isn’t a point or anything, but just as you’re showing this appreciation, you know, you can’t necessarily, you might not necessarily be able to do the same thing for every person all the time.

But if you can do something for someone, it’s better than saying well, because we can’t do it for everyone, we’re not going to do it for anyone. You know, do what you can when you can. And that’s a huge way to show appreciation. Okay, well anyway, so the third thing, the third reason we want to share today is that stipends can clarify. expectations. Stipends, can clarify expectations. So, you know, it gives you a way to say, “Hey, here’s what we’re looking at. Here’s what you’re doing.”

Jonathan Hardy 7:20
And, you know, this helps them understand their role, the responsibilities, the things that you’re, you’ve been trusted them to run with, and to lead the charge on. And so, that’s just a way for you to help clarify those expectations. So, that way, there’s no, it’s not muddy. It’s not, you know, unclear or anything like that. So Dick, why don’t you recap?

Dick Hardy 7:42
So here’s the recap of the three reasons to pay stipends, there at your church. One, stipends help you move quicker. Number two, stipends communicate appreciation. And number three. Stipends can clarify expectations. There’s the three and if you’ll use those rationale to move forward, you’re gonna see good things happen at the church.

Jonathan Hardy 7:42
That’s right. And as a relates to this, this is one of the things you’ve heard us talk about multiple times. But this all ties to developing the people in your church, especially your key leaders. And when we’re doing things like this, these are ways for us to help development and help show that appreciation help be the leader that we need to be to them.

Jonathan Hardy 8:22
Because the more we can lead the way and use creative leadership and creative financing to be able to resource these people and help them as they’re sacrificing and giving so much to the church. That’s an important thing for us to do. And one of the ways that you can continue to grow in your personal leadership is through the Five Day Leadership Challenge. You’ve heard us talk about it. It’s a five-day, 15 minute per day challenge that you can do, day one.

The day you sign up for it is day one and it takes you through for five days. And so, you can sign up for it anytime you want. And if you just go to leaders.church/challenge, Dick and I will give some challenges to you to help challenge you to be the leader that God has called to be and wants you to be. And during these times of life right now, we need to be stronger leaders now more than ever before. And so, we want to encourage you to do that as well.

We hope that you’ll follow us on the social media platforms in the show notes. We’ve got links to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and they all the social media platforms. And then finally, please subscribe. We’d love to have you subscribe, whether it’s YouTube or whether it’s a podcast platform. Make sure to subscribe and give that five-star review. We love seeing those five-star reviews. In fact, I want to share a five-star review from Caleb 2431. Caleb said this is great, clear and concise content.

I’m able to digest and conceptualize all of this information quickly and efficiently. For a person on the go, this is the most effective podcast I’ve listened to on this topic. Hey, well, thank you, Caleb 2431. Appreciate that. And we look forward to seeing your review. Make sure to leave that review. And you could be the next one on the podcast. What else do you have?

Dick Hardy 9:56
All good.

Jonathan Hardy 9:57
All right. Well, hey, thank you so much for being with us today. We’ll Look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.

Jonathan Hardy 10:02
Hey, Jonathan here, real quick before you go. Everything in your ministry rises and falls on your leadership. So investing in your leadership is essential to staying healthy and growing the ministry. And that’s why I want to invite you to join us inside the leaders.church membership.

Jonathan Hardy 10:15
This online streaming service for pastors gives you access to more than 300 videos plus training material to level up your leadership and improve your ministry skills. If you’d like to do that I want to invite you to go to leaders.church/boost. Again, that’s leaders.church/boost. Well, thanks again for joining us on the Church Tips podcast. We’ll look forward to seeing you next time.

Subscribe & Follow:

• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Follow on Spotify
• Subscribe to YouTube Channel
• Subscribe on Google Podcasts
• Like us on Facebook
• Follow us on Instagram
• Follow us on Twitter

Other Resources:

• Leaders.Church
• Leaders.Church Blog
• Church University
• Take the Free 5 Day Leadership Challenge for Pastors
• Get Free Access to the 4 Secrets Masterclass

Share This Article

---