CEP SEASON THREE EP: 07 - WITH GUEST PAUL RICE

Feb 23

A short bio about Paul

Paul is married with two sons, 3-yr and 7-mo, and works as an aerospace engineer for a US defence contractor, specialising in experimental helicopters.

About nine years ago, he started serving as his Church’s treasurer. After an “enlightening” conversation with his pastor, he developed the financial and accounting systems they are still using today.

Paul hosts the Mission Driven Budget Podcast to help church leaders eliminate financial stress and generously fund their Church’s mission.

In part two, we continue the conversation with Paul exploring why church leaders need to make sure they have a healthy view of money personally, or it could impact the church or organisation they lead.

SHOW NOTES

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

CREATED BY AI - SO NOT 100% accurate.

David Mckeown 0:00

Welcome to the church explained podcast conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church today. I am the host of the podcast. Nathan is not with us today. So it's myself and our special guest, Paul Weiss. Paul, welcome to the show.

Paul Rice 0:18

The third way, yeah, go for it,

David Mckeown 0:19

and then never just interrupted, because I think that is a good thing for people to think of is that margin. Because as you've described there, Paul, it's not just for emergency. But this idea of like, you know, what is the unexpected opportunities going to come our way this year? What's something that maybe college kind of surprises on? And I guess, if you've got an emergency fund, that's one thing, but if you have margin is something that's even better, really, isn't that, you know, because it covers, it covers not just the emergency, but it covers opportunities, and other things that could open up as well. I mean, it would be good to think of like, what do you what do you feel? Let's say, for example, a Church charge a 10% margin. Do you think that's different than investment? Think churches have investments in the other things?

Paul Rice 1:06

As an like, physical financial investments? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think those are helpful. And it's something that we as a Church have been looking at, now that we have a cash pool built up. Obviously, the market is down pretty severely at the moment, and we were going to invest back in in January of 2022. And we're very glad that God told us to be patient and wait, and how because it would be, it would be worth about half roughly of what it is right now. And so yeah, I think I would encourage if you have the cash reserves, so obviously, common sense, get that emergency fund in place, right, let's make sure we have enough to cover the the emergencies that occur. But then once you get past that, as you start building up cash reserves, it's a great opportunity to begin investing, either in the market, mutual funds are pretty, pretty safe. Generally speaking, obviously, they do ebb and flow. But yeah, it's a great opportunity to make sure that the money that you have saved in the bank that's not reserved for emergencies, is actually growing. Yeah, inflation here in the US has been about 7%. In the last several months, I don't I don't know what it's been like elsewhere in other countries. But you know, if your money's just sitting in the bank, then it's not protected against that inflation. And so churches can take advantage of that as well. And here's the great thing to Church investments grow tax free. And so if, again, again, I'm thinking of that from the US perspective here. Yeah, yeah, but, but because churches are considered nonprofit organisations, any growth, any gains that you make on those investments as a Church are yours, they are not taxed in any way. And so it's a great opportunity. Another another tip that we're about to implement here is make sure that your savings that you are keeping your emergency fund is if you're a US, and maybe they have they have other similar things overseas, make sure that that savings isn't a high yield savings account. Most US savings account rates are about point zero 1%. And so your money is basically sitting there doing nothing. Get that into a high yield. If you're in the US, you can usually get three to 4%. And you know, if you've got $100,000 in there, 4% that is four grand in a year, another $4,000 a year, what could your Church do with another $4,000?

David Mckeown 3:27

Yeah, exactly. Exact Hey, well, thanks for sharing that. Some of that may relates more to the American audience. And that's fine. That one's for free. So they can grow up. So hey, you've mentioned two things. What's the last three things with the jurisdiction of this system are around finances?

Paul Rice 3:45

Yeah, the next one is generously funded our mission. And this goes back to this goes back to pushing your expenses, and what you're investing money into through that mission vision strategy filter that we talked about at the very beginning. So I always like to say that budgets are less about the numbers, and they're more about decisions that created those numbers. And budgeting is really just a decision making process. It's a great again, we talked about earlier, just because your budgets in the black for the year does not mean that you're actually being effective as a Church, the decisions that you're making with that money is what is going to cause you to be effective and generate that return on investment that we so desire. And so we want to make sure that we are and I even added the word generously in there, we want to make sure that we are generously funding the things that are going to advance the mission that God's called us to. And one of the ways that we can make sure that we're doing that give us give, give ourselves some guide rails is to just pick three to five things that your Church is going to be really, really good at. Again, back to the side hustle things, your resources start getting divested into other areas, it gets spread out too thin. At some point, you need enough money to really make an impact in whatever area that you're trying to make an and packed in, and 100 bucks isn't going to cut it anymore. You need to pool your resources into just a few things and to really actually have a true financial impact impact into these areas. And he brought that you brought up a great point earlier to, not only will it pool your financial resources, but now you have more volunteers, you have more time to devote to these three to five things that your Church is going to be really, really good at, that's going to actually advance your mission. So make sure that you're generously funding those areas, you're getting enough money into those areas to do what you're trying to accomplish. The next step is to create healthy systems. And this is all about accountability. This is all of the boring finance things that nobody likes to deal with the reports and the expense tracking and the income tracking and filing taxes and all of this kind of stuff for your employees payroll. But it's so so important. And I'm not going to delve into just a lot of the technicalities there. But one thing I will say that is really, really important, I think, for pastors is that you should not be and this is particularly applicable to pastors of Church plants and small churches where the teams are small, you should not be the only person that sees the finances. Maybe you shouldn't even be the person that manages the finances, let's take it a step further. And that goes back to that mindset of, okay, this is God's money, this is not my money. And if you are the senior leader of any organisation, it's really, really wise to have somebody else that can tell, you know, that can say, I don't think this is a good investment right now, or no, we don't have the money. Because otherwise, it can be really tempting to again, go try that cool idea, we'll just we'll just spend some money over here. And then you're not measuring it, you have no idea if it was effective or not. But have somebody that can tell you know, don't be the sole owner of those finances. That is a very healthy system, that any Church of any size should be implementing. I just call out Church plants and small churches in particular, because often they don't have the staff to, you know, help make that happen. Something that you can do to alleviate that is to get over this idea that finances are so private and so secret that a volunteer who likely has more experience in the financial world than you do can't help you manage can't help you say no to the things that are bad investments for you to spend on. I had a guest on Jeff sage who's out under Pastor John Wilhite at Central Church in Las Vegas. And Jeff just kept hammering this point home, why can't a volunteer do that. And so if you're a, if you're a small Church Pastor who doesn't have a big team underneath them, you can find somebody that you trust, even if they're not a part of your Church, it could be outside of your Church to find somebody to help you say no, to give you that accountability and you know, give you that healthy system of accountability to make sure that you don't end up in a situation that you're going to regret. And that shows up in the newsletter.

David Mckeown 8:00

Definitely, because that's going to protect the leader as well. And like what you were saying, though, Paul, this idea of if they're not with you, if you haven't got the volunteers, or we haven't got the people on staff, listen, there's plenty of other churches around, like go and ask another Church, go and ask the Church down the road, you know, can you help us with this rather than the leader of being vulnerable? And putting themselves at risk? Really, you know, they're putting themselves at risk. And they're putting, I guess, the new Church at risk, give it a new Church plant. So you know, I think I'm fully with you on that. And I would really encourage all leaders to be thinking through very carefully, you know, who's seeing the finances and who's in charge of the finances? Because actually, you want protection for yourself as a leader in those situations, as well. So systems are important. What else do you have there? That's, I think, number five on your list there.

Paul Rice 9:00

I think it may have dropped out for a moment there.

David Mckeown 9:03

Yeah, not a problem. It'll pick up on the recording. So yeah, the number five item that you have there. What does that look like for people?

Paul Rice 9:11

Yep, the last one. And I think this is maybe the most difficult one for pastors to approach especially if they have had no experience. They didn't grow up hearing about money in Church. But the fifth one is to attract and develop investors. And again, I go back to that investment idea. I say, attract and develop investors, because you want people not just, you know, obviously we want to worship God with with the money that we are giving through the Church to God. But you also want people who are fully bought in to the mission and vision and strategy of what your Church is trying to accomplish. And so that means that you don't want people who are just giving because you're supposed to, you want people actually investing into the mission of your Church. And when you frame it that way. That is when you get people who are actually giving consistently giving that you can count on giving that you can rely on. And that's going to mean talking about money in Church. And I know that is a sensitive hot button issue. Certain denominations are very against it certain denominations probably take it way too far. So $1,000 today and your debt will be wiped out from a check in the mail, you know, you've seen the you've seen the TV, the televangelists types. And, but there's a very, there's a healthy way that we can go about talking about money. And I think the healthiest way that we can talk about that is to again, adopt the mindset that this is God's money, not my money, you're not giving necessarily to our Church, we were giving this to God. And so when he framed that, in a sense of, hey, this is an act of worship to God. And you are investing in the kingdom of God, when you are giving through this local Church. That's something that people can really grasp and get on board. People get turned off, you know, when they're like, Yeah, Pastor needs a raise. And so let's give more or, you know, hey, we need this or we need that. frame it in such a way that it is about faith. It's about God. And I even my most recent guest, Pastor Cody Woodard was talking about using the talking about money as a discipleship opportunity. They recently did a kind of a building, campaign fundraiser, strategic initiative type of thing. And they actually use the opportunity of that in that campaign to teach people, why do we give? What is it about this tithing thing? What is it about generosity? Why are we doing all of this in the first place? Okay, yes, an act of worship, but But what else? What what is happening here, and so when we, when we frame it in this discipleship framework, people can latch on to that, and they're not quite so turned off by it. And, you know, if you're a Pastor here listening, I would highly encourage you, if you're nervous about talking about money, if you're nervous about bringing up the giving thing. Statistically speaking, you know, people are only going to give when presented the opportunity. And so you should be presenting that opportunity, even if it's a bit uncomfortable. And usually the argument, the pushback that you get is, well, what if people leave? What if people send me nasty emails, things like that uncomfortable conversations have to happen, then probably those people weren't bought into your mission and vision anyways. And if your whole point of running a Church is to keep as many people on the seats as possible, I think you're missing the point here, you're missing the point in the mission of what Christ has called his Church to. And so let those people go. You know, we are not here to try to hold on to people and make them sit through our one hour sermon every week and give their offering just to keep just to keep them happy. Talk about Jesus talked about money more than just about anything else in the New Testament. And so and the reason is, because money the reason, reason money is such a sensitive issue is because it's a heart. You know, Jesus says we are literally tied, where your heart where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. And so people invest their money into things that they care about into things that they believe are worthwhile investment. And when you don't talk about money in Church, you're basically telling people, I don't believe that the mission of this Church is important enough to ask you to get into it. Nonprofits are great at this, you go to any nonprofit, you see the in the US we have, we have the United States Girl Scout Association, and they sell these cookies every year. It's a great way for young ladies to learn how to be business businesswoman, or how to sell learn how to promote. And man every time I go to the it's Girl Scout Cookie season right now, every time I go to the grocery store, I'm accosted by the by the Girl Scouts selling the cookies outside, but they are they believe in what they're doing. And so they are unafraid. They are most of them are very, very bold. They'll come right up to you as you're walking out with their groceries. Hey, you want to buy some Girl Scout cookies? And it's really, really hard to tell an eight year old No, because you already bought something from somebody else. But they are so bold. They're so willing because they believe in what they're doing. Why as pastors why as Church leaders? Are we so afraid to ask people to give into something that is infinitely more important. Eternal eternity is on the line here infinitely more important than a box of Girl Scout cookies. And so I would encourage you to take a step of boldness and ask people to give stop apologising, don't do the jokes, you know, that's going into my pocket. Hahaha, you know, oh, I'm sorry, we have to have this, this, this this offering moment. Get out of this apologetic attitude, and just ask people are most going to be most willing to give when the opportunity is presented to him? So yeah, make sure Yeah, make sure that you are being attractive by to investors by spending your money wisely by stewarding it wisely that also make sure that you are developing those investors by discipling them talk teaching about giving talking about giving beyond Just giving to the Church make it a discipleship thing. And really develop those investors. And that's going to cover the income, you know, piece of your budget budgets are in two pieces, you have expenses and you have income. And so those are the five kind of the five pieces of the framework that I think every Church needs to be implementing. As you get bigger you get add on to that and you get into you get into the generosity campaigns, and then teams and things like that. But at a minimum of just getting started out clearly define your mission. What are you trying to do put margin in your budget, generously fund the things that you're going to do pick those three to five things that's going to advance your motion, build those accountability systems in place, create some healthy systems around, you get some protection as a Pastor, make sure that you're tracking your finances properly. And then don't forget about the giving piece, attract and develop those investors, make sure you're talking about money, talk about giving, don't be afraid to can be nerve wracking, there might be some difficult conversations, but it's going to be worth it in the end. And I'd probably be willing to say that if you're not talking about money right now, and you're you think you might need more giving, start talking about it consistently, have that consistent opportunity to do a Learning Series do something. And I promise you that your giving will increase, I can't give you a guaranteed percentage, obviously. But if you're not talking about it, most people are not going to give. So I would highly encourage churches to incorporate those five pieces into their financial systems.

David Mckeown 16:26

Paul, thanks for sharing those five. I'm gonna say pillars, five, five items of the framework, I think it's really helpful for pastors and leaders to hear. And I think you're right it is it is about connecting it all to the vision and the mission of the Church. Because if you are going to talk about giving, you've got to talk about it right in those areas, rather than standing up and saying, Well, we want money for a new lighting system. It's got to be, hey, we want money for the latest system forward the vision, whatever you're going to take it for, you've got to always tie it back to vision and mission. So that's really important. We've got a few more questions to go just before we wrap up for today. But but we've been talking a lot about the leaders. And I guess one of the questions I had here is around Do you think a leaders personal finances have anything to do with how they operate in the Church? And maybe that's a difficult question. And maybe Aquarius, and maybe some leaders do want us to talk about it. But I think it's an important What's your thoughts on something? Like the leaders personal financial situation? How does that impact how the Church operates? Yeah.

Paul Rice 17:38

I think that the circumstances around somebody's finances, in terms of the amount of money they make, have minimal impact on the way that that leader might, or excuse me, the way that the finances that the Church that they lead might might might have, what will have an impact is how they manage their own personal finances.

David Mckeown 17:57

And not not be a mind? Yes, exactly.

Paul Rice 18:01

You can't, you can't give what you don't have, you can't lead somebody else to a place that you've not been yourself before, at least personally. And so I've even seen this in my own life as well. The way that a Church leader, whether the finance person at the Church or whether the senior Pastor or whatever role that they're taking on that they have some say over the finances, some kind of direct control over it. However they manage their money at home, will 100% with time, reflect how they manage money at the Church, that they are at 100% of the time. Because the habits that you're forming personally, are the habits that will show up publicly in your organisation. And if you are doing a poor job managing your finances at home, you're going to incorporate and interject those same habits into the Church that you're leading. You haven't changed as a person just because you're at work, you know, as the

David Mckeown 18:58

margin. If you have no margin, you're always spending beyond what you make. Again, that could have an impact on the Church as well getting 100%

Paul Rice 19:07

Your habits are going to carry over, there's just there's just no way around it. You don't become a different person. Once you show up to work, you're the same person. And like you said, the same spending habits that you have at home. This is where pastors that are especially visionary types that see squirrels and they're like, oh, let's go do that, oh, let's go do that. This is when the money starts really flowing out the door. And me and my Pastor have had this conversation and we've talked about this and so he won't he won't mind ever bring this up. But early on in the Church, he was very much that way. Let's go Let's go try this thing. We're just going to spend money on whatever we think we need. And you know, you're that's how a $3,000.03 second radio ad gets put out that has zero return on your investment. It was a seemingly great idea. And it was just go do it. And so, you know, $3,000 out the door right there. And so but Some of that stemmed from his personal experience with finances in his very young adult life. He had an upbringing his way, yeah, he ended up in a lot of debt. He was working his way out of it. But some of those habits were still there, even at the time. And so he has since matured and grown out of a lot of those who's doing very, very well, in his personal finances now, and that has been a reflection of me having to have fewer conversations with him and our operations director. No, we can't spend this money. No, stop. No, you can't do that. And those kinds of conversations happen far, far less. And I am able to really fully trust them at this point, you know, to go yes. Okay. I think you really understand what is actually needed. Yes, you may go spend this money, you have a budget, go spend it, as long as you stick to the budget. A lot of the, the willy nilly spending habits are long gone at this point. But it's just a good example of, for him some of those leftover habits that he had personally, as he was working out of things carried over a little bit into the Church itself. And so again, he's he's he's matured largely out of that. So. But yeah, your habits are going to carry over how you manage your personal finances as a Church leader will be reflected in the Church.

David Mckeown 21:16

Definitely. And it's a big, it's a big thing. I think as as leaders, not that leaders have to be perfect. They can't be. But of course, I mean, you can notice it not just in their financial habits, you know, but you know, like, sometimes you'll go to leaders home, and it's very untidy, you could have a job, it's the same thing. And of course, one reflects the other. And it's good for people to think Well, hi, hi, am I living, because it will have an impact. And I guess the key thing is for any leader is to surround themselves with the right types of people who are going to help them in their journey as I seek to build a Church. So Paul, you've shared some great insights today, and maybe, maybe some real building blocks that churches can be thinking off. And leaders can be thinking about implementing into their settings, maybe there's some things missing, maybe some churches are running some things, but maybe they don't have margin, maybe they're running in another way. But something's missing. It's good for them to think of those things today. So before we wrap up, Paul, hey, thanks for being on the show. I've got a couple of quickfire questions for you. Before we wrap up, and then you could share with people where to find you today. So what are you most excited about? And what are you most challenged about? Remember, they're quick fires, and you've got to answer them quickly, as well.

Paul Rice 22:28

Sounds good. Right now I'm most challenged about my three year old who, as I've discovered as a new parent is acting just like I did at that age. And so for me, it was just as a young as a youngster getting frustrated at just the little things and when things don't work out right away, getting frustrated at that. So having learning to parent basically, a mini me has been has been very challenging. I think what I'm most excited about and challenged about right now is at Church is actually standing up kind of a generosity development track to help people move from not having given before, to actually not only giving consistently, but also giving over and above the tithe and helping to disciple people in that way. So that that is a new challenge in front of me, and I'm looking forward to implementing it.

David Mckeown 23:14

That's exciting as well on your top two books you would recommend and why?

Paul Rice 23:19

Yeah, Essentialism by Greg McEwan. This was a pretty popular book, if you're a Church leader, I would highly encourage you to read it. It is all about filtering down what is necessary from what is unnecessary. He's got some great, great material in there. And I use the principles that he outlines in that book to filter our spending decisions and investing decisions at the Church. Do we really need this? If not, it goes on the bucket, I would say if it's not a 95% you know, very, very clear. Yes. He says if it's not a clear yes, it's a clear No. So check that book out Essentialism by Greg McEwan and the second one is a great one if you're a podcaster I would highly recommend it especially if you're an interviewer like yourself it's called listen like you mean it by him and vengo chia and in the sheet actually talks about how her own interviewing skills as a human researcher developed and she would go to people's houses and ask them how they're doing things and just watch and really really listen to gain understanding not just listened to you can spit the next thing out. And again, I would highly highly recommended listen like you mean it by him and vengo chi it has really helped my interviewing skills learning to listen, instead of just thinking about a question.

David Mckeown 24:33

Well, we'll drop those in the show notes. Greg McCune, same surname as me. But no, unless unless he is relative and he is he's made a lot of money. Please come and see me we can do something with that for our vision automated here, at IKON Church but the great books I've read up on myself, of course as well. So your favourite meal of choice and you had one mean you could choose what would have been

Paul Rice 24:59

our I'm a southern Texas boy. So I like chicken fried steak with garlic, garlic mashed potatoes a roll and give me just a big ol slice of chocolate cake with some chocolate icing on it. I, I would choose that meal every time if I could.

David Mckeown 25:15

That sounds pretty good to me. I'm getting hungry. We're a part way through your 21 days of prayer and fasting. And your last question today, before we can share with people a little bit of war, but where to find you. How do you stay fresh and like what do you do to stay fresh?

Paul Rice 25:35

Yeah, playing drums is a great outlet for Nana. We've brought this up already. For me, it's a great stress reliever. I just enjoy doing it. You get to hit stuff with sticks really, really hard. It's good. It's good for stress relief and good at a good creative outlet too. I get a lot of ideas while I'm playing not only just for musically, but but also for life as well. I want to go back to what I said earlier, intentionally be interested in other people. The podcasting thing for me has just been eye opening helps keep me from getting stale and stagnant. In my own thinking, you get access to different perspectives, if you'll just go and talk to a stranger and ask them about themselves. You know, how's life? What do you do, and just be interested in other people that will that will keep you from getting stuck in your own thinking silo and, and give you a little bit of an expanded view of life. And also watching pretty much any historical documentary or drama. My favourite, particularly with respect to the World Wars. I love all that history and my favourite duck Docu series was by HBO called something called Band of Brothers, about the 101st airborne, Easy Company Airborne Division who dropped into Normandy. So anything history, I will watch history channel here in the US anything on Hulu or Netflix, I will watch it. I love to unwind with that.

David Mckeown 26:53

Yeah, those things help. And as you say better to hit drums and hit people with sticks. That's not very useful, either. Hey, buddy. It's been so good to have you on the show today, Paul, thanks for sharing your insights, your experience and what you've discovered, Hey, how can people find you? What's the best place for people to find you? I know you've got a couple of things on the go. So why don't you share with us today before we wrap up,

Paul Rice 27:18

I'm most active on Instagram, it's at mission driven budget is the handle. I've kind of abandoned Twitter at this point, most of my audience is active on Instagram. So that's where you can find me shoot me a DM. You can also find the podcast anywhere you listen to podcast, iTunes, Spotify, you name it, it's all out there. Or you can head to show notes and things like that at mission driven budget.com/podcast. I also do help do a little bit of consulting and coaching. From time to time. You can head to mission driven budget.com/calendar If there's something you just want to have a phone call, or you actually want me to, you know, hire me on to help sort out any issues you might be having with your finance processes, help increase giving fix problems. I am more than open and willing to do that. Let's connect.

David Mckeown 28:07

Yeah, like, hey, thanks. We'll put all that in the show notes. I will link your podcast as well on our site as we put out the podcast. So if people want to find you, or get some coaching or consultation from yourself, I guess the great thing is that this can happen. You know, online as well. If somebody wants to grab a zoom call with you, you can do that. Even if they're a different part of the company or even, I guess a different part of the world. They can still connect with you the genius of technology for us today. So Paul, thanks for being with us. That is a wrap for us today. So thank you to all our listeners. For those who are watching. For being part of the church explained podcast today. Don't forget to rate review wherever you find us on the church explained podcast. We'd love to connect with you and find out more remember, we've got also lots of free resources on IKON dot Church forward slash open, lots of Team resources, leadership resources, you can have four completely free as well. So hey, thanks for being with us today.

Paul Rice 29:07

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai