Adequate financial internal controls are necessary to safeguard the funds you have been entrusted with. Your internal controls will also be taken into consideration if or when the church attempts to obtain a bank loan. The ideal internal controls should be developed with the following in mind.

Adequate financial internal controls are necessary to safeguard the funds you have been entrusted with, and to protect the reputation of the people handling the funds. Your internal controls will also be taken into consideration if or when the church attempts to obtain a bank loan. Last month I wrote about general procedures for internal controls. This month I briefly discuss internal control procedures regarding income.

In the last article I talked about the opportunities available for receiving funding for your church plant needs, as well the general thinking of the successful businessman. In this article I want to give some steps that will be helpful in getting money from the people who have it. The difficulty in any methods-based approach is the tendency to follow the procedure while avoiding the principle behind the procedure. Since church planters are at various stages in their church, this process will obviously have to be adjusted based on your particular situation.

There were four of us sitting in the kitchen on a Saturday morning. We had transformed it into a makeshift conference room. The colored markers we purchased for the occasion hadn't been taken out of the box yet, and the white board was squeaky clean. All we had for a podium was the kitchen table moved off to the side. We sat there sipping our coffee in anticipation for the help we expected to receive. Our "conference" speaker was a short, pear-shaped man, about forty. He had a little mustache and wore a dark pinstriped suit. We noticed he had some annoying quirks, such as telling dumb jokes then laughing raucously at himself. Overall, we liked him. He was quintessential "salesman", but he was good. We had flown him in from Ohio, or was it Jersey? I don't remember. He asked us if he could light up a cigarette and we said "sure". As he took a long draw from his fire stick he assessed the situation. He looked at us with inquisitive eyes, then spoke.

Often times when a church plant gets started, the Pastor is stuck doing a thousand jobs outside his gifting. Church finances can often be one of these things. And the handling of these funds from an offering standpoint is very important.

First off, it is very important to protect the Pastor from anything that would misrepresent him in regards to church finances. Therefore, establishing a Financial Committee from the start, is imperative. This committee will be the vehicle to carry out the financial controls.

Reasons why a church would have no offering procedure:

1. Pastor doesn't realize he is a liability by taking offering home to count it, or the appearance this gives. What would you do if you lost the money after you took it home and word got out to the community?