Youth Ministry Budgeting Made Simple

Budgets. The dreaded word, right? Some of you have a lot, some of you have a little, and some of you are hoping for one! No matter where you are, for most of us in youth ministry, budgeting isn’t something that stays at the top of the responsibility list unless we’re doing a poor job of managing it! Budgeting may not be the highlight of your ministry, but budgeting is necessary, and there are some very easy steps to follow to manage your budget. We are going to work through the acronym SPEND. (Who doesn’t love a good acronym to remember things by?) Start with prayer, Plan your year, Evaluate as you go, Never lose track, and Don’t be afraid to ask for more. All five of these steps help to steward your church budget well.

Start with prayer

First and foremost, you need to start with prayer. Right? I mean, it would be unspiritual to not. This may seem like a given, but it is the easiest step to skip. Pray over the events that you will be overseeing. Pray that God would lead you to steward your budget money well, pray for wisdom as you plan your events, and pray for guidance. Prayerfully consider how to spend the money entrusted to you and your ministry. Pray that God would encourage your church to give well so that your budget would be possible and the church would be financially healthy. 

Plan your year

Plan, plan, and plan some more. As you plan your events for the year, start getting estimates of what things will cost. This will help you plan how much you need in your budget and the monthly flow of how much you will need monthly. Going into an event with a plan will probably keep your budget out of hot water. The best way to steward the money entrusted to you is to make and execute a plan. Think through how much things will cost, what families need to pay, what the church can cover, what fundraisers would raise money, etc.

Evaluate as you go and take notes

Everything will not go as planned, so evaluating the event as you go will help you plan. Create an action plan for evaluating spending.

This could include:

• Was the expenditure worth the amount of money?
• Should I have spent more or less? Where/how?
• What could have been done better?
• Could I have gotten someone to donate this in the church?
• Should we have charged more for this event?

Evaluating each significant expenditure as you go will help guide your money to where it needs to be spent for the next time. This can be a super quick and easy assessment to further steward your money well.

Never lose track

We are all called to be good stewards of the money we are given for our ministry. One way we can be a good steward is to track our budget. When buying something for the ministry, ensure you get the best possible price. An Excel or Google Sheets budget tracker is a simple way to do this. You will want to ensure that it is a simple process that will 100 percent be followed by you. If you are only tracking 80 percent of your expenses, then the system has failed you and is not helpful. Tracking your expenses is the only accurate way to see where the money is going and if you need more for a particular expense next year.

Don’t be afraid to ask for more

I know it can be intimidating to ask for more money, but sometimes, this is necessary. For example, the price of the camp you wanted to go to (of course, GENERATE is the clear winner here) costs a little more than you budgeted. Don’t be afraid to ask for more money to reduce costs for your students and their families. However, when you ask for more money, you must be prepared. Come with exactly what you need and why you need it. The fact of life is that everything is more expensive these days, so the cost of your events will likely go up.

Consider the following and share your thoughts with other youth workers or those within our MyYouthMin community:

• Which steps from the SPEND acronym will be the easiest to apply? Which one will be the hardest?
• What do I need to better steward the money in my ministry well? How can I make that happen?

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