I have lurked here for many months and have enjoyed reading the articles. My husband is an SBC pastor of a small rural church.  The timing of this article is incredible.  This past sunday we celebrated our first Sunday back inside our newly renovated sanctuary.  Our church received a large (to us) sum of money from a former member from long ago.  She left the money for us in her estate.  It was stipulated for use on the existing building. Our building was built in the 1850’s! We really needed a new building!  But we were able to do far more with the money because God stretched it and people were extremely generous! A lady donated the new carpet.  We were able to install new lights, paint the peanut butter brown trim to bright white, replaced window shutters, and re-wallpapered the walls!  We also expanded the platform area and moved the choir to behind the pulpit area. 

This has given us the morale boost our church desperately needed!  And it has been a tremendous lesson of faith to us and our people.  God is able to do far more than we ever dream or imagine!

It is funny how it all started.  We get the church mail at our house and it had piled up quite a bit.  I was sorting through all the junk mail and saw an envelope that looked like junk mail.  It was addressed to the former pastor. I about tossed it but something told me to open it.  Come to find out, they had tried to send the check about three years before, but it had not been opened then since there was no pastor at that time. This was the last chance to redeem the money!

Check your junk mail closely!  there just may be a check in one of them!

What’s wrong with wanting to use extra money to fix up or update your buildings?  If you can expand your current space where you have to have people crammed in for services in a place with peeling trim and poor utilites and make it a nice place for people to be comfortable when learning about the Lord, what is wrong with that? 

And an updated building can increase community evangelism activities and help churches invest in others because they don’t have to worry about a building that’s going to fall to pieces.

This is a great question for church leaders to consider - and not just with a “windfall” in mind.  (Let me suggest that a windfall is roughly the amount of your annual budget.)

First, every church needs to have a very conservative investment policy so that all assets of the church are relatively safe from loss.  That means absolutely NO speculative investments, and probably no stocks, either.  Cash and cash-equivalents, maybe with some fixed-income securities (e.g., bonds). 

Second, every church should establish a financial plan that addresses both the short-term and the long-term needs and vision of the church.  When gifts are received, evaluate them against the plan so you’re not just responding to the needs of the moment.  (Both your plan and your annual budget ought to include contingency funds, sort of like your family’s emergency fund.)

Finally, clearly communicate the financial plan to the congregation - especially those most likely to include the church in estate gifts.  If they believe in the vision of the church and trust the church’s leadership while they’re alive, their estate planning should reflect that.  Encourage people not to designate gifts toward particular projects that may not be a priority when they die! 

(E.g., one church I served received a $35,000 estate gift designated to “senior housing.” The main problems were, first, that wasn’t anywhere in the church’s priorities; and second, in San Diego, $35k doesn’t even get you a down-payment on a house.  We spent more than five years trying to explore what could be done and how to honor the intent of the giver before we were finally able to reach an acceptable alternative with the Executor.)

P.S.  Don’t get trapped in thinking that money now needs to be spent now - even for debt reduction.  (If you’ve got a 10-year loan at 4% but can invest a chunk of money at 6%, it may make sense to invest it.)

Depending upon the amount it would be awesome to launch an another site and move into the multi-site model. If it was substantial enough it could allow the siteto start with momentum.

I would take care of orphans, widows, people in the congregation, and the STAFF.  Without livable wages, how are we expected to make it??

Interesting.  Our State Convention received a large give of $750,000 from an estate with two stipulations:  start new churches and help struggling ones.  The leadership put it in a trust fund and every year a team reviews requests and distributes grants to new church starts and churches in need of help in reaching their communities.

My experience with such surprises is that nearly all have been designated for buildings or other physical need (carpet, hymnals, etc).  Should someone give a large gift to our church...yes since we are in the middle of a building project, we would build debt free and any left over would be invested in evangelism.

When our congregation was about 4 years old and growing very rapidly I was handed a check for over $800K.  This was given as the result of the donor having made God a promise that hadn’t been kept.  The individual was suddenly motivated to keep the promise.  The intent was to jumpstart a young, fledgling congregation.  Interestingly, the check was made out to me to “do whatever I wanted to do with it, no questions asked.”

Call me stupid, but I turned it down.  My reasoning was it would strip a young congregation of any incentive to sacrifice.  I also didn’t know for sure at the time if I was being tested or if, having “paid God off,” the donor might consider himself “squared up” with God and just disappear.

The outcome was the organization of a charitable foundation in which I was allowed to participate that gave away in excess of $7 million to church related ministries over the next 3 years.  Additionally, the would-be donor gave considerably more to the congregation over the next 12 years, but in a graduated manner more representative of a legitimate tithe.

To this day I am so glad I didn’t take the original “hook.” No telling where it might have led.