Latest from Northland: "there is no revenue stream "

True, lots of folks are moving here. But, as some one has said, “Nobody moves to San Francisco [California] to go to [a gospel preaching] church.” If anything most folks coming here are coming here to get away from the kinds of churches the area needs. And no we (speaking as a native who has no family east of Sacramento) don’t need or want IFBX churches.

[Andrew K]

Rob Fall wrote:

On the other hand, I’m a native Californian. Why should you be afraid of California? It’s fearful people like you that’s hindered church planting in California. Parents would rather their offspring become missionaries in deepest darkest Lower Slobovia than move to California either as church planters or to support the same.

SNIP

Sorry, that was just a joke. I didn’t realize there was a serious problem as you describe it. I honestly thought a lot of people wanted to move to California. After all, we have huge brain-drain from the Midwest to the coasts.

My father is the mission director of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Baptist Churches, an organization which has been involved in supporting church planting in the state since 1950. He told me recently that the cost of planting a church here in the state over his tenure (2001-Present) has averaged $100k. That is the total cost to from initial research and planning to self-sufficiency.

pvawter:

I have to believe that it really depends on what your goals are. My church is very small, owns it’s building, pays a mortgage payment on a parsonage, pays me a full-time salary, and still spends less than $60k annually. I think a large chunk of the $100k figure you cited is tied up with the time-span “from initial research and planning to self-sufficiency.”

I was working a part-time job until two months ago. I just can’t believe it actually costs that much to get a local church up and running, especially if the Pastor is willing to be bi-vocational. I’m certainly willing to be corrected here, but that figure sounds really high to me.

If you factor in support for the church planter, rental facilities, furniture/supplies, utilities, insurance, promotional materials, etc., you could easily spend $50k the first year. Assuming that the church begins to shoulder the load of support, you could begin to decrease outside support, but that is a multi-year process. New converts require time to grow, especially when it comes to faithful giving, and the cost of purchasing or building alone requires a considerable budget surplus. I think the financial needs of a church plant are very different from those of an established church, so the $100k number doesn’t seem high to me at all.