ECCU Blog

Another great resource is on the horizon. Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) is sponsoring a 60-minute webinar titled Church Law Update featuring Richard Hammar as presenter.

Richard Hammar is senior editor of the Church Law and Tax Report and Church Finance Today newsletters and legal counsel to the Assemblies of God. He is recognized among the nation’s top church attorneys and is also a CPA known for his church legal and tax materials.

Date: Thursday, September 1, 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. (EDT)

To learn more or to register, visit ECFA’s web page.

An elder or usher or staff member at your church voluntarily confesses to embezzling church funds. How do you respond?

“In some church embezzlement cases, a person who has stolen church funds will voluntarily confess—usually out of a fear that he or she is about to be caught. Often, the embezzler will confess in order to prevent the church from turning the case over to the IRS, the police, or to a CPA firm. Embezzlers believe they will receive better treatment from their own church than from the government.”

This excerpt is from a recent Your Church blog by legal expert Richard R. Hammar, who tackles this thorny question objectively and biblically. To learn more, check out “If an Embezzler Confesses.”

How would your church respond?

We don’t know how to pray. The Bible is clear about that (Romans 8:26). But God, in his goodness, not only gives his Spirit to intercede for us, but also provides us with precepts on prayer in his Word.

Ecclesiastes 5: 1–2 tells us:

Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few.

In just two verses, God reveals several disciplines of prayer:

Prayer is purposeful. If you were invited to give a sermon or devotional at your church, and you felt qualified to do it, how much time would you spend preparing? An hour? A day? You would likely spend as much time as necessary to appropriately prepare your heart and mind.

In the same way, we are to prepare our hearts for prayer. Ecclesiastes 5:1 in The Message reads, “Watch your step when you enter God’s house.” We are to enter into prayer with purpose and care.  

Prayer is prioritized.  “…draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil.” We all know it—the uncomfortable silence that can follow after someone is asked to pray. Heads bow, yet no words are spoken. A pause likely used to prepare a heart, incline an ear to listen. Remember young Samuel in 1 Samuel 3? Eli trained him to say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” Listen first, then speak.

Prayer is premeditated. Verse 2 in The Message says, “Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.”

Sort of puts us in our place, doesn’t it? Writing out your prayers is a great way to discourage hasty and impulsive conversations with God. Many of Paul’s prayers were written out… that’s why we have record of them.

Prayer is patient, persistent, and simple.  “…therefore let your words be few.”   

This verse reminds me of the prayers I heard visiting Templo Biblico in Monte Plata, Dominican Republic, like, “Lord, thank you for healing Maria,” and, “Lord, thank you for bringing a husband to Rebekah.”

Or my granddaughter’s simple yet faith-filled prayer for her soon-to-be-born baby sister, “Thank you that the baby is safe when it comes out of Mommy’s tummy.” She thanks God in advance, fully trusting that he has things under control.

Even our Lord Jesus kept his prayer simple–what we call The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 is just 59 words.

Yet even with direction on how to pray, we struggle. Our propensity is to be impulsive and hasty; we tend to babble and over-complicate and carry on. So God does not leave us to our own devices as we pray. He gives us his Spirit, who prays on our behalf and turns our utterances into a sweet sound to our Lord. Isn’t God gracious to give us all we need to communicate intimately with him?

I think I’m a pretty smart person and shopper, and I’m always on the lookout for good value for my money. I also like to think of myself as a shrewd steward. Sometimes these ways of viewing myself conflict with each other.

When I’m looking for good value for my money, typically I’m looking for what’s in my best interest. After all, who else is going to look out for me? I do many of the things I’ve been taught, read about, or seen others do including comparison shopping, belonging to warehouse clubs, shopping online, and even recently using my phone to compare prices. All this to say, I’m trying to practice “a penny saved is a penny earned.”

At times, however, I find that this focus and mentality leads me to think of “me” just a little too much. I have also grown to learn and believe that God owns it all, and I’m just a steward (manager) of what he has provided me. If it really isn’t mine in the first place, then my focus on trying to figure out what is best for me might just lead me to compromise my other belief that I’m just a manager of what God has provided.

Since I was a child, I have been a member of a credit union as my family had discovered the value of members helping other members. When I went to college, I joined ECCU, which was 28 years ago. After college, I worked in regular banks before coming to work at ECCU, and I certainly can see a huge difference in perspective. At the banks where I worked, increasing shareholder value or the bottom line was the more important financial objective. It wasn’t that we didn’t care about our customers; it was that we served them so we could make a bigger profit. In a sense, it was like asking, “What’s in it for me?” first, before trying to take care of the customers.

Since coming to ECCU as an employee, I have never looked back on my days of working for a bank. Not that those banks are bad, they aren’t; but my world view of money is better served within the structure of a credit union. You see, at ECCU every member is an equal owner, and our structure forces us to only serve other evangelical Christian individuals, churches, schools and parachurch organizations.

In Acts, we read about the first Christians, who really practiced community and in doing so sold everything they had to ensure that the community was taken care of. While we certainly don’t live in that type of environment today, I fully believe being a part of a credit union, especially ECCU, allows me to help accomplish something that is bigger than me and support the evangelical Christian community. It isn’t about “what’s in it for me?”, but rather just one person trying to use God’s resources in a way that can advance the kingdom for his glory. That’s what ECCU is all about to me. It is all of us coming together, getting something of value for ourselves but also partnering with others to accomplish something much bigger than we could ever do by ourselves; and certainly something that could never happen if I only dealt with a bank.

So, why is it important for people like you and me to come together under the umbrella of ECCU and help serve over 3,000 ministries that impact the world for Christ, keeping our funds on deposit to help make that happen? For me, one big reason is that it helps me be the shrewd steward I long to be.

If you’ve ever attended one of Dr. David Fletcher’s XPastor seminars or conferences, you’ve benefited from the practical information and expertise they deliver. On Monday, September 19, ECCU is hosting one of two 2011 XPastor staffing workshops this fall. The title is “Hiring, Transitioning and Honing Church Staff.” It’s an affordable all-day workshop featuring David Lyons, president of Minister Search. Takeaways include:

• Grid for developing your own staff salary wage scale
• 3 ways to hire the best staff
• 7 signs that a “poor-fit” staff member needs help or transitioning
• 3 proven ways to graciously transition a staff member
• Demonstrated personality types that are best suited for various church positions, from youth pastor to administrator to facility leader to care pastor

Dr. Fletcher says “every executive pastor should come with their administrator and HR director.” An attendee at a previous staffing workshop said, “The experience and wealth of knowledge in this room is staggering.”

For more information and to register, follow this link.