Rumblings of economic turmoil were being heard long before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008, but many see that event as the beginning of the financial crisis that has forever altered our economy and culture. Looking back at the 13 or so months since that institution's demise, are there lessons to be learned for ministries and those who lead them? Absolutely.
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Few of these lessons have been easy. Words such as "painful" come to mind when asked to describe them. In our work providing banking resources to evangelical ministries across the country, we've seen three particularly important lessons emerge.
Early Recognition and Response Matters
First is the need to recognize the scope and severity of economic conditions and make prudent, sometimes difficult, decisions sooner rather than later. Ministries that did this have generally weathered the economic storm better than those that just kept hoping things would get better. In the early stages of the economic crisis, we heard some ministry leaders say things such as, "We believe the Lord will see us through," or "Our people will step up." Some of them realized later that the real message from the Lord was probably more like, "You need to trim expenses and learn to live on less."
Mark G. Holbrook is the president and CEO of Evangelical Christian Credit Union (ECCU), headquartered in Brea, Calif. ECCU is a banking resource to churches, Christian schools and other evangelical ministries across the country. For more information, visit eccu.org.
