Here’s a story about a Pastor named Paul. Paul is the pastor of City Church, a church of a hundred and fifty people with the potential for tremendous growth. The problem Paul’s been facing is that he can’t find the time to follow up with new visitors, prepare a meaningful sermon, and train leaders for critical ministry positions because his time and budget are eaten up with the operational and creative needs of his church.

He finds himself spending more and more time designing graphics, cutting videos, and editing the church website. He has wanted to hire an assistant pastor to help with some ministry tasks that he just can’t seem to make time for, but his volunteer bookkeeper has some health issues, and it looked like he was going to have to spend that money to hire a bookkeeper for 15 hours per week instead.

However, City Church experienced a turning point when Pastor Paul learned they could use outsourcing to make the most of their resources and free up time for ministry! They are now making more disciples and experiencing consistent growth, and Paul is back doing what he is most passionate about!

Here are 5 ways outsourcing can save your church money:

1) Outsourcing is cheaper than hiring an employee

Let’s say Pastor Paul was to hire Betty to be the new part-time bookkeeper for the church. Paul pays Bookkeeper Betty a $15k salary for 15 hours/week. Not bad, but when Pastor Paul looked into outsourcing, he was able to outsource to an organization that specializes in church bookkeeping for just $5k/year! The decision to outsource City Church’s bookkeeping saved them $10k a year, and the quality is even better than they expected!

2) Outsourcing saves money on office costs

When you outsource, there’s no need to lease office space or provide office equipment. Pastor Paul found that the average office space cost per employee per year comes out to be about $4k. Not to mention software and office supplies you’d provide your employees; the low end is around $1k per year. That’s about $5k in savings on office costs per year when you outsource.

Pastor Paul had considered hiring Gary to help with their Graphic Design and Video Editing, but he would need to provide him with an office/studio and a new Macbook. However, when he outsourced City Church’s graphic design and video editing to an organization specializing in church media, they realized they didn’t need a bigger office space after all! They were able to redirect the money they would have spent on offices for Bookkeeper Betty and Graphics Gary to expanding their children’s ministry space instead!

3) Outsourcing eliminates the need for staff management

Pastor Paul loves sharing about Jesus and discipling people; however, he isn’t so passionate about professional development and managing a large staff team. When he chooses to outsource, it eliminates the need for him to coach and train those staff members and allows him to focus his time on making disciples. Staff turnover is also a costly expense at about $4k each time.

Now that Pastor Paul is able to outsource his bookkeeping and media, he doesn’t have to worry about the inevitable costly headache of rehiring those staff positions!

4) Outsourcing allows for scalability

When you hit a busy season and need to move a staff member from 15 hours to 25 hours per week, it can be difficult. City Church is now experiencing significant growth, and Paul wants to start using more graphics and video in their ministries as well as creating a new website! Graphics Gary has a full-time job in addition to his part-time job at the church, and adding an additional 10 hours to his workload just wouldn’t be feasible.

However, because Paul chose to outsource, he can easily adjust the amount of media help he needs without having to worry about burning out or replacing staff!

5) Outsourcing unlocks instant access to specialization

Most staff at churches of less than 250 people are typically generalists who wear multiple hats. Maybe you’re like Pastor Paul and are thinking about bringing on an additional staff member to do the finances, youth ministry, media, and church website. Outsourcing allows you to tap into the expertise of an entire team of specialists in various fields who have years of experience serving churches.

Wouldn’t you rather have dedicated people who are specialized experts in their field like church bookkeeping, graphic design, or web development, than one person who is trying to learn everything as they go?

Talk To A Guide

Outsourcing saves your church money and allows your team to focus on what really matters. Mission Support understands that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the operational and creative demands of church leadership.

We have come alongside dozens of pastors like you to take the pressure off so you have time to do what you are called to do. So Get Support, and we’d love to work together to create a custom support plan that allows you to focus on achieving your mission!