S5 Invest in Future Ministry · Lesson 2 of 4

Lesson 2 — Building the Future Ministry Fund

Adopt a written Future Ministry Fund charter and funding formula that turns the prioritized ten-year vision into a recurring, disciplined contribution.

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Seven Principles curriculum version 1.0 — author-review draft pending Leland Rubin's approval prior to publication. · Leland's Seven Stewardship Principles methodology, content, exercises and deliverables are created by Leland Rubin and remain in author-review draft pending his approval.

Where this lesson sits

Curriculum version 1.0 · Author Review

Module purpose: Build a written ten-year capacity and calling vision, adopt a Future Ministry Fund charter and funding formula, draft a product-neutral investment policy statement for any invested balances, and adopt a decision-and-approval framework so ministry investment is planned rather than reactive.

Official outcome: Future Ministry Investment Plan

This lesson produces: Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula

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Learn

Participant study reading — approximately 90 minutes of learning and shared work.

Learning objective: Adopt a written Future Ministry Fund charter and funding formula that turns the prioritized ten-year vision into a recurring, disciplined contribution.

Recommended participants: Pastor, treasurer, finance committee, and the facilities or capacity-planning lead from Lesson 1

Estimated teaching time: 90 minutes

Success indicators

• Leadership has adopted a written Future Ministry Fund charter naming purpose, funding sources and use restrictions
• A funding formula exists that translates a defined percentage of unrestricted income or surplus into a recurring fund contribution
• The team can explain how the fund differs from the general operating reserve built in prior stewardship work
• A named owner exists for reporting the fund's balance and contributions to leadership on a fixed schedule

Materials and evidence you will use

• Ten-Year Capacity and Calling Vision Map
• Three years of year-end financial statements
• Current reserves policy, if one exists, to confirm the two funds remain distinct
• A formula tested against three years of actual financial results
• A named owner for the recurring transfer and board reporting

What you should be able to produce

• Leadership has adopted a written Future Ministry Fund charter naming purpose, funding sources and use restrictions
• A funding formula exists that translates a defined percentage of unrestricted income or surplus into a recurring fund contribution
• The team can explain how the fund differs from the general operating reserve built in prior stewardship work
• A named owner exists for reporting the fund's balance and contributions to leadership on a fixed schedule

Foundational ministry principle

Genesis 41:34-36

34 Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. 35 And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. 36 And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.

King James Version (KJV) · Public domain

Joseph's plan set aside a defined portion of abundance during good years specifically to fund need in future years, a direct model for a church setting aside a defined formula-based contribution during healthy financial seasons to fund future ministry capacity.

Leland Rubin points to this passage as the clearest biblical picture of a funding formula: a fixed percentage, gathered consistently, held for a purpose beyond the present year.

Understand the concept

Your work in this lesson focuses on this outcome: Adopt a written Future Ministry Fund charter and funding formula that turns the prioritized ten-year vision into a recurring, disciplined contribution.

A vision without a funding formula stays a wish; today's charter turns the ten-year vision into a disciplined, protected, recurring habit.

Why it matters for your church

Without a dedicated fund and formula, any year-end surplus tends to be absorbed into general operations rather than building toward the church's ten-year vision.

A formula tested against real historical financial results is far more likely to be sustained than one chosen aspirationally.

Clear use restrictions protect the fund's original purpose from being diverted during a difficult budget year.

Examine the evidence

Use Ten-Year Capacity and Calling Vision Map, Three years of year-end financial statements, and Current reserves policy, if one exists, to confirm the two funds remain distinct to compare your church's present practice with its stated intentions. Look for documented patterns, missing information, and differences between what people assume and what the evidence supports.

Your completed work should be supported by A formula tested against three years of actual financial results, and A named owner for the recurring transfer and board reporting. Record uncertainty honestly so your team knows what still needs to be verified.

Prepare for the shared exercise

Adopt a written charter and funding formula for the Future Ministry Fund, tested against real historical financial results and the priority gaps named in Lesson 1. The Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula produces the Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula, which contributes to the principle's principal deliverable.

Before working with your team, consider this reflection: What would it take for our leadership to honor this funding formula even in the leanest year we can imagine?

Key terms

Future Ministry Fund: A dedicated pool of church funds, governed by a written charter and funding formula, set aside specifically to invest in future facility, technology, staffing or program capacity.
Funding formula: A written rule translating a defined percentage of income or surplus into a recurring contribution to a designated fund.
Use restriction: A written limitation on what a fund's balance may be spent on, intended to prevent the fund from being diverted to unrelated purposes under budget pressure.

What this means for a church

• Without a dedicated fund and formula, any year-end surplus tends to be absorbed into general operations rather than building toward the church's ten-year vision
• A formula tested against real historical financial results is far more likely to be sustained than one chosen aspirationally
• Clear use restrictions protect the fund's original purpose from being diverted during a difficult budget year

Common failure patterns

• Adopting an ambitious funding formula that gets quietly suspended the first time finances tighten
• Failing to distinguish the Future Ministry Fund from the general operating reserve, leading to one fund being raided for the other's purpose
• Writing a charter with no use restriction, allowing the fund to be spent on whatever feels urgent in a given year rather than the named ten-year priorities

Ministry case

A Fund That Existed Only on Paper

A synthetic congregation, Fictional Riverside Chapel, had voted three years earlier to start a 'building fund' but had never written a charter, a formula or a use restriction. In practice, the fund received deposits only when someone remembered to make one, and twice its balance was quietly used to cover a tight month's payroll, since no rule prevented it.

When leadership finally adopted a written charter with a specific formula — 2 percent of unrestricted income monthly, automatically transferred — and a use restriction limiting withdrawals to items on the ten-year vision map, the fund's balance grew more in the following eighteen months than it had in the prior three years combined, simply because the habit was now automatic and protected.

Lesson takeaway

A vision without a funding formula stays a wish; today's charter turns the ten-year vision into a disciplined, protected, recurring habit.

Discuss

Guided discussion for the leadership table.

With a funding formula in place and growing a real balance, we now need a prudent, written policy for how that balance is invested and protected.

Which funding-source option — income-based, surplus-based, or a combination — best fits our church's actual financial pattern over the last three years?
What use restriction would most protect this fund from being diverted during a difficult budget year?
Does our projected fund balance actually reach our top-priority gap within a timeframe our leadership and congregation would consider reasonable?
Who will be accountable for reporting this fund's balance and formula compliance at every board meeting?

Discussion notes

Practice

Applied exercise — produces the Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula.

Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula

Adopt a written charter and funding formula for the Future Ministry Fund, tested against real historical financial results and the priority gaps named in Lesson 1.

Estimated time: 50 minutes

Participants: Pastor, treasurer, finance committee, and the facilities or capacity-planning lead from Lesson 1

Artifact produced: Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula

Required inputs

• Ten-Year Capacity and Calling Vision Map from Lesson 1
• Three years of year-end financial statements
• Current reserves policy, if one exists

Instructions

Review the top-priority gap and its order-of-magnitude cost range from Lesson 1.
Discuss and select a funding source: income-based, surplus-based, or a combination.
Test the proposed formula against the last three years of actual financial results.
Draft the charter's purpose statement, funding formula, use restriction and withdrawal-approval placeholder rule.
Project the fund balance at three, five and ten years using round, clearly labeled illustrative figures.
Compare the projection to the top-priority gap's cost range and adjust the formula or timeline if needed.
Assign a named owner to report fund balance and formula compliance at every board meeting.

Complete it online

Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula

Church name: ______________________
Date of review: ______________________
Facilitator: ______________________

Charter element	Draft language	Tested against 3-year history?	Owner	Review date

Your response — Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula

Worked example

A fully completed sample using a fictional church. This is illustrative teaching material, not any church's actual data.

Fictional Riverside Chapel (illustrative example — not actual church data)

Fictional Riverside Chapel is a synthetic congregation of about 280 attendees used here to illustrate a completed charter and funding formula.

Charter element	Draft language	Tested against 3-year history?	Owner	Review date
Purpose statement	Fund exists to invest in facility, technology, staffing-succession and program-capacity items named in the current ten-year vision map	N/A	Board	Annual
Funding formula	2 percent of unrestricted monthly income, automatically transferred, plus 25 percent of year-end surplus above the reserve target	Yes — would have generated an average of $14,000/year over the last three years (illustrative)	Treasurer	Monthly transfer, annual formula review
Use restriction	Withdrawals limited to items named in the current ten-year vision map; may not cover an operating shortfall	N/A	Board	Reviewed with every withdrawal request
Withdrawal approval placeholder	Any withdrawal requires board vote and must cite a specific vision-map line item	N/A	Board chair	Refined in Lesson 4

How this leadership team reasoned

• Testing the formula against three years of actual results showed it would have generated roughly $14,000 per year on average, an illustrative figure, which leadership judged sustainable even in the chapel's leanest of the three years.
• The board recognized that without a clear use restriction, the fund would likely be quietly used for operating shortfalls again, as it had been twice before.

Decisions recorded

• The board formally adopted the charter and formula, effective the first of the next month, with the treasurer setting up an automatic monthly transfer.
• The board agreed the withdrawal-approval placeholder rule would be revisited and formalized in the Lesson 4 governance framework.

Completed artifact extract — Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula

Future Ministry Fund Charter adopted with a formula of 2 percent of unrestricted income plus 25 percent of year-end surplus above reserve target, restricted to vision-map items, projected to reach the top-priority gap's low-end cost estimate within approximately six years.

Illustrative exercise score: 18 of 20. The formula was tested rigorously against real historical data and a clear use restriction was written, though the ten-year projection used a single growth assumption rather than a range of scenarios.

BAG Index complement

Household financial-literacy layer that complements this stewardship principle.

BAG Index complement

Investing fundamentals — risk, return and diversification

Just as the church is learning to invest a dedicated Future Ministry Fund with discipline rather than reacting to a single good or bad year, households benefit from understanding the basic relationship between risk, return and diversification before putting savings into any investment. This complement introduces those fundamentals in plain, product-neutral language.

Teaching points

• Risk and expected return are generally related: investments with higher potential long-term returns typically carry more short-term price swings, and safer, more stable options typically offer lower expected returns.
• Diversification — spreading savings across many different investments rather than concentrating in one company or sector — is a widely used way to reduce the impact of any single investment performing poorly.
• Time horizon matters: money needed within the next few years is generally treated differently from money that will not be needed for a decade or more, because a longer horizon can allow more time to recover from short-term declines.
• No investment approach eliminates risk entirely, and past performance of any investment or strategy does not guarantee future results.
• A written, simple household plan — how much to save, what time horizon it serves, and how much risk feels tolerable — is more valuable than chasing any single hot investment idea.

Household practice step: Households complete a short worksheet identifying one savings goal, its time horizon in years, and a plain-language description of how much short-term fluctuation they could tolerate without panicking or changing course, as a starting point for a conversation with a qualified advisor.

Supports this principle: S5 asks the church to invest long-horizon funds prudently rather than impulsively; this complement builds the same disciplined, horizon-aware mindset in the households the church serves.

This is general financial education only and describes no specific investment product, fund or strategy; it is not investment advice, and households should consult a qualified, independent, licensed investment professional before making any investment decision.

Score

Transparent 20-point exercise rubric: four criteria rated 0 to 5 with observable anchors.

Criterion	0 — not evident	3 — acceptable	5 — exemplary	Sample
Completeness (0–5)	No charter elements were drafted, or the formula was left undefined.	A formula and purpose statement were drafted, but use restrictions or withdrawal rules were missing.	All charter elements were drafted: purpose, formula, use restriction and withdrawal-approval placeholder.	5
Use of evidence (0–5)	The formula was chosen without checking it against any real financial history.	The formula was loosely compared to general impressions of past finances.	The formula was tested against three years of actual year-end financial results before adoption.	5
Alignment to the module purpose (0–5)	The fund and formula were disconnected from the Lesson 1 vision map entirely.	The fund referenced the vision map generally but was not tied to the top-priority gap's cost range.	The projected fund balance was explicitly compared to the top-priority gap's cost range and timeline.	4
Actionability and ownership (0–5)	No owner was assigned to fund reporting or the automatic transfer setup.	An owner was named but no reporting schedule was set.	A named owner and a specific reporting schedule were assigned for both the formula transfer and board reporting.	5
Worked sample total				19 / 20

Completeness: Riverside Chapel completed all four charter elements with clear draft language for each.
Use of evidence: The team calculated what the formula would have generated in each of the last three actual years before adopting it.
Alignment to the module purpose: The projection was compared to the top-priority gap's low-end estimate, though the high-end estimate was not addressed.
Actionability and ownership: The treasurer was assigned the automatic transfer with an effective date, and board reporting was scheduled at every meeting.

Lesson-exercise scores (20 points each) demonstrate learning and artifact quality. They do not automatically overwrite the official Seven Principles assessment, which remains a separate 100-point rating of five dimensions for each principle.

Submit evidence

What must be submitted for this lesson to count as complete.

Submit

• Adopted Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula worksheet with all charter elements and a tested formula

Attach this evidence

A formula tested against three years of actual financial results
A named owner for the recurring transfer and board reporting

File upload is not implemented in this prototype. Ticking a box records that the church can produce the document; it does not store a file.

Contribute to official outcome

How this lesson builds the Future Ministry Investment Plan.

Artifact produced: Future Ministry Fund Charter and Funding Formula

Becomes the funding section of the Future Ministry Investment Plan and establishes the recurring contribution that closes the gaps named in Lesson 1.

Open the module deliverable assembly

Participant reflection and notes

What would it take for our leadership to honor this funding formula even in the leanest year we can imagine?

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