A Simple Approach to Youth Ministry Budgets…

Its that time of the year again!! Time to start looking at next year’s budget. I know some of you are asking “what’s a budget?”, I will get into that in a future post. Preparing a budget seems to be a necessary evil of Youth Ministry, but here are a few things I did several years ago to help make things a lot simpler to prepare and administrate.

1) Pray.  Ask God how He would want to use the resources you are given for His Glory and Kingdom growth.

2) Start with the end in mind. What is the total amount that the Church/Board will allow on Youth Ministry. Start here, and begin to plug in your planned events and resources

3) Use simple containers. For 5 years, I have  used three containers/categories in my budget. Everything we do fits in one of those three categories, and I can explain the why and how in less than 30 seconds. Here they are:

Inside Ministry – Happens inside the church building. (lock-ins , movie nights, Turkey bowling, etc…)

Outside Ministry – Happens outside the church. ( retreats, conferences, camps, block parties, outreaches, etc…)

Administrative – Stuff that has to happen for ministry to go on. ( Subscriptions, event scholarships, office supplies, etc…)

I hope this helps you tame the Youth Ministry Budget this year. It doesn’t have to be hard. Share your budget tips in the comments area below.

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