Jeff Simmons: Becoming Faithful Stewards

Before Jeff Simmons became a pastor, he thought he would be a businessman. He went to business school before God called him to ministry, but his undergrad education turned out to be more useful than he expected. 

Simmons, who is founding and senior pastor of Rolling Hills Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, is also president of Justice & Mercy International, a nonprofit focusing on missions work in Moldova and the Amazon, and author of The Business of Ministry: How to Maximize God’s Resources for Kingdom Impact (Moody). 

In this interview with Outreach, he shares not only what it looks like to apply business principles to a church ministry, but also why that’s so important in the greater mission of building God’s kingdom.

What was your experience like in seminary learning how to run the business side of a church? 

I had great theological training, but I quickly realized no business principles were being taught. I got my first job as a student pastor, and I remember a bunch of times when everybody on staff was stressed about budgets. I kind of knew what to do, but it wasn’t from seminary; it was from business school. I started to realize really quickly that there is a lot of business in ministry, and we don’t teach it or prepare well for it.

Some pastors might argue that thinking about the church as a business is unbiblical, and that a pastor should stick to shepherding instead of wading into the waters of business. How do you approach that tension?

I don’t think business and ministry are mutually exclusive. Pastors have three roles: shepherding, teaching and leading—business would fall under leadership—and I think all three of those are important. So yeah, it’s a tension to be managed, but I don’t think it’s a problem to be solved. You have to have both there, and if we can grow in this area, it’s going to help us to do greater ministry for the glory of God. 

There’s also a tension between being a good steward of God’s resources and not putting your ministry into debt or taking on other serious financial risk, and in trusting God to provide. 

God gives us a mind, so you want to be able to look at the pros and cons of any decision you make. But you never forget about God, right? I think sometimes we have a scarcity mentality. Well, this is our budget and that’s all we have. We forget about the riches of God, the goodness of God, and that God holds all the world in his hands.  

When we are stepping out in faith and doing things right and being good stewards, God always multiplies. So there are times when you sit down with people in your church who are in business, who are doing accounting or running the books for the church, and you try to make wise decisions. You pray about it, but you also say, God has called us to this. That’s stepping out in faith and obedience. And that’s what we have as pastors that the secular business world doesn’t.

How do we not allow ourselves to get too distracted by the business side of things?

I think it’s always going to come back to the heart. Jesus talked about money a lot because he knew it was the chief competitor for our heart. He said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). If our treasure becomes the things of this world, then we’re going to drift from God. But if our treasure is in the Lord, then I think you use the principles that God’s put into place for his glory. Money itself is not bad. Money can be used to do a lot of good. 

Does church size matter when it comes to the business considerations of operating a church or ministry? 

It’s scalable. You have a small church with a part-time pastor who is sitting there going, I need somebody to lead music, somebody to teach kids. But I probably also need somebody to do accounting, somebody who is wise in business and can help us on marketing or promotions, or can help me manage our facilities. Facilities costs end up crushing a lot of churches, and that’s why they go out of business and sell off. It’s not because the pastor doesn’t have a pure heart for the Lord. It’s because it’s not run well, and that’s the heartbreaking part. So, it has to be run better, whether it’s a small church or a bigger church. You get into megachurches and multiple campuses and lots and lots of staff, and yeah, your business better be good, but it better be good when you’re small or you won’t grow.

What’s your advice to pastors about overcoming fears around talking about and asking for money?

If Jesus doesn’t shy away from talking about money, then we should not. And everybody else is talking about it, right? But what we’re talking about is eternity for people’s soul. You get down to it, and we ought to be asking for money. There is no greater investment that somebody could make than in God’s church or in the ministry that is going to impact somebody’s eternity or change their generational legacy. We’ve got an incredible message, the greatest message of all, and we’ve got to be bold about it. 

Then there is the issue of pastors who have been let go due to financial misconduct.

When we planted the church, I wanted to make sure we had a finance team. I wanted to have laypeople to oversee the resources. People are looking for financial integrity, so we send out donor statements and emails with contribution statements. We also have an outside firm audit the books. We do that for our nonprofit and for the church.

You’ve got to protect your financial integrity, or it will take you down. You better talk about it and get a plan for it. When people hear we have an audit, or that we’re a part of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, or that the church has a finance team, I think they go, Yes, I want to give. I want to be a part of that. Even a small church could have that. I mean, there are people in the church who would love to help and to be that for you.

What’s one simple business decision a pastor can make immediately to improve kingdom impact?

I would encourage pastors to have the courage and the boldness to measure some return on investments and to be able to say no to some things that are not working and that are draining resources or time, energy and money. Businesses have accountability with their stockholders, but with church, everybody’s nice and we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. As pastors, we love people, but you also have to have the courage to be a good steward of what God’s entrusted to you. We’re going to stand before God one day and be accountable to him.

Any final words of wisdom for pastors and church leaders when it comes to the business of ministry?

I do think we are stewards. We don’t own any of this, and we can’t take any of it with us. There is an accountability that we have to be mindful of, that we’re standing before the Lord and we are stewarding his resources. When people give money, they’re giving it to the Lord. It’s the widow’s mite. We have to be good stewards of that while also trusting the Lord and stepping out in boldness, but always remembering the purpose that God has given us: to reach people for Christ and then to grow up fully mature disciples.

Jessica Hanewinckel
Jessica Hanewinckel

Jessica Hanewinckel is an Outreach magazine contributing writer.