Setting a Budget

19 October 2025

By Pastor John Macindoe - Senior Pastor

Last week I sat, along with four others from our church, in a Budget Committee meeting grappling with the church budget for 2026. It was not an easy task. 

It’s exciting to think about what we could do next year to be Landmark, Lighthouse, and Home for Jesus in the heart of the city. But every possibility must be grounded in reality – what do we believe we actually can do, and what place do our finances play in that?

Let me share some of our struggles: This year’s budget is approximately $1,210,000. Most of that is staff salaries (5 pastors plus admin), insurance, and property maintenance. At the end of September our giving was $132,000 below budget. That’s a big number.

I asked Doris, our Treasurer, to give me a projection of how much money we would actually be down by the end of the year, given than our expenses are also tracking lower than expected. Doris’ estimate: a little less than $100,000. That’s still a very big number. That’s not sustainable.

So how do you set a budget for 2026? The answer: With great difficulty.

The Committee members spent most of their time agonising over where we might cut expenses to generate savings. As I said, it was not an easy task (given that many of our expenses are fixed) and not everyone will be happy with our outcome.  Nevertheless, we have a responsibility to be faithful and wise stewards of our finances.

Having said all that, we must never forget that God is good, and he owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10). We put our faith not in our resources, but in the Lord Jesus, and we pray, as Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us our daily bread”.