When churches fill out loan applications with Orchard Alliance, one of the questions we ask is what they project their attendance will be five years from now.

It’s fascinating to see the optimism that is usually expressed in their answers.

Likewise, when we meet directly with church leaders, their hopes and dreams for the future are rarely small. They often are planning three or four building phases into the future, with the capstone project routinely being a large Christian retirement center. We don’t suffer from a lack of dreaming big in the church world, but we do suffer from a lack of preparing big for those dreams. In short, our convictions about our dreams are rarely deep enough to cause us to plan as if those dreams will happen, and that’s a shame, because some of those dreams are really worth pursuing.

Preparing for our dreams is challenging, but critical if we are ever to realize them. Being prepared financially is probably the greatest challenge of all. Do you have a dream for your church? Does it include growth in your ministries? If so, let us challenge you to begin preparing for your dreams today by making “payments” to yourself to develop the financial discipline that it will someday take to finance those dreams. Set money aside each month, ideally in ever-increasing amounts, to get into the habit of paying for what you believe God is calling you to do, whether it be adding staff, or funding a new ministry, or making a loan payment for your next facility. Prove the conviction of your dreams by preparing today. Someday, you’ll be glad you did.

David Graf
Vice President for Lending

*Originally published in 2018, revised and reposted Jan, 2022