By: Svetlana Papazov
A Real-Life Story - Navigating the Postmodern Families and Their Economics
“Zelda walked into my office, sat in my chair and said, “‘We are out of room in the preschool. I want a second site.’”
“‘What?’” I responded.
“‘Our building is at max and we should start a second site. We have a great brand, beautiful staff, and are priced to go the distance.’” Zelda quipped.
“‘All right. Let’s scale, capitalize, and leverage our assets. Go find us a second building Zelda,’” I said as I started to salsa dance.
Victory Church in Yorktown, VA had two things in common with many churches around the country. They had debt and they had a daycare. Co-Pastors Jamé and Jennifer Bolds share how their church has taken this challenge and turned it into an economic blessing for the church and the community’s young families.
Church and Economics
Most people do not think about the intersection of church life and economics, and it’s a shame. People come to church for a large part to get their needs met. They come because they have a problem and they need a solution. Often times those needs are economic. Unfortunately, economics is an issue that pastors often find elusive, fearful, or simply just lack.
A few simple economic principles rightly understood can transform any church into a ministry that can impact a local economy and develop whole life discipleship.
“When my wife and I came to co-pastor Victory’s revitalization, the picture was grim. We were elected with 28 people, the church was in debt $1.3M, the building was in disrepair, we were running a structural deficit of $100,000 a year, the preschool was broke, and the church was living on borrowed time. But God had a plan. Today the balance sheet is completely flipped, and God is doing some powerful work at Victory.
After weeks of running financial math formulas, we finally discovered a fixed cost structure and an internal rate of return that zeroed out the net present value of money. Gold. (In English, that means we found a way to make money.)
So, we looked at the preschool that was on life support, took a loan out for $200,000 plus, and rebuilt a commercial-grade style preschool right in the middle of the church. Currently, the preschool is booming, profitable, and debt free. I am excited that we have been able to create value in two major ways: jobs and care.
Embedding the Church in the Economy
We have created eighteen jobs and several management positions that command a serious salary. We have the privilege to employ young married mothers that are re-entering the workforce, single mothers who have struggled, and college students who are working through their degree, and recent high school grads looking for a career. At Victory, we take calling so seriously that if you are with us for ninety days, we will cover 100 percent of the cost of your Child Development Associates credential. We also have the privilege to provide affordable childcare to our twenty to thirty something families. I know nothing about the preschool industry. I just know it is stupid expensive.
“The average costs to a Virginia family for daycare is around $1,600 per month for one child. Let that sink in. That’s a mortgage payment, and some young families are making tremendous decisions based on childcare. I have heard stories from our families deciding for one parent to simply stay home or to not have a second or third child because of the childcare costs, or horrifically, I recently heard of a family talking about a second mortgage to pay up front for two years of care.
For our families and seventy children, we have solved that problem. We provide excellent childcare for under half the cost. We were able to move our margin of internal rate of return (IRR) to single digits, thus passing on tremendous savings to our parents.
Our economic thinking of lowering our IRR creates the opportunity for young parents to have Christmas, or live in a bigger house. One story that brought tears to my eyes was a professional thirty-something couple decided to have a third child based on the reputation and cost of our preschool.
A family that enrolled in our preschool started coming to our church and expressed how much we love them because we are thinking of their family’s economic life. I have since been able to dedicate their baby and was one of the first to know they were expecting a second. And yes, they already reserved a space in the nursery.
“That’s whole-life discipleship at its best—caring and providing for people’s faith, work, and economics.
Reflection
The turning point was when we began to focus on pastoring the city that God had placed us in. Here’s what I mean. We began to ask the question, “What is the spiritual and economic value our church can provide to our city? Often, we pray and ask God to send something or someone, and most of the time the answer we seek is right in front of us. In front of us was a dingy old preschool. We took what was in our hand and sought to make it better.
What is the spiritual and ecumenical value your church can provide to your city?
An Excerpt from the book, “Church for Monday” by Dr. Svetlana Papazov.
Svetlana Papazov is Lead Pastor and Founder of Real Life Church, President/Founder of Real Life Center for Entrepreneurial and Leadership Excellence, a first of its kind model of church and business incubator that educates in entrepreneurship, leadership and faith praxis, and author of “Church for Monday.