More than numbers on a page outlining our estimated expenditures for the coming year, a budget is the numerical manifestation of our values. Jesus summarized it best when he said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” If your habit is the week-to-week grind of struggling to make it through, that is what you’ve settled on as your treasure. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. As you plan your budget this year, I’d like to share three reasons why you need to build strategic planning into your budget; in other words; you need to budget for breakthrough.

A budget is the numerical manifestation of our values.

Budgeting for Break Through Allows You to Focus on the Important, not just the Urgent

Hopefully, your network has a mission to accomplish God’s purposes in your context. Whether you and a team of leaders are doing the work of that mission or you’re empowering and humbly serving others who are accomplishing that mission, you have something you desire to see accomplished. However, suppose all your budgeting funds go toward the squeaky wheel, the maintenance machinery, and the overhead ogre. In that case, you’re likely not setting aside finances to plan for the essential things, and if you’re not setting aside your monies for strategic planning, then your posture is likely more reactive than proactive. This will prevent you from focusing on the important and keep you focused on the urgent, thus limiting your capacity for maximum kingdom growth.

Budgeting for Break Through Allows You to Center Your Compass

As a kid, we wrote on notebook paper and had to stay inside the red vertical lines on either side of the page. If we went over those red lines, we weren’t leaving enough space for margin. Setting aside monies for strategic planning means that you’re intentionally thinking about the natural tendencies that we all have to fill in the margin in our lives with extra stuff, and you’re deciding in advance to make sure there is a time to realign your compass and center yourself and your network on what’s most important now.

Budgeting for Break Through Allows You to Afford an Outside Perspective

One of the most devastating realities I see in networks and churches alike are mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally exhausted leaders. Still, they keep plodding on until they burn out because they can’t afford to stop at an oasis. Frequently these leaders require fresh wind of an outside perspective in their sails to feel the satisfying spray of what ministry can be again. Unfortunately, a simple lack of budgetary planning keeps that from happening. The truth of the situation is that it’s hard to think creatively about the future into which God is pulling you when you’re already at the end of your rope.

While there are certainly more reasons, these three alone should encourage you to invest into a carry-forward line item on your budget for strategic and tactical breakthroughs that will allow you and your team to refresh and regroup at least every three-five years.

If you've been budgeting for a breakthrough or are considering imagining your network through a new light, visit theprismprocess.com, and we can help.