MINISTERS FINANCIAL HEALTH GRANT HELPS PASTOR FOCUS ON CHURCH EFFORTS RATHER THAN FINANCIAL BURDENS

By Emily Ahrens

Brad Newman and his wife, Sarah, have been married for 16 years and have five kids. They’ve called Amarillo, Texas, their home since 2007. Newman began serving at South Georgia Baptist Church in 2011 in various roles such as student minister, family pastor and eventually the church planting pastor.

In a nearby growing area of Amarillo, both Brad and Sarah could see it was lacking the presence of the gospel. There was new construction and new families moving in at a rapid speed, but it did not offer families a spiritual home.

So, they decided to plant Tradewind Community Church in the heart of this developing neighborhood about six months before the COVID-19 pandemic entered the U.S. In the last three years, they have seen many challenges.

To help with some of those challenges, Brad applied for the Minister's Financial Health Grant through Texas Baptists, where eligible Texas Baptists pastors and church staff can apply for a grant that can provide much-needed relief from financial pressures.

Tradewind Community Church was paired with the Highlands Christian Industries Foundation to match the grant. Alongside the grant, the church also received courses on financial literacy from Texas Baptists. Not only did they learn new ways to steward their gifts, but also how to teach their congregation the importance of generosity and continuing to give.

“It reshaped how we do our church budget,” Brad explained.

“Through this gift from the Texas Baptists, it has helped stabilize us and give us the encouragement we really needed.

According to the Ministers Financial Health team, 90% of pastors feel some level of financial stress in their family and church work. On top of that, over 30% of pastors work a second job to make ends meet. Both Brad and Sarah were filled with gratitude for the grant, not only for the financial relief, but also the ability to refocus from their finances to the church.

“We can now put our attitude and our efforts into the ministry and the church and focus on what God has given us to do,” Brad said. “It took that extra burden off and made a huge difference.”

The Center for Cultural Engagement

The Center for Cultural Engagement helps equip Texas Baptists to engage in our respective communities. God calls us to be salt and light. We help bring others into community with God’s people through building bridges between groups, seeking justice, healing brokenness, confronting systemic evils, and speaking truth to power. We do this to bring the secular toward the sacred. The Center for Cultural Engagement is thankful for the support provided through the Cooperative Program.