Is Your Accounting Team Disconnected?

I recently attended Tim's breakout at ICC called "Creating a Staff Culture that Rocks". In his session, the question was asked (Paraphrase) Does your accounting team feel disconnected or alienated from the rest of the staff?

It seemed like an odd question to me until I heard the context. At this church, the accounting staff was hired from the outside. They didn't attend the church.

I've heard of other churches who hire their accounting staff from the outside or encourage their accounting staff not to attend the church. I admit that I don't totally understand the rationale behind this. If they don't have a stake in the ministry, What's their motivation to do their best work? How can they pull hard for the mission, vision, and values of the church if they aren't involved? Isn't it just a job to them? What motivates them to keep confidential information confidential? What keeps them from circumventing internal controls for personal gain?


I love that we hire a great majority of our staff, including our accounting staff, from the inside here at GCC. I love the way our entire staff is treated like a family. We all attend church here. We all tithe here. We're all invited to all staff meetings like our weekly all staff meeting called SWAT (Staff Working as Team). We're all asked to serve in the church. We're all motivated to pull together for our mission vision and values. We're all informed about what's going on and what's coming up. No one is disconnected or alienated from the rest of the staff team.


What's the benefit of this connection?


As an accounting staff, we love Jesus and we love GCC. We do our best to be effective, efficient, timely, and accurate. We're upset when things don't reconcile to the penny. We do our absolute best to keep confidential information confidential. We do our best to adhere to our system of internal control and prevent fraud or abuse. Its more than just a job for us. We're "helping people take their next step toward Christ...together".


I think its especially important for the accounting staff to be part of the church and staff family. After all, the financial resources of the church are entrusted to their care. They need to care about what's entrusted to them.