There's nothing quite like emailing your church bookkeeper and saying, "Hey, pay me less."

You'd think writing an email instructing someone to reduce your would feel dramatic, maybe even noble. It doesn't. It feels like admitting defeat. Like the financial version of a doctor wiping their hands and saying, "There's nothing more we can do."

But here we are. The Table Church—the community Tonetta and I and so many others have poured ourselves into, the place that preaches a more beautiful gospel, the church that refuses to shame queer folks or prop up white supremacy—is short on money. Our monthly income is regularly less than our monthly expenses. The bank account could audition for Oliver Twist. And so: pay cuts. And budget cuts. And November 16th will be the final service at our Downtown location.

A lot of people in the DC region have either lost their jobs or had to change jobs because of the Trump administration's slash-and-burn strategy of governance. We've been living through a government shutdown for literal months now, and this entire year has created a constant buzz of anxiety for everyone. When people are worried about their own finances—rightfully so—giving to a church drops down the priority list. I get it. I've been there.

But we've spent most of this year trying to keep things running as normally as possible. We even began the year with the "Trump bump," the surge in non-profit giving that happens due to the predicted havoc that the Trump administration will bring to at-risk communities. Because the world is filled with constant uncertainty, the last thing the leaders of The Table wanted to do was create more uncertainty for people by retreating or cutting programs and services. We desired to be a steady presence, a reliable community showing up week after week...

...Except that strategy led us to drain our cash reserves. So now we're here. Hindsight and all that.

A few weeks ago, Tonetta preached about Satan—not as a guy with horns and a pitchfork, but as this constant pressure pushing down on you, this force working against every bit of good you're trying to do. That's what this feels like. Not just financial stress, but this relentless pressure cooker of evil and despair. Every time we think we've found stable ground, something shifts.

What We're Losing

The evening service has meant a lot to me. More than I probably realized until we had to make this decision.

I got to The Table Church right at the beginning of the pandemic, and the evening service was where we did all our recording and streaming, where our first in-person services were when we opened back up. When we lost our morning location a couple years back, the evening service was the place we returned to, our home base. Over time, things have changed—people more naturally gravitated to Sunday mornings, as people do. That's where most folks associate "church" happening.

But the evening service has had this core group. Steady. Strong. But, also, admittedly, growing smaller.

It really, truly sucks to live in a world where you have to make ministry decisions based on budget constraints and lack of resources. I would much rather ask the question "What does our community need?" and not "What can we afford?" But when reality hits and we have to make budget-based decisions, it feels backward. It feels like letting the empire win.

I've had to wrestle with my own internal monologue on this. The obnoxious voice that says, "Maybe you're just a bad leader. Maybe you're a terrible organizational manager. Maybe if you were a better pastor, the church would be thriving financially. Maybe you're doomed to pastor failing churches because you are a failure."

There's probably some nugget of truth somewhere in there. I'm sure there are things I could have done differently, better. I have to take responsibility for my actual failures—the things I control, the decisions I can make.

But I also can't shoulder all the blame. There are a thousand factors I have no control over: a pandemic that fundamentally changed how people relate to church. An administration creating chaos and economic anxiety. The reality that progressive Christianity—especially the kind that actually names white supremacy and celebrates queer folks—isn't exactly swimming in donor money.

The elders, Tonetta, and I had very honest conversations about the pay cuts. What could we handle? What would breed resentment? These were hard, necessary conversations. I've never been part of a church that was swimming in money. This is just... the reality of ministry.

To write to your own bookkeeper and say, "Hey, pay me less for the foreseeable future"—that's not fun. But it's real.

I suspect I may be among one of the last generations of American pastors doing full-time ministry and getting a regular paycheck. I think future generations of pastors are going to have to get a lot more creative and unconventional about how churches raise money and pay staff. Bivocational ministry isn't the exception anymore; it's becoming the norm.

But also—I want The Table Church to grow! I want hundreds, thousands of people participating in what we're building here. Not for my ego, but because what we do is important. It's crucial. The more beautiful gospel we preach is worth investing in, worth proclaiming, worth evangelizing about. It deserves to reach more people than the gospels centered in shame, bigotry, and a punitive God.

I have some church trauma ickiness around this, if I'm honest. I became a pastor influenced by church growth, Willow Creek-like culture. I saw the spiritual abuse that came out of that obsession with numbers and expansion. The manipulation and celebrity pastors. The way growth became synonymous with God's approval, and anything less than explosive expansion meant you were failing.

So I can be real sheepish and embarrassed about wanting a church that grows. Like wanting growth makes me one of those pastors. 😱

But I don't think growth has to be synonymous with abuse. Healthy things should grow. Though I also know growth isn't necessarily a sign of health—tumors grow too.

Still, I don't want to be embarrassed about wanting a sustainable budget. A livable salary. A church where the message we proclaim actually reaches enough people to make a difference. I shouldn't have to apologize for wanting our gospel—the one that liberates rather than oppresses—to be more successful than what's coming from pulpits that belittle women and condemn queer folks and ignore or perpetuate racism.

So where does that leave me?

I'd like to believe we're at a nadir, a bottoming-out point where things can only get better from here. But I'm not naive. There are plenty of reasons that might not be true. The financial pressures might continue. The evening service closure might lead to other losses. The Trump administration's chaos might get worse before it gets better.

But what I choose to believe, even when my feelings are in the doldrums:

What we are doing as a church matters. What I am doing as a pastor is necessary and good. The message we're proclaiming is worth believing in.

The Table Church exists because people are desperate for a faith that doesn't require them to check their brains at the door or their queerness in the closet or their commitment to racial justice at the police station. We exist because the gospel—the actual good news—is about liberation, not control. About abundance, not scarcity. About a God who shows up in the margins, not one who props up empires.

And if we have to do that with smaller budgets and fewer services and pastors taking pay cuts? Fine, whatever, I guess. That doesn't change the truth of what we're about.

Tonetta's sermon on Satan, on that pressure pushing down—it named something real. There is opposition to this work. Not because we're doing it wrong, but because we're doing it right. Because any movement toward collective liberation, toward freedom and equity and justice, threatens the powers that benefit from oppression.

Every act of inclusion is spiritual warfare. Every sermon that names white supremacy as sin is an exorcism. Every queer person who finds home in our community is proof that God's kingdom is bigger and more beautiful than the gatekeepers want to admit.

So yes, this is hard. Yes, I'm tired. Yes, I wish we had the resources to do everything we dream of doing.

But we keep showing up. We keep preaching. We keep building the kind of church that our neighbors—queer, straight, Black, white, Brown, struggling, thriving—actually need.

Because this work matters. Even when the money runs out.