Desiring to help churches become both effective and excellent stewards of God’s provision, the Birmingham Metro Baptist Association has created Church Administration Services Help – or CASH for short.
Executive director Chris Crain explains that this program was “designed to serve churches and ministry partners with excellence and integrity.”
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While currently serving 36 churches and non-profit ministries, CASH provides support for accounts payable and receivable, payroll, financial reporting, charitable contributions and year-end filings.
Streamlining the process
“Every church retains full control of its spending authority,” Crain notes. “We come alongside them to streamline the process, ensure accuracy, provide a full turnkey service, and free them to focus on ministry.”
CASH ministry was developed by Michael Ethridge, who serves as the director of operations.
“The CASH ministry was born out of listening closely to the real needs of our pastors and churches,” Crain said. “About eight years ago, Michael started helping a few churches in transition in their administrative staff. He discovered that many churches were struggling to keep up with the demands of financial administration — bookkeeping, payroll, reporting, and compliance — sometimes with limited resources. Often, they had a vacancy in the financial ministry assistant role. It became clear that what many churches needed wasn’t a new financial administrative assistant but a ministry partner who understood clergy compensation and financial administration in the church world from the inside out. That’s when we realized that offering church-focused financial support could be one of the greatest blessings we could provide. BMBA Chairman of Stewardship, Mike Evans, served as a career business leader in a Fortune 500 company. Mike has brought his expertise to develop CASH into a large, value-added ministry to churches.”
‘Everything except count their money’
Operations director Michael Ethridge added: “Our goal is to help churches. We do everything except count their money, direct their spending or sign their checks. Each church remains in complete control of their funds. We post deposits, receive invoices and issue payments, process payrolls including tax deposits, quarterly reports and year end requirements. We post charitable contributions and provide annual contribution statements. We issue regular financial reports, and assist, when asked, in evaluating financial operations. We keep detailed records of all transactions in our paperless data storage system. Our staff is proficient in ACS, Realm and Shelby accounting software.
He added, “We also partner with RAMP Corporate Credit Card to provide a solution to the old manual credit card system. Since all records in the RAMP system are digital, there is no need to keep paper receipts or go through the time-consuming manual system of reconciling the monthly credit card statement. When the BMBA with seven credit card users went to the Ramp System in 2023, we reduced the man hours required to reconcile and pay the monthly credit card statement from twenty hours a month to less than one hour. We have found this to be of measurable value to the fourteen Ramp accounts we currently manage for our clients.”
In addition to Ethridge, Crain notes they have a “dedicated team of deeply experienced professionals who bring both administrative expertise and a heart for ministry.”
“They work closely with each church, often identifying areas where processes can be simplified and dollars stretched,” Crain said. “Whether it’s assisting with payroll compliance or preparing 941 forms and year-end statements, their goal is to help churches become both efficient and excellent stewards of God’s provision.”
The services offered by this ministry can be tailored to fit the various needs of each church, regardless of their size.
“Most of our clients are normative-sized churches — from 25 to 250 in weekly attendance,” Crain said. “But we also work with large congregations, associations and partner ministries. The beauty of the CASH model is its flexibility. Each church or ministry partner receives a custom scope of service and cost estimate based on their specific needs. We strive to keep our fees well below market so that every dollar saved can be reinvested into frontline ministry — from HVAC repairs to missions giving or paying the pastor’s salary.
“CASH is a ministry of the Birmingham Metro Baptist Association. As such our fee structure is tailored to each church’s needs and financial abilities. At our current level, our reduced fees have created more than $200,000 in real savings to our clients. This is measurable value added to the Kingdom. We constantly hear from churches that this ministry is a lifeline. It not only lifts a heavy administrative burden but also restores confidence in how financial matters are handled.”
For pastors like Chris Sanchez, who serves as the executive pastor at Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, the services provided by CASH allow him to spend more time focusing on ministering to the needs of the congregation instead of spending hours each day focusing on paperwork.
“I can’t tell you how thankful I am for this ministry,” Sanchez said. “During my first week in my new role at Dauphin Way Baptist Church, I was informed the outsourced accounting team that had been supporting my new church would be exiting this line of business at the conclusion of the 2024 accounting cycle. I had time to decide how to approach this: bring the work back in-house or keep it outsourced and find a new partner. Once the latter was decided, the Lord brought CASH to our attention. The transition was smooth, and they took care of our unique needs each step of the way. They know church bookkeeping because the entire team does that, and they are good at it.”
Crain noted that they continue to receive positive feedback from churches about their services.
“This sentiment is echoed again and again,” Crain said. “Churches are finding peace of mind, clarity and renewed freedom to focus on the mission, not just the management. Our vision is to see the CASH ministry extend to even more large and normative-sized churches, revitalization churches, ethnic congregations, and church plants. So many ministries operate on limited budgets and do not have the margin or expertise to hire full-time administrative staff. By offering professional-level support at below-market costs, we can equip them to thrive. The money churches have saved has already been in hundreds of thousands — money that has gone into paying their ministry team or advancing the gospel.
“We’d also love to expand into offering more proactive consulting — helping churches use the most wise and sustainable financial practices so that the church can continue to minister to its community and support mission causes. It is good to sleep at night knowing that more than a century of experience in church administration is at work helping your church do things the right way.”
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