When I was in high school, I had come to realize I was settling into an outstanding pattern of procrastination. Often I would put off an assignment only to find my self slammed the few days before it was due because of other assignments and commitments! By the time I got into my second year of college I had outgrown my procrastinating posture.

Churches sometimes are much like my high school lifestyle. They too can begin to stand out in the area of procrastination. Many a church needs to do something and they need to do it right away only to discover that by the time they get to it, the opportunity to make a change has come and gone and the opportunity is missed.

As pastor leaders our reasons for putting off pressing action are as extensive as our aptitude for creative thoughts, but one of the more common excuses is:

We need to just get ourselves out of debt at church first!

May I challenge briefly and perhaps offer some words that will dispel the power of these ideas that often paralyze the local church?

A little debt actually will not hurt most churches today! Most often if the debt is tied to the financing of something that helps the church grow it is a safe investment. But take notice of what I am about to say!

If your church fellowship is in a death dive as far as its regular Sunday attendance, it would be unwise to invest in this way. When you are not sure of ones future income base for the local church it could further cripple the church beyond any chance of recovery.

Many unwise and untrained pastors often thrust a church membership into something, which requires large capital funds only to discover that they do not have the necessary members in the church in order to sustain the cost of the capital idea. Far too many churches get so over their heads in capital debt that it squeezes the life out of the ministry and work of the Lord in that church for a large number of years into the future. Eventually the minister moves on and leaves the church in a critical situation. That is usually when a church revitalizer is called to lead the church and make the hard and necessary decisions to give it the best opportunity for life again.

One church which is led by a wise Church Revitalizer has taken six years to get it back on its feet all because a previous pastor and executive pastor had gotten it so in debt that it was about to go under. Today it is glory days but the previous six years were nothing but hard work and even harder decision making in order to bring the church out of unwise debt.