The color of Christmas could be red ink this year for many of the nation's churches.
Experts say 6% unemployment and sinking investment income are pummeling budgets of congregations great and small, black and white, urban and suburban. Adding to the crunch are scandals, controversies and rumors of war.
Many religious institutions finished November at 10% to 20% below the usual level for the year to date, says Jerry Butler, executive director of the Willow Creek Association, a national network of 4,800 evangelical mega-churches. ''The word you hear everywhere is 'cutbacks.' ''
''Churches will cut activities and programs, maybe give fewer youth camp scholarships. They will cut equipment. The last thing they will cut is staff,'' Butler says. His home church, 20,000-member mega-church Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., saw the crunch coming early in 2002 and trimmed 30 people from a staff of 550.
For most churches, December is the traditional month for the faithful to cover whatever deficits a church faces. But this year, the influx of ''Christmas Christians'' who double church attendance on holidays might not make up the difference.
Where it shows:
* In the collection baskets. ''Giving per person is down 12% or more from what I see,'' says Tom McElheny, an ordained minister and CEO of Sarasota-based ChurchPlaza Inc., which sells church furnishings, lighting and sound equipment to 10,000 churches a year.
* In major gifts. ''Someone worth $5 million last year who is worth $2.5 million today is feeling relatively poor now,'' says David Strand, spokesman for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which cut back 30% of its missionary staff this month as donations sent up the ladder to denominational headquarters dwindled.
* In spending choices. Expect shuttered missions, canceled retreats and outreach programs. Rather than spend on those ''benevolences,'' congregations are concentrating on keeping the lights on and the sound system cranking at the home church, says researcher Sylvia Ronsvalle, who tracks church giving nationwide. Benevolences hit a record low, 15% of the donor dollar, in 2000, according to her latest study.
Focusing on essentials
But the pinch won't steal Christmas.
''That's a matter of spirit and heart,'' says the Rev. Cecil Williams, CEO of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, which has an $11 million budget. But Glide, down 45% compared with early December last year, could be forced to cut back on the 1.2 million meals it serves to the poor each year.
Forget new choir robes, more microphones or other frills for the sanctuary where 3,000 people celebrate on Sundays. The San Francisco church is zeroing in on the essentials: all the spirit money can't buy in Sunday services and a financial focus on programs for the neediest.
''We're doing triage on what really matters. We served 7,000 people at our Thanksgiving dinner, more than ever before,'' Williams says. ''We are here to serve the Lord and serve the poor. In a bad economy, we are touching the lives of people with no economy.''
Harvest Christian Fellowship in Reston, Va., will slash its $20,000 contribution to a youth mission in Ireland to $7,750 and live another year with threadbare carpets in certain corners. By refinancing the loan on the building, members were able to save their underfunded radio ministry.
''We're not broke, but we've exhausted a good portion of our cash reserves, making up a 10% shortfall'' in a $350,000 budget, the Rev. Jim O'Keefe says.
Harvest can't cut staff. There are only three employees.
'It breaks your heart'
Religious denominations, which draw their funding from churches, are finding less in the pipeline.
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod laid off 17 people, including nearly 30% of the missions department, just after Thanksgiving. Last week it called home 20 missionaries.
''Going out into the world is one of the key goals of any Christian church,'' spokesman David Strand says. ''It breaks your heart to do this.''
But the nation's ninth-largest denomination is running $3 million short, particularly in major tax-deductible gifts. ''When your appreciated stocks are under water, ''it's not so easy to write a check for $100,000,'' Strand says.
The obvious reasons are economic. But other factors also stifle giving, experts say. Some parishioners are:
* Outraged. The Archdiocese of Boston, the fourth-largest Roman Catholic diocese in the nation, is still considering bankruptcy protection from lawsuits over allegations of child sexual abuse by priests. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll Dec. 9-10 finds that 40% of Catholics say the scandal makes them less likely to contribute to the church, vs. 30% last March.
* Annoyed. Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Rev. David Benke, president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod's New York-area district, joined a rainbow of religious leaders at a prayer service in Yankee Stadium. He prayed in Jesus' name, but a national officer said Benke's participation implied that all faiths are equal, a doctrinal mistake in the official's book. Benke was suspended.
He is appealing the ruling, but no matter how the sectarian spat is resolved, ''some in the church say this put some of the deep-pocket donors in a sour mood,'' Strand says.
* Oblivious. ''People come to a big church and they think the place must be swimming in money and their contribution isn't critical,'' says Lon Solomon, senior pastor of McLean Bible Church in McLean, Va., where more than 8,000 people attend.
''But when people see what work we are doing or they read about the downsizing in the bulletin, they think, 'I had better step up,' '' he says.
That call came in January when 15 people were laid off after McLean Bible ran $400,000 in the red last year. This year, Solomon says, giving is up $1 million over projected income, and the church is preparing to open a new auditorium in 2003. Although membership grew 15% in 2002, the staff held at under 130.
At most churches, even longtime members aren't as generous as their Bible recommends: Only about 10% tithe, giving 10% of their income.
The average church member gave just 2.6% in 2000, down from 3.1% in 1968, Ronsvalle says.
Today's dollar in the collection basket is divvied up differently as well.
About 85% stays home to run the church operations and in some cases pay for worship services that rival commercial pop concerts with theater seats, lavish sound and light systems and more. It was 79% in 1968.
Meanwhile, the portion allotted to gifts called benevolences, for needs beyond the local church such as missions and evangelism, sank to a record low. Says Ronsvalle: ''Philanthropy is being redefined as personal comfort.''