What to Keep, What to Cut  by John W. Wimberly, Jr. (Excerpt from the Alban Institute website)

Like many congregations and organizations, at the beginning of 2009 Western Presbyterian Church faced a serious budgetary shortfall. To deal with this painful situation, our session (governing board) needed to exhibit both leadership and management skills: leadership skills to bring our congregation along with us, management skills to work the numbers. We also needed to develop a transparent decision-making process.
As a session, our first challenge was to create a process to make the tough decisions we had to make. A flawed decision-making process could divide the congregation and us. Much to my surprise, a rather heated debate developed over this question. We were far from united about how to move forward.

Some elders wanted to move quickly to cut the deficit. If we were going to reduce staff, we needed to do so quickly so that some salaries and benefits would stop being paid. If we were going to reduce benevolences, they needed to stop immediately before the treasurer dispersed them.
Other elders wanted to take a slower planning approach. They said we needed to pray about and meditate upon the overall direction of the congregation and that we needed input from the congregation.
By the end of our January session meeting, the elders merged the two approaches. Wherever possible, they froze payments that didn't need to be made until May. They asked committees to look for immediate cuts they could make to their budgets. They also authorized a condensed five-month planning process—complete with time for prayer and reflection—that would end no later than the June session meeting.

To finish reading the rest of the article, please go to http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9208.