Throughout Scripture, we see that “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psa 24:1), that all we possess actually belongs to Him, and that all of this has been entrusted to us as stewards (Psa 50:10, Matt 25:14–30 & 1 Cor 4:7). We also see that the Lord treats the giving of our finances as an act of worship (Pro 3:9).

Redeemer members covenant to “live a life of worship within our church community, in the giving of their time, finances and attention.” We earnestly pray that our members will use the resources given to them by the Lord as an opportunity for worship and furthering the kingdom of God.

Our budget for the 2023 calendar year is $3.7M. This budget is funded entirely through the faithful and generous giving of our church family.

Ever since the founding of our church, we have endeavored to make our gathered worship a welcoming place for followers of Christ and for those visiting a church for the first time. While we desire faithful, sacrificial and worshipful giving from our church family, we never want the church’s focus on finances to get in the way of an opportunity to share the good news of the gospel. Therefore, we have chosen to remove this potential barrier from our weekly service and instead invite our faith family to give as the Lord leads.

In 2023, 83% of our budget went to fund the ministry of the church, including global missions, ministry expenses, staffing and support of various local ministries and churches throughout Birmingham. Of our overall budget, 13% went towards supporting our local and global missions efforts, 8% funded our ministries and 54% was allocated towards staffing. Additionally, 17% of our budget went towards our growing facility costs, including the overhead for our existing properties and investment in the development and renovation of 4th & Spring and our future Children’s Ministry building.

Our yearly budget begins with the planning and vision casting of our staff. They work with their teams of staff and lay leaders to plan for the coming year and make budget requests based on these plans. The budget is then created and reviewed by the Finance Committee of Elders, which includes elders and lay members of our congregation with gifting in finance and accounting. Finally, the budget is taken before the full Eldership for a vote.

As attendance has grown in recent years, our yearly budget has also grown. We have seen giving grow by an average of 13% annually in the past few years, and we have seen our expenses grow proportionally. Specifically, staffing and facility expenses continue to increase as we seek to minister to the needs of our growing church family.

Redeemer has never had any institutional debt. Through the generous giving of our faith family, we have been able to acquire our current facilities without acquiring debt. However, as our facility needs continue to grow, we anticipate entering into a new season as a church family that will involve debt. We are currently renovating a building on the corner of our block that will serve as our Children’s Discipleship Building and we desire to expand our parking lot in 2024. By the end of these projects, we anticipate holding $1.75M in debt and have a plan to pay this off by the end of 2027.

Our leadership’s commitment is to pay off debt as quickly as possible. Therefore, we plan to use the majority of giving beyond our budget to pay off this debt. Our hope is that many in our congregation will be led to give in a way that allows us to pay off this debt as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions about our budget or desire to talk with a member of our Finance Committee, please reach out to us. You can always reach our team. We would love to sit down with you and answer your questions. Additionally, we are always looking for church members to serve alongside us as we attempt to steward Redeemer’s finances for the glory of God. Please reach out if you are interested in joining one of these teams.

Yes! You can view your historic giving information by logging in to your profile on our Giving platform. If we have your phone number or email address on file, you already have an account created.

Yes! We send out a record of your previous year’s giving no later than January 31 each year. If your address has changed or if you have any questions about those records, please contact us.

If you gave jointly with a spouse in the past, your giving history might be connected to their profile. Have your spouse log in to our new giving system to see if your family's giving history shows up on their profile. If it shows up, send us a message, and we can link your accounts together under a joint giving profile.

If you haven't given jointly with a spouse in the past, send us a message, and we'll do our best to locate your historic giving information. Most likely it will be as simple as adding a phone number or email address to your profile in order to link your records properly.

Our giving platform accepts credit cards, debit cards, and ACH bank transfers.

If you utilize a credit or card, the church will lose around 2.1% per transaction to fees, whereas ACH transfers have a flat $0.25 fee per transaction. If you feel led, you can choose to cover the fee with each transaction.

That's totally up to what is best for you and your family, though some giving methods have additional fees. ACH bank transfers incur the lowest fee ($0.25 total per transaction) vs. credit or debit cards (2.1% of the gift + $0.30). So, for a $100 gift, Redeemer would lose $2.40 if it was given via a credit or debit card.

In 2021 alone, Redeemer lost about $60k to these transaction fees. If you feel led, you can opt to offset the cost of your giving transactions. Just hit the little checkbox that says "Add $ to cover the processing fee").

In that case, the order of benefit to Redeemer would be:

• ACH, credit, or debit card transaction where you cover the fee
• ACH where you don't cover the fee
• Credit or debit card where you don't cover the fee

If you choose to offset the processing fee, your end-of-year donation record will show the total amount (including the covered fee). In other words, you'll be able to claim the entire charge for tax purposes.

Spouses cannot see your giving history by default in our system. Some couples have different tax needs and don't file jointly, so our giving platform keeps separate giving records instead of one joint record.

However, we can fix this easily. If you would like your spouse to be able to see your family's giving history, let us know. We'll get your profiles linked correctly!

Yes! Though it may take some time to show up, all digital and traditional giving methods eventually show up in your giving profile.

Yes! We prefer to handle these with you directly. Reach out to Josh Hausen for more assistance.

When in doubt, contact us! You can send an email to give@rccbirmingham.org.

Of course! For cash gifts, we ask that you would place them in the receptacles at the back of our sanctuary. If you would like a record of cash gifts, please place them in an envelope with your contact information on the outside.

You can also deposit checks in the receptacles at the back of our sanctuary or mail them to:

Redeemer Community Church
4002 4th Ave S
Birmingham, AL 35222

If you check your PayPal account and do not see a recurring donation, please let us know. For some reason, PayPal might not show a recurring donation tied to your email address even though it exists. Thankfully, we can cancel it from our backend.