As the final video in this series, this is where the rubber meets the road. It’s time to help your church create a plan for using Bitcoin, and there are quite a few factors to consider as you go through the process:
- Age — how established is your church? Are you just getting started with limited funds, or have you been around for decades with a long track record of budget surpluses?
- Size — how large is your church, and do you have growing or declining attendance trends?
- Demographics — what type of people make up your congregation in terms of age, education, family size, and tech savviness?
- Financial situation — does your church already have a lot of saved-up capital, or is it operating month to month?
- Geography — is your church urban or rural, and are you in a developed or developing country that is pro-Bitcoin?
- Goals — is your church focused on growing larger and becoming a resource for other missions, or is it more focused on planting churches and staying small?
The answers to these questions should make it clear how best to approach Bitcoin, but when in doubt, or when there’s a lack of conviction, it’s always better to go slower.
Remember, you may be able to convince your church to adopt Bitcoin on your word alone, and this might be fine during a bull market — but when things turn down, emotions can take over and things can get ugly. If necessary, go back and watch the Proof of Work video in this series if you need a reminder about conviction.
A few worked examples
If you attend a church plant that’s just getting started with a small number of young families in an expensive urban area, you may have little to no extra funds any given month to put toward savings, much less Bitcoin. In this case, it might be best to just create an account on an exchange where you can hold small donations, or set up a modest, monthly recurring buy order to slowly accumulate a fund for planting future churches.
On the other hand, if you go to a resource church with stable or growing attendance and large cash balances in building, missions, or benevolence funds, you might be able to justify large, up-front, one-time purchases — and even moving the Bitcoin to self-custody or collaborative custody.
Of course, it may also be more wise to avoid the one-time purchases and instead gradually move into Bitcoin over a set period of time, which could be months or even years. This could depend on several factors, including the market cycle and your liquidity needs.
A benevolence fund may need more directly accessible operating capital, while a building fund can accumulate for years, or even decades, so each fund may require a different target Bitcoin percentage.
Over time, if the price of Bitcoin continues to go up, you may need to rebalance some of the Bitcoin back into cash — but be wary of doing this too much, as doing so can also severely impede growth. As your church develops more conviction, you’ll probably want to update your policy for each fund to allow for a higher percentage of Bitcoin, in order to avoid rebalancing too often and to capitalize on growth as much as possible.
Announcing the plan
You will need to be very careful about how you announce the new Bitcoin plan, and expect to encounter resistance — or even get some angry feedback — especially if you intend to convert existing balances into Bitcoin. Much of this feedback will probably come in the form of one of the objections we’ve covered, and if our explanations aren’t enough, we’re happy to provide more details for the specific situation.
If the negative feedback is coming from an existing financial planner or wealth advisor, you may have to consider finding a person or company that is more aligned with your new vision and goals.
The key components of your plan
The key components of your plan should include:
- How you intend to receive and hold the Bitcoin
- Which funds will include Bitcoin
- What the initial allocations will be, and how these may change over time
- How you envision using the Bitcoin for God’s kingdom
For example, if your goal is to bolster missions in developing countries that have difficulty receiving dollars, your plan might be to receive donations in dollars, convert those into Bitcoin at your exchange, and then send Bitcoin directly to specific missionaries as needed from the exchange account.
If your goal is to build a new building or update your current facilities, your plan may be to convert part of your existing building fund into Bitcoin up front at an exchange, and then convert a portion of it on a monthly basis until a certain allocation percentage is reached. When the dollar value exceeds a certain amount, the plan may be to transfer the Bitcoin to collaborative custody, or cold storage, until a property is found during a market up-cycle.
In either case, your plan should include a level of detail that will put people at ease, but not so much that it overwhelms them — especially from a technical perspective. Details might include information about the exchange you are choosing, how the cold storage will work and who will have signing authority, how donations will be handled if they are received in fiat versus Bitcoin, and how rebalancing will be carried out if you intend to stick to specific targets.
You should set the expectation that you intend to review the plan on a regular basis, and as the church grows or the goals change, the plan will be amended and improved, with any changes communicated as clearly as possible and with plenty of notice.
If you need help crafting your plan, feel free to reach out and we’ll be happy to advise. Again, Magnalia is a non-profit, so we don’t charge for these services. We’re a mission organization, and our goal is to help the church understand and use Bitcoin — this is our passion.
A recap of the series
As this series comes to a close, let’s do a quick recap.
- Spread Bitcoin with love. You need to adopt a posture of listening, service, and humility, and be willing to accept that getting your church orange-pilled as soon as possible may not be the highest priority for a while.
- Know your audience. Figuring out who you need to talk to and where they’re coming from is one of the most important factors in successfully orange-pilling your church. If you don’t find the right person — or if you approach the right person in the wrong way, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong context — this can make or break your cause.
- Lead with a reason to care. You need to be wise about presenting the best reason for your church given the circumstances. If your church has the bandwidth, one of the best ways to start the conversation is if you or another Bitcoiner are ready to give tithes or other gifts in Bitcoin. Keep in mind that we are all working toward a generational mindset, and our attitudes should reflect that in our patience. When in doubt, ask yourself some questions. Are you sure you really know the most pressing problems your church is struggling with, and that Bitcoin is the answer? Is spending your time and energy on this cause how you can best serve your church right now? Is your excitement and dedication to Bitcoin detracting from other areas your church is explicitly asking you to serve in?
- Saving versus investing. Don’t give your church investment advice or ask them to invest in Bitcoin. Instead, ask your church to prudently save, and in the process work toward having a lower time preference — both to prepare for a rainy day in the short run and to do greater things for God’s kingdom in the long run. As Christians we don’t work for civilization for civilization’s sake, but for the sake of fulfilling the Great Commission and seeing God’s kingdom come.
- All in good time. Like every other matter under heaven, Bitcoin has its own seasons, and sometimes those seasons can swing wildly between positive and negative extremes, especially when comparing it to other financial instruments. If you feel like your church leaders have a good understanding and level of conviction, getting in during a bull market may be the right time for your church; but if not, it may be wise to wait, or at least ease into the position — not necessarily for a dip, or even a crash, but until conviction is developed.
- Proof of work. Bitcoin relies on proof of work, and so does your conviction about Bitcoin — you have to put in the effort. Remember, your goal is to be a winsome Bitcoin maximalist, so don’t give in to the temptation to become condescending or toxic, even when others treat you with contempt.
- Handling objections. We can’t use our Christianity as an excuse to ignore the affairs of this world; instead, God expects us to operate with shrewdness and acumen like the sons of this world, as we talked about in the parable of the dishonest manager. This doesn’t mean we all have to be economists, but we are expected to maintain some level of knowledge and understanding of worldly ways. In the case of Bitcoin, that means being prepared to handle objections from many different perspectives, including economics, morals and ethics, government and politics, and technology. It isn’t your job to be an expert on every arcane technical detail of Bitcoin or economics, but you should be ready with a high-level response to the most common objections, as this can go a long way toward giving your message credibility and showing your church that you’ve carefully considered your position.
- Custody solutions. Acknowledge that Bitcoin custody can be confusing and even daunting for the uninitiated. In summary, use ETFs if you must, but otherwise use exchanges for holding relatively small balances and for receiving and spending, and use self-custody or collaborative custody for holding larger balances. Also be aware that the Bitcoin custody landscape improves all the time, so it’s important to regularly review your setup and make tweaks or changes as better options become available, or as your knowledge and conviction increase, or as your leadership changes, or as your assets under management go up.
A final word of encouragement
So that’s the recap, and now I’ll leave you with one more final word of encouragement from 2 Corinthians 9:11–13, which says:
You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others.
2 Corinthians 9:11–13
Here, Paul shows us how financial generosity and blessings can be used as a means for God to magnify his glory and increase the number of people offering thanksgiving to him. Our hope and prayer is that God will use Bitcoin to bless your church and enable you to do great things for his kingdom — so get to it, glorify God, and may your heart overflow with joy and gratitude for his faithfulness.