“Not only does borrowing often involve spiritual problems, but it can burden a ministry with distinctive disadvantages. These disadvantages are not mere inconveniences. Rather, they are serious barriers to ministry effectiveness. In some case, these disadvantages overwhelm a ministry.
We have identified at least five of these borrowing disadvantages. When it borrows, a ministry risks:
• Becoming a slave of a lending institution
• Becoming a slave to big givers
• Becoming trapped by financial pressure
• Becoming mired in an endless cycle of borrowing
• Losing flexibility to respond to ministry opportunities.
All these disadvantages are symptoms of financial bondage.”
Jeff Berg and Jim Burgess in The Debt-Free Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1996) 54.