What It Takes To Run St. Martin’s

Hey everyone, we said that we were going on break for the next few weeks, but we really can't help ourselves when recording podcast. And today we are in Stewardship Season and we thought it would be a good idea to hear a few voices from our staff of what it takes to run St. Martin's. A lot of things are taken for granted, especially by me in such a beautiful campus, beautiful offices as well with a lot of Red Sox bobble heads. But there's a lot of things that have to happen to make this campus work. And so we have got three staff members here who are going to help really tell us more about what it means to run St. Martin's. We've got Brandon, we've got Marty and Sarah Hampton joining us to talk about this really important season of Stewardship as we kick off 2026. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Excited to be here. Church work is always fun, but there is a difference when you start seeing how the sausage is made. A lot of people want to stay away from that. They like the glistening Sunday morning stuff. All of us around this table know a little bit more of what it means to run a church day in and day out. Brandon, maybe starting with you in your role, what is your role again, kind of jack of all trades in some ways? Yeah, absolutely. A generalist of all of it, specifically, it's the COO for the church. So overseeing the day-to-day operations of everything that's non ministry. So finances, building and grounds, the cafe operations, communication, security, IT, landscaping, all the things that make the church run is where I get to dig into. And you're also a deacon in the Baptist church. So if we need you to preach, you can jump in as well. I could. I could. The fun fact is I've been a deacon for over 16 years at Second Baptist, and that was one of the questions that I asked when I coming on board was, is St. Martin's okay with a deacon running the church? Should have been. Yeah, absolutely. No. Always there to serve. Absolutely. I mean, you're fulfilling that role. Absolutely. And Sarah Hampton, you've been on staff for a while now, but this is a newer role that you're taking part in. Yes, it's actually a new role for the church, parish engagement. So obviously, we want to, we focus on stewardship, right? We need to raise the funds to support the church. That's a given, but engagement talks things really more about how our members, our parishioners and our visitors are engaging with us, right? If they're on campus, if they're part of not just worship, but our different ministries, our different events, our wonderful outreach ministries, there's so much we have going on here. So that's something we want to focus on with our existing members and our new members. And keeping them as part of the family and growing with them in that process. So it's exciting, it's different, but I'm excited to get to know more of our membership and our parishioners and find out how we can grow with them and bring them what they're looking for. Yeah. And you're normally at family table with your family, right? I do usually attend family table. Yes, with my two-year-old husband, and it's just a good all-time. We used to attend the 1115 traditional, which we loved. But you know, allowed toddlers, not really conducive to that. That's right. It's service. Well, and what's cool about St. Martin's is the role you're fulfilling in a lot of churches. That's just tacked on to what a priestess supposed to do and to have someone who is dedicated to come alongside the clergy to build those relationships and think about how people can be involved and give back to the church. I mean, it's a unique role for a place like St. Martin's. Absolutely. Yeah. And then we have the rector of vice, or the vice rector, Marty Bastion. Marty, your role as vice rector, I mean, you're having to think about a lot of the operations and staff things working with Brandon a lot on those things. I mean, in the years that you've been in this role, what have you learned about running a church? That's a great question. I think the greatest thing that I've learned is that you need a lot of resources to run the church. And that what you see, there's a lot that goes behind what you see. Not just on Sundays, but on a day-to-day basis, and that you have to be intentional in order to do the ministry that we're called to do. You really have to be intentional about finding those resources to support those ministries. And I think a lot of people, you know, your common person in a pew probably doesn't realize what it takes to run a church like this and to be able to offer whether it be outreach, you know, education or worship, what it takes in order to pull that off. And I think that, you know, one of the goals of our being here today is to really enlighten our people so that they can, you know, prayerfully consider how they can be a part of that support. For sure. And again, the amount that we give towards ministry in the community and around the world is significant. I mean, in years past, we have given 23% of our budget to mission and outreach, 10% roughly to discipleship and Christian education, 15% to worship, a lot of amazing things, 5% towards pastoral care. But then there's these other parts of administrative costs, communication, how are we able through our website, through print, through different medias to connect with folks, things like the activity center and other ministries that we're having to support and lovingly support. Brandon, I'd be curious to hear a little bit more about kind of operations on St. Martin's. Sure. So, one of the goals that I have in the message I've shared with staff and clergy is, my goal is that we operate in such a fashion that any dollar that we can actually save from efficiencies would be a dollar that could be used for ministry. So, a lot of conversations that I have are if a thing costs a certain amount of dollars, can we have any opportunities to save, get it cheaper or do we actually need it so that if a ministry or a clergy member wants to start a new program or have a new opportunity, we can say yes. I never want to be the barrier to ministry opportunities, right? So, the CAFE is a great community space. We serve lunch four days a week, sometimes five days a week. The CAFE staff also supports all of the on-site activities and events that happen on campus. But, it's not a profit center and it probably never will be, but it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be a place for the community to convene and visit and feel safe, feel welcome, bring new people in, bring people from around the community in that maybe don't have a church, but they can come see what life is like at St. Martin's. But the better we can operate, the more efficiently we can operate, that means we can still have those services available, but it's not a pinch on the budget for ministry opportunities that are outside of the walls of St. Martin's. There is an interesting dynamic of trying to run a church in such a way that it's fiscally responsible, but it's not making money, you know, it is serving strategic things that our church has said, like building community, trying to bring folks in. Feeding folks is a basic part of our ministry call, just as a church in general. But we take kind of some aspects of a business approach, but then one thing that I've learned in four plus years of being at St. Martin's, St. Martin's is running like every other church. We've got a lot of gifted staff members who are able to help us really fulfill our ministry. But in the end, it's a church. Different things, dynamics that we have to work with as well. Thinking about just the basics of what it takes to run St. Martin's, what does that look like? So from just the basics to have the doors open lights on, if you look at it from a budgetary standpoint, our buildings and grounds budget is about $2 million. So $2 million opens the campus, right, and most of that are things that you don't see. And I, you know, I can go down a rabbit hole and really nerd out on how the backside of everything operates, but just as an example, we spend $350,000 a year on power. Just electricity to run everything and we run all of the systems, the HVAC, the lighting, as efficiently as possible. So we're not, you know, spending a lot of money on utilities, but we're also looking forward two to three years down the road on strategies for when those rates do go up. How can we offset that? And a conversation that James, who's over our buildings and grounds, he and I had a conversation with our utility broker recently, where we're thinking about in 2027, what can we do to offset the increase of power, which will be about $100,000. And we're talking about opportunities at the peak power schedules during the summer. So we're talking about six minutes of time over the course of a year and how we can save $100,000. Yeah. So those are the little bitty things that we get into on a day-to-day basis. In addition to, you know, how do the flowers look, you know, in the gardens and how often are we cutting the grass, you know, and how many people are we serving for lunch, right? So, you know, just to keep the doors open, $2 million, then you have all the staff that are here, the HR costs that go into that and salaries and benefits. And we try very hard to be a very generous church organization to our employees and take care of everyone spiritually, physically, just professionally, and give everyone a great place to work, but also focused on how that trickles down to how we operate as a church and touch the community. Now, Marty, tell me a little bit about building a team and, of course, personnel costs are really high. And so what is it like to build the right team? And that may mean not hiring ten people to do one or two jobs, but to find the right folks, and then maybe the opportunity for our parishioners to be more involved. Yeah. I think that, you know, you really have to identify what your needs are and, you know, one of the things that we're always asking ourselves, are we good stewards? Not just with money, but with personnel. And I think, especially in today's day and age, we have to be really efficient at what we do. Which means that it puts a lot on us in order to be able to develop positions and communicate exactly what those positions entail. Because as you said, we don't want ten people doing the same job. And so intentionality is critical when it comes to being a good steward. It's knowing exactly what it is that you're looking for. And then finding that and making sure that a person that we hire fits that position. And so, you know, working with HR and developing that process and, you know, in the past couple of years, we've had to do some downsizing. Which also means that then we have to take a look at the positions and even have to ask people to do things that they're not used to doing in order for us to be good stewards. And so intentionality is kind of the big thing for me. Being aware of what your needs are, identifying the needs, being aware of it. And then sort of fleshing it out and creating job and job descriptions that fit our needs. Not our wants. Because we certainly don't live in a time now where that's a part of it. I mean, gosh, if we could find employees to fulfill every want that we would have three times the staff. What is that efficient? Yeah. And, you know, St. Martin's is blessed with a large staff. I remember maybe after my first year of getting here, there was conversations of we can't do this because our sextons who are just kind of the worker bees of the church that no one notices of putting chairs out tables, doing so much of the things, putting out the coffee and things that people don't recognize. And I remember there being a conversation, we can't do that because sextons are working somewhere else and we can't have them. And coming from a small church, it's like, well, I think our parishioners would love to help. If we asked them to help put up a room or whatever, that they would love to do that. And I think we're getting to a part where we are more willing to share in some of just the basics that most other churches are inviting parishioners and asking parishioners to take part in more things than just show up, be a part of this event, and then leave. We may need you to help come earlier, stay late. Absolutely. And I think that one of the things that our staff provides is that when we have a big event, it's all hands on deck and everybody has ownership in it. And by offering that, by our staff doing that, then we can bring in lay volunteers who have the expertise of the people on staff that can lead them and guide them because we as a staff can't do it all. And we are getting to the point where we have to lean on our lay people to help us carry things out. Yeah. Sarah Hampton, Sunday mornings is kind of like a Super Bowl. Every seven days, we're doing it. A good indication of just like what it takes to run a church is kind of exemplified in the donuts. Has your two-year-old going to go there already? Has your two-year-old figured out, I mean, my daughter, I baptized her. You know, and the service is in the middle of the riverway service. And after I baptized her, she ran out the door looking for a donut because she thought the service was over. We hadn't even done communion. That's like, it's a silly example, but it's also like, if the donuts are gone, like people notice. And like, if the AC was gone, how much more so would people notice or the lights were out? I'm curious. Has your two-year-old figured that out? We have tried to keep sugar away from her, but she knows that they're there. Just in look, I'll be honest, it feels a little bit cruel to entice these children in with donuts, but it works. And they're here and they're with their families and they're worshipping and look, that's what we want, right? Yeah, so we're looking at about 200 plus donuts a week that we serve on Sundays, a little over 300 cups of coffee, typically. So we've got that out for our prisoners. We want them to be able to enjoy a little sweet treat, have some fellowship. We want the kids to get a little sugar high and realize this is a really great place to be. So it's part of it. And there's a few more statistics that are kind of fun. We've got about 1,300, 1,400 people on average that we see come to church every Sunday. So we love that number. Some people say, well, gosh, that seems kind of low because you guys are known for having over 10,000 members. And yes, we are. We are the largest fiscal church in North America, right? We still have that little title. And then to the day, it's those that really come regularly that, you know, that's the numbers that we count. And so when you think about the people that are giving their time and their talent and their treasure, we only have about 1,300 families actually that are pledging, which is surprising. It really, really is. And it's hard to say this because I feel like you hear this at every nonprofit, but every gift, every dollar counts. I mean, as Brandon was explaining, there's just so much that goes into especially a big church, right? The landscaping, the doors being locked and unlocked, all of the stuff in the background with IT, all the software that's running, those are things you don't see, but we do rely on them. Yeah. The Wi-Fi. We could go all day with that list. So there's a lot of potential here for, I think, prisoners that maybe, maybe they've given, they've given a small amount and they think, "Oh gosh, is an extra $50 a month going to make a difference?" And I'll tell you it does. So if $50 a month increased, every single membership household, that's about 4,000 families, you're looking at a little over $2.5 million out of each of our budget and think about what we could do with that. So there's so much potential there. And so we started with donuts, but I mean, the point is we want you here because we care about you and we want to be part of the mission to find God in your life. And so that's why we're here. And a lot of people I think walk into our campus and go, "You know, I'm not writing a million dollar check that they don't need it." And honestly, what you're saying is, even a $50 increase makes a huge impact, especially if we're able to get a lot of people involved. Absolutely. Will you talk about the difference in folks who say, "You know, I give, but I'm not going to pledge. What's that difference?" So obviously, a gift is that actual, you know, transaction of sending a gift to us whether via check or online or through a stock transfer, but a pledge is a promise to give. So that's what stewardship is about. At the beginning of the year, we're asking you to say, "I promise this year, I'll give this much." I think a lot of people are scared by that. I mean, even all of them in our generation, you know, little bit young generation, we don't like to commit, do we? We want to say maybe on a lot of things. So, but we're asking you to do this because it helps us not just plan our budget, but understand what the expectations are for that year. And like you said, worship every seven days. It never ends. And not to mention our weekly services and our daily prayer. So we just keep adding to it for our person. So I think that promise to give, it's a bit of a scary commitment for some people. We always like to remind you, if you pledge a certain amount, let's say something happens that year, that isn't life's not going the way you thought, you can call us and just make a change. It's, that's people do it all the time because we get it. That's what life, that's what happens in life. So, and that's why we're here. And if you want to increase it, call us. Let us know. We'll take that higher number two, but it's really just about, and I think there's a spiritual aspect. I'd love for him already to expand on a little bit. I don't want to go down that road, but about what it means to commit. Well, and I think even before we get to that point, I have a lot of younger families who ask me, well, how do I get started? And so can you help us out with that? How does a person just get started? Because as Wesley said, we're not, we're not coming into this expecting you with, with a number, you know? And, and so how does a person who thinks that we have more than enough when they look at the image of this place? What is the importance of just getting started? So, and it's such a personal decision. That's why on our, you know, our brochure for this year, you'll see the first step in supporting St. Martin's prayer, because it's between you and God. It's that time to say, what can I, what can my family or me? What can we commit to St. Martin's, what works for us, and what do we feel called to give? You have to start there. You can't start with what a St. Martin's needs, because what if you can't meet that need? Like you're saying. I mean, we're not expecting everyone to come in with a hefty check. It's about that commitment. It is a financial commitment, but it's a commitment to this church and to your church family. So, once you, once you pray, hopefully it's a family, and you feel, you find that number around that number, I hope that you'll go to our website and fill out a pledge form with that number, and continue to pray about it throughout the year. And like I said, if it's $100 a month, that's your commitment. And we value that. And we want you to value that and feel that you are now contributing in that promise to give. And then we hope you'll also set up a recurring gift so that it's, it's going. You're trusting God every month. You told me $100 a month, Lord, I'm giving it. I'm trusting you that you will provide. And I have found that he always dies, maybe not in the timeline I like or in the way that I like, but it's, it's always there if I'm listening to him and following him. That's what I personally have found, but if I don't start with prayer, usually it doesn't work out that way. And then it's just creating the habit of giving. And the church is a big part of that. There are other organizations that we all love and support in, in ways, you know, I remember Russ talking about, please give to the symphony, give to the zoo, whatever. Are they going to show up, you know, when you're sick in the hospital and stuff like that, that the church has a particular thing? And we're not looking as we've got our hospital list that this person has given this person, like we're going to be there for you when you need us. And, and so to take part in the life of the church, that's a big part of it. Absolutely. One image that I absolutely love every single Sunday is family table, the kids running up. There's sometimes, you know, a brawl as they're trying to put in their money into the basket, but thinking about the habit and how that teaches generation, generation, that it's not always about the amount, but it is the habit of going up. And it's different than, like, discreetly passing the plate. We have our kids who run up to the offering baskets, I mean, they give joyfully, they do. And I think that's the other part of the sort of our spiritual responsibility, is we need to recognize whose money it is. And I think sometimes we forget that, especially in our culture today, with all the demands that our families have pressed upon them. And yet, when it comes to stewardship and it comes to your church, you know, the big question is, "Well, what is the church?" And, you know, Scripture teaches us that the church is the body of Christ. And when people ask me that question, I said, "What was the church important to you? What is the church provide for you?" And my hope is that they're going to tell me, "Well, it provides a place to worship, but it's also a place that provides support." And so when I think of the doughnuts, you know, not only do we gather first for worship, but we're also gathering to be the body of Christ and to have fellowship with each other. And so we use doughnuts and coffee as those things that help us build community, you know. And so we do have a spiritual responsibility, and that is to support the body of Christ. That is to support the community, because quite frankly, our goal in the church, we really only have one goal, and the goal is that you know God. And so when everything that we do, we want you to know God, in worship, in education, in fellowship, in outreach, we're hoping that everything that we offer is going to help you know God better. Because you know, what is the gospel of John's say when it comes to knowing God? You know, knowing God is eternal life. And if our goal in life is for eternity, who doesn't want to know God better, and to have opportunities in the church to know Him? You know? And so that's the theology behind it. You know, and when you say prayer, well, again, you have to ask yourself the question. If you're asking yourself the question, what is the body of Christ? Then ask yourself the question, well, what is prayer? And prayer is our direct line to God. And in any relationship, especially your spiritual relationship, it's all about communication. It's about talking to God, but it's also listening to God. And part of our mission is teaching people the importance of talking to God and more importantly listening to Him. And so if what we've been given, everything in our life has been given to God, especially our money, you know, we have a responsibility then to give that money back. And as Wesley said, we have different avenues in which we give that money back. But the question is, are we giving money back to God to the church, you know? And I know, you know, and I've learned this, that we do have a structure in place administratively. We're serious about stewardship. And you know, we want to make sure that every dollar that comes in is used in a responsible way, that we're not living outside of our means. And a lot of times I think about the way I live my own life, I'm not living outside my means, you know? And so I don't want our church to live outside its means, but that we have certain responsibilities in order to know God and to know Him better. Yeah, I mean, part of being a good steward, you know, as a Christian is this giving is an act of faith in so many ways it represents, you know, trusting that God's going to provide. And giving in such a way, the biblical understanding of giving is not to give out of your abundance, that you would give 10% out of what you're going to have for that year, that it was giving was going to hurt. It's going to cost you a certain amount and part of that is cultivating the habit of giving, but getting to a point where it's like, yeah, maybe I can't go to Starbucks every other day because that money, some of that money is going to the church like that it's supposed to create a habit and forming us as the disciples. Brandon thinking about the difference in people who are giving and giving generously compared to pledging. I mean, we are grateful for both. But what does it look like trying to create a budget for a church and knowing and not knowing how much we're going to get? That's the tough part and that's where the pledging and the promise is so beneficial for us because we know mathematically what our baseline financial needs are and if people give without pledging, it is wonderful. It's great. We can use that, but the pledge is how we budget for the year. So we know what we can plan and we can plan more effectively and be better stewards of the resources by knowing to some degree what we have to work with versus we're always hopeful and faithful that the needs will be met but the day to day still costs money and if we don't know where it's coming from, then we are not as deficient with how we're using it. We're moving more things around to make the same programs happen to meet the same needs of the church and that goes back to our philosophy for planning our resources out is that we recognize that it is a gift and it is obedience for people to give, but we want to have the same mindset and in stewardship focus of using those resources wisely. And so prayerfully consider, we want to have the donuts, the coffee and the lights on and the air conditioning on but that costs money and so how efficiently can we provide those things and if we know what we have to work with through the pledge process, then it gives us a much better opportunity to plan and plan more effectively and have a better strategy about how we use those resources coming in and then anything that is over and above is wonderful. We try to create enough of a buffer that anything extra can go to ministry can go to feed more people to go to increase the grants that outreach has or the number of missions that we support, right? Obviously we operate as a nonprofit so anything that comes in over and above, we try to put that dollar back into circulation for meeting the needs of the community and seeking the lost and the hurt and bringing them in and loving on them. Yeah, and just even thinking about on our campus, we have so many ministries going on but then you've got the preschool, you've got the Hope and Healing Center mean the impact that we have in our community really is astronomical when you are talking about those two institutions on top of everything that we do. Absolutely. So Brandon, we did make a change this year of not doing our stewardship in the fall. We got some calls of saying, where is my stuff? How do I get it? How does changing it to January shape budgeting and all that? For this year, it makes the budget planning a little different, I would say it adds a layer of difficulty and complexity but it's one that we think is worthwhile. I think it was a good idea to change our stewardship, kick off to January versus traditionally October timeframe. But how the how it impacts our budgeting, by the time we have the annual parish meeting, we have a pretty good idea of what our budget number is going to be and usually by February, March, we have a budget ready for the vestry to review and approve. This year, it'll be a little different. We will, the goal is still to have a budget prepared and ready for March timeframe for the vestry to review and approve. But our finance team and kudos to them for accepting the challenge willingly and then with smiles is we take what we spent, we know we spent last year. So we have a baseline level of what it costs to operate. And then we've already met with all the departments on what their, their goals and their plans are for 2026. But we've included their wishes of we would like to do these new programs. We would like to take these trips. We would like to do this mission trip. So we have those stretch plans already built into the budget. And once stewardship wraps up, then we have a much better idea of what we have to work with for the year. And do we get to the do those new and exciting things and branch out and expand or we are we sticking to the course that we already have, which we have great things planned regardless. But it gives us more opportunities to ebb and flow and and reach new territory. Yeah. Well, so Sarah Hampton thinking about the next few weeks and kind of what people can expect and hopes love to hear your thoughts on that. Absolutely. So we are, we're really excited about this. I think starting stewardship at the start of the year, you know, fresh start in life, right? Everyone's making resolutions. I hope, I hope that you're, you're excited to do something better in your life. And we hope that St. Martin's at the top of that list. So your stewardship focus, you know, that prayer is going to come into play. But we are asking something that's quite ambitious this year. We would really love it if our prisoners would let us know their pledges by our annual parish meeting, which is January 25th. That's a short window. I'm sure a lot of people feel a little bit like that's, that's short of their use too. But we think it's important, not just for our budget, but the year is, the year is starting and we've kicked it off. And we've got a lot of things we need to, to work on and we're excited for, we've got a new reactor in place. And I think that we need this as a family. We want us to all feel that excitement and that energy as we get started here. And we will say, if you need more time, we will gladly take your pledge whenever. No, there's no, absolutely, but there's nothing like a deadline to just say, pray about it. And let's come to a decision and really celebrate at the annual meeting. Absolutely. We're looking at the year, the prior year, of course, at our annual parish meeting. But let's, let's get excited and celebrate the year to come. Yeah. And you know, at the end of the day, it really comes down to this, we need you. You are a part of the body of Christ. And we want you to partner with us because you're entrusting us to build up the body of Christ. And so we just need you. And if you've not given before, get started, you know, pray and, you know, if it's $50 or $100, it's a start. But you are a part of this body. And we need you. I just want to add one more comment to that. And that is that we want you here too, right? Yes, financially, we appreciate those gifts because it keeps us moving forward. But we want you here. So if you're not coming to service every Sunday, find a way. We've got six services every Sunday. We've got three services every Wednesday. There are so many opportunities to come and find a time to worship here. We have an online live stream service. But that's not to mention all of our wonderful Bible study groups, our Christian life study, our men of Saint Martin's, dads, bubs, and go all day long. Find something on our website or give us a call. We'll find a place for you. Please come, be part of what we're doing here because we want you here. And that's why we are here. Yeah, stewardship is about time, time, and treasure. And this conversation has talked a lot about treasure. But there are a lot of clergy who would love to talk. Kathy Johnson, Sarah Hampton are a great connecting points of not only how do I get started financially to support the life of the church, but how to get involved through ministry. And there's going to be a lot of opportunities in the days ahead for that. Thank you all so much for this. Brandon came with piles of stats and pie charts. And so you can meet with Brandon at any time to look over those if you want. I would love to. Yeah. But no, so grateful for y'all excited about the parish meeting at the end of January. And hope to see you there. Thanks, Wesley. Thank you. The wayside podcast is a ministry of St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. It was created by the bearded duo Ryan Presley and Wesley Arning and is produced by the ever so skillful Danny Vonks and Punt and George Ibarra. Our music was composed by the award-winning singer-songwriter and Seinfeld fanatic Wayne Watson. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, just search the wayside podcast and leave us a rating and review on whatever platform you listen to this podcast. If you would like to know more about St. Martin's you can find us at St. Martin's Episcopal.org.