Why we are becoming a non-profit

Yesterday I received confirmation from our lawyer that Congregation Hub Articles of Incorporation have been approved in Illinois. This is the first step in the process of becoming a not-for-profit, and we have a great Christian lawyer working on the rest.

There are a few unique things about the way Congregation Hub is structured:

• Three pastor friends and I will make up the board.
• It is in our bylaws that we cannot sell Congregation Hub.
• It is in our bylaws that should we ever pay anyone, nobody — including myself — will be paid above an industry-average developer or development manager salary. (We're a long way from paying anybody.)
• It is in our bylaws that any revenue exceeding our operating expenses be given to missions and Christian education.
• It is in our bylaws that our primary concern is keeping Congregation Hub free, and if we ever sell anything, we make it as affordable as possible for churches.

I've put five years into building Congregation Hub — and honestly, I've been working on pieces of this for closer to a decade. So why would I turn it into a not-for-profit?

The main reason is simple: I want this to be a mission and a gift to churches, not a money-making opportunity. By enshrining that in our bylaws, I'm removing the get-rich entrepreneurial spirit from the entire endeavor. There is no payday at the end of the rainbow. There is only serving churches.

The truth is that most of the church software industry has been bought up by private equity, and a lot of church software entrepreneurs are chasing giant payouts. I think that changes the whole nature of what you're doing. It changes who you're trying to serve and how you view the churches you're supposed to be helping. I want to remove that temptation from the equation entirely.

I want Congregation Hub to be a force multiplier for the vast majority of churches — the ones with almost no paid staff, small budgets, and weekly attendance measured in the tens rather than the hundreds. I want it to be a blessing to missionary churches on the other side of the world, where people aren't worried about their 401(k). They're worried about where their next meal is coming from.

If Congregation Hub is chasing dollars, we will inevitably go where the dollars are — and in the church world, that means large megachurches. I'm not interested in that.

So Congregation Hub is a not-for-profit serving churches. Currently nobody gets paid (including me), and we're planning to keep it that way for a while.

We may accept sponsorships from businesses that believe in what we're doing, and we may raise money for operating expenses from other churches. But we will never do anything that threatens our ability to be servants first and foremost.