Book Budget Advice

I need some advice. Our pastor is a few years out of seminary and has the Scholar's Library on Logos 3 that he purchased at seminary. We are looking at helping him upgrade and providing a budget for additional purchases. What is a typical amount for a "book purchase budget"? Any thoughts on this subject? Thanks.

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George Somsel

I need some advice. Our pastor is a few years out of seminary and has the Scholar's Library on Logos 3 that he purchased at seminary. We are looking at helping him upgrade and providing a budget for additional purchases. What is a typical amount for a "book purchase budget"? Any thoughts on this subject? Thanks.

I would advize upgrading him to the next higher package in L4 (he can still keep L3 on his computer). This upgrade may be a minor matter -- as I recall there was the possibility of making a very slight upgrade in L4. As to the budget, calculate the maximum possible then double it. [:D]

Jerry M

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/194117#Comment_194117

I agree with George about the upgrade. If your pastor needs some major commentary series I would guess he would appreciate an allowance of about 10% of his salary, but not knowing financial status of the church, that is only a guess.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/194117#Comment_194117

I probably should also suggest that you call Logos and speak with one of the sales reps such as Jared Bryant. He can explain the minimal upgrade. As for a budget, it will probably be necessary for your pastor to choose what he wishes and pay for it himself. For this purpose an account could be established from which he could draw.

steve clark

We are looking at helping him upgrade and providing a budget for additional purchases.

Before you add funds for upgrading to Logos4, you should check to make sure that his computer is sufficient to run Logos4. This may factor in on how much funds he needs. Some have upgraded to Logos4 only to find out that their computer was too old or slow to run Logos4 adequately.

(see system requirements: PC http://www.logos.com/support/techfaq and for Mac http://www.logos.com/mac/support/systemrequirements ) Also you should probably think about the Recommended requirements rather that the Minimum.

Mark Smith

Any thoughts on this subject?

James, thanks for asking. While there are many things a church needs to take care of, one is their pastor's continued growth and spiritual freshness. One way to do this is to provide a big enough 'book allowance' to let him build a library that helps him do his ministry and keeps him growing. You are thinking of this.

In our church (we are in the US and if you are not your situation may be different) we agreed on a reimbursable professional expense line item that is large enough to cover all the reasonable professional expenses (travel (including auto), entertaining, subscriptions, and books being the major ones) that I am expected to encounter as their pastor. I am reimbursed on a monthly basis as I provide documentation of my expenses. This keeps this money from becoming taxable income to me.

The church has been generous about this and usually responds to my annual budget requests. Of course, I am careful, too, in what I ask for. Again this covers all expenses, and auto expenses usually lead the way. I would suggest that you enable your pastor to acquire the upgrade to Scholar's Platinum (do it while the 20% off sale is going on). That will provide a serious upgrade of his resources at the lowest possible cost. Then budget perhaps $1,000 for additional purchases in the first year. Let him see how he likes Logos and what he feels he'd need going forward, then discuss a budget for the following year and the near future when he has done this.

You may be aware that as Logos releases new material in their format, the best deals are often pre-pub deals. Your pastor may find it hard to project how much he'd like each year as he will not know what new items could be released in the coming year nor how much he committed to in a previous year will be released and he will have to pay for. I would counsel flexibility and generosity to help with this.

My professional reimbursement allowance for this year is about 5% of my salary and housing (not benefits).

Your church may not be able to afford this, nor my other suggestions, but I hope if you can do so you will bless your pastor with something like what I've suggested.

One more thing. Remember that Logos is most valuable with a large library of resources. That takes time and money to build. Commit to helping your pastor build a first class library not just owning a piece of software with limited resources. I have been building my Logos library seriously for about eight years. I have about 3,200 resources. I have a good library and Logos does a great deal for me.

Carmen Gauvin-O'Donnell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/194127#Comment_194127

Hey James, I don't rightly know what the answer would be to your question, but I wanted to say "thumbs up" to you guys for looking after your pastor in this way...

This is something my own church learned the hard way (through burnouts and the like) - that you have to look after your staff's wellbeing and growth because you can only benefit from it as a congregation.

As a result, our pastoral staff now all have book and training budgets (and even myself (church administrator) and the secretary get $500 dollars a year each for personal training, even though we both work part time!)

Do we have a happy, well-rounded staff? You betcha! So thanks for being proactive! [Y]