How Financial Education Empowered Rev. Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson

Rev. Jackie Thompson

Rev. Jackie (above left) with Wanda Oliver, lay trustee ministry chair for Allen Temple Baptist Church, attending an in-person SPEP session (pre-pandemic).

Growing up with a single mother who was self-employed, the Rev. Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson learned at a young age the hardship of ongoing financial struggles. "I grew up hearing my mother lament the daily challenges of making ends meet," she says.

When she was invited to participate in the Strategic Pastoral Excellence Program (SPEP), a three-year financial education program launched by MMBB, Rev. Jackie agreed because she would also be able to invite a lay leader to participate alongside her. "My initial draw was to help the church," she says. "And then I began to see how SPEP would help me personally."

When her SPEP cohort began in 2017, Rev. Jackie was associate pastor at Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California. By the time she finished, she had been elected to serve as the first female pastor in the 100-plus-year history of the iconic Baptist church.

"The format of SPEP made it comfortable for me to talk about my personal relationship with money," Rev. Jackie says. "I learned how to approach finances from a place of empowerment instead of fear."

Rev. Jackie lifts up the spiritual dimension of SPEP as critical. "The program helps provide the knowledge and discernment for pastoral leaders to live into our call," she says.

Equipped with tools and a financial planner to help her develop a strategy, Rev. Jackie attacked $100,000 in student loans from earning her Master of Divinity. "I increased my payments and began to really pay down that debt," she says. "When being considered for leadership positions, they want to know how you manage your personal finances to see if you can manage a church."

With her team at Allen Temple, Rev. Jackie developed a financial policies and procedures manual, talks transparently with trustees about finances and leads a budgeting process focused on vision and mission, including providing for pressing needs in her sprawling urban ministry. "The marriage between ministry and finances is bliss," she says. "Right now, we have enough for everything we are called to do."