I see nothing here that even comes close to rental income. Looks more like SCH C business income to me, since you are providing recurring services that can be directly attributed to the entity paying you. One example is, if you are feeding the people, then that's deductible provided the food you purchase is solely for attendees. The cleaning doesn't count, because that's something you would do anyway.
I don't agree with your expenses being claimed as a donation, because at best only 50% of your donations are tax deductible. Whereas if you report this as a SCH C business, all of your expenses that you can "prove" were 100% for the business, are 100% tax deductible from the income received. Now I don't know how many people are attending these gatherings every Wednesday. But I would imagine it's enough to justify $400 worth of food, four wednesday's a month.
Now if I'm right at you are "in fact" spending more than $400 a month to host these gatherings, and those expenses can be directly attributed to the church, I personally would not bother reporting the income at all. I would look at it as the church providing me the funds of $400 a month to pay for those things necessary for hosting the gatherings. In other words, when it comes to the $400 a month, I'm just a "pass through" entity.
Then, for anything over $400 (again, that I can prove are directly attributed to the church) I would claim as a charitable donation to the church.
If you take this route, make sure the church understands this and inform them to please "NOT" issue you a 1099-MISC. If they issue you a 1099-MISC, then you *HAVE* to report the income. Additionally, if they insist on issuing you a 1099-MISC, they need to report the money they paid you in box 7, and ***NOT*** in box 1.
