B.T. Beauty offers this link to an article that discusses the churches obligation to adequately compensate its pastors. The article offers this advice:
Whatever the cash salary or total compensation package being offered to a pastor it contains a hidden message. Your hidden message says that you appreciate the work of your pastor, that you want your pastor to stay with you for a long time, or that you are ready for a new pastor. Most church leaders I know take seriously their God given responsibility to provide for their pastors, but there are many who financially hold hostage the shepherd of God.
The author also makes this observation:
Pastors are sometimes called the "poor man's psychiatrist." Counseling is part of our professional training, and we get plenty of practice, though we don't charge $60 to $90 per fifty minutes. In fact, we don't charge at all. We're called on to help wives and husbands patch together troubled marriages, and to counsel families whose children are in trouble. We do a good bit of career and job counseling for people between positions and we're often used as a sounding board when people are trying to sort through a particularly tough decision.
I do not doubt that Pastors work very hard and they have a thankless job. (I am sure most PK's can attest to this.) However, you should not join the clergy to get rich. If you want to get paid $60 to $90 an hour for counseling, then become a counselor.
Of course, you may find that your PBC education is not going to get you that high paying counseling job.
Read: it’s SALARY CUT time!
Ten ways to tell your pastor it’s time to move on:
1. Relocate his parking space to the far corner of the lot.
2. Switch his medical plan to an HMO where the only providers are out of state.
3. Instruct the organist to play ‘hail to the chief’ whenever the pastor stands up.
4. Tell him the starting time for the church board meeting is changed while everyone else meets at the regular time.
5. Move him to the end of the line at potlucks.
6. Mess with the pastor’s name on the church’s street sign.
7. Put a “For Rent” sign in front of the parsonage.
8. Hire hecklers to disrupt sermons.
9. Advertise the pastors home phone as a 24 hour gay chat line.
10. Start a church parody blog.
After I graduated high school, I spent the sumer helping in the office of my dad’s church. Already at the tail end of a ‘crisis of faith’, it was clinched when I was typing up an article for the church newsletter. The Minister of Finance (as I like to refer to him) had decided that there needed to be an ongoing reminder about how not tything was a sin and if you didn’t then only the glory of God and your faith would save you from hell…but of course you would still go to hell becuase if you had faith, wouldn’t you pay the church for it? (ok, that last bit was my adding in).
I still see that as the defining moment of my wanting to get the hell out of there. 12 years later and across the country, I still have a hard time with it.
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5. Move him to the end of the line at potlucks.
Isn’t that where the pastor is supposed to be anyway? I mean, that was what I was always told when I would complain about there not being any good food left at the end. The pastor and his family go at the end of the line!
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BTW, hi! a friend sent me this blog group and finally, people who I relate to!
Escaping,
Thanks for the comment. And a lot of us still have a hard time with it. You’re not alone.
EscapingInSeattle:
Hey there, homeboy (or girl as the case may be)!
The tithe subject seems to be the alarm bell for a lot of people; it was for me. See To Tithe Or Not To Tithe: The $earch For Truth.
So if you’re in Seattle now, where’s pop?
My family is still in the Seattle area and I get out there 2-3 times a year, from north central Illinois where I’ve lived since ’99.
Blessings, and welcome!
Jack
Pop was in Atlanta, now they live less than an hour away. Funny, that. Just goes to show that you can’t run away.
[Comment ID #8134 Will Be Quoted Here]
Move to Point Roberts. It’s the kind of place that you ‘just can’t get to from here’.
I’m an exile of The City Church up here in Kirkland, WA. I was the one who had a GC cadre leader blame my depression on excessive masturbation and pornography addiction. From where I sat in GC, Pastor Judah “Sex Machine” Smith used to loudly proclaim to his young disciples (Trust me.. they were disciples.) that Pastors had to be well paid…. he said,”I don’t know ’bout you but I didn’t take no vow of poverty. Let me say that again.. I DIDN’T TAKE NO VOW OF POVERTY!” His disciples think being a man or woman of God means making shrewd financial deals and telling everyone how God has supernaturally intervened in their finances. Seriously… I don’t know how many times I heard testomionies of miracles and those miracles were… FINANCIAL! And i’m not talking about being snatched from poverty by God… I’m talking about.. I prayed.. I invested money wisely and boom.. I live a life of abundance all because I sewed into the Kingdom of God! YEAH! AMEN! COME ON NOW! were the shouts of the young knowers of the way. If I sound bitter… you’re right. Temporal bullshit masquerading as godly miracles do that to me. A little off topic though…
PMD, well said!
This B.S. happens at CBC, too. Financial shrewdness (can you say SLUM LORD and I AM EMPLOYER, MY EMPLOYEES ARE MY SLAVES WHO EARN MINIMUM WAGE) disguised as miracles, made on others’ backs. Gross.
Congrats on getting OUT.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Did they forget this?
There is no shortage of condemnation of greed in the Bible, and not just among the Old Testament prophets. Sixteen of Jesus’ 38 recorded parables deal with money and possessions. The New Testament is replete with warnings of greed, which is labeled as idolatry (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5).
They have a price to pay for their wealth. I believe God will hold them accountable when they stand before Him.
About Judah Smith, “I didn’t take no vow of poverty”…..
He clearly isn’t interested in being like Jesus. 2 Cor.8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”
The miracle is that people still give people like Ju-duh money.
This is such a difficult subject. I was talking my friend David Yeubanks last night ( Truth For Free dot com ). He got kicked out of his church several years ago after reading my article on the tithe and then passing it out to some of his church friends – his pastor(s) called him on the carpet and eventually he got the right-boot of fellowship. David has gone on to write much on the subject of money and has put together a wonderful tithe resource page at Tithing Resource Page. He’s a great guy – and a real hoot to talk with.
Last night we were talking about giving freely – how people are suspicious of anything free. David has experienced it with the free materials he has available. I’ve seen it when giving away music CDs. So – David was telling me about a brother who had written a number of books, and who tried to give them away for free via his web site. He had very few hits, no one ever wrote him with feedback on his books, he was never asked to speak at gatherings, etc. So, he finally slapped some ridiculous prices on his books, made an e-commerce / e-store of his site, and now people are buying his books left and right – emailing him testimonials of how his books changed their lives, and has many invitations to speak at gatherings. He could hardly give his stuff away, and now people are paying a premium for it. Go figure.
It makes me wonder if there is some connection betwen paying and the gratification of the flesh? That somehow by paying, people feel justified, even entitled to feel good about what we’ve paid for? As in “I paid my money, now preach somethig that makes me feel good?”
Conversely, Jesus preached for free, but it was NOT a ‘feel good’ message He preached – rather, He exhorted listeners to repent, crucify the flesh and its carnal desires, and seek God at all costs. And so Jesus truth cost more than a few bucks – it costs your life.
Faced with giving a couple bucks to feel good, or giving all to die, it’s the first option most people seem to prefer.
The sad thing is, people are paying for lies while being assured of their security with Jesus. I can imagine there will be people who will say to Him “I gave 10% of all I earned to the church” – and Jesus will say “depart from me, I never knew you”. Because, they tried to buy Jesus cheap, for 10 cents on the dollar. In saying “I never knew you”, Jesus is saying to the person, in effect, “the price wasn’t 10%, it was ALL – your LIFE”.
Great. Now I’m depressed.
Send me $100 for the fortune cookie comment and see if it makes you feel better.
Judah sounds like he is an idiot. Now I am not calling him one.. just saying he sure sounds like one. I wonder what version of the Bible he studies and memorizes?
The ‘DRV’
(Doctor Ruth Version)
PS, Around here, it’s J-O-N-A-H!!!
Can’t you just see Judah on Hee-Haw with his accent, overalls, a big ‘ole hat and straw in his mouth and a pitchfork in his hand? Here is his routine:
“I didn’t take no vow of poverty!”
(Now he sings)
Doom, Despair and Agony on me…
Deep dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for my connections I’d have no luck at all
Doom, despair and agony on me…
Follered by a big ol’ kiss from LuLu.
and maybe an encore of:
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends
Worked hard all my life with no help from my friends
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz
He could start calling himself Jonah Joplin, even.
Vomit.
Hoe-down time, everyone! Yee-haw!
I can tell the world you never was my church
I can call you names now that I’m gone
I can tell my friends just what a fool I’ve been
And laugh and joke about you on the blog.
I can tell your hands to go write another sermon
I can tell your feet to hit the door
I can tell your lips to tell your fingertips
You won’t touch my money anymore
But I can’t tell your heart, your cold and greedy heart
I just don’t think it’d understand
And if I tell your heart, your cold and achy heart
You might blow up and hit the fan
Ooo
I can tell your members I moved to Arkansas
I can tell your elders to bite my a**.
Or tell your Pastor Frank who wouldn’t give a damn
He never really liked me anyway.
Oh tell them geez-Louise! Tell anything you please
Myself already knows that I’m okay
Oh I can tell your eyes to watch out for your mind
It might be walking out on you today.
But I can’t tell your heart, your cold and greedy heart
I just don’t think it’d understand.
And if I tell your heart, your cold and achy heart
You might blow up and hit the fan.
Ooo
Git-R-Done…
Malachi 3:8-10 LLV
(8) Will a man rob his pastor? Yet ye have robbed him. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed him? In tithes and offerings.
(9) Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed him, even this whole nation.
(10) Bring ye all the tithes into the your pastor’s storehouse, that there may be moola in his house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing of even more moola, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Would just like to say that I went to PBC and you shouldn’t be allowed to get any counseling job with that education. High paying or volunteer. Jay Adams was an imbecile who never did his homework.
I went to PBC from 82-86, got me a masters by 1990 at Western, got me one o’ them Pile-it High and Deeps in 1994, did a Doctorate just for the fun of it at Gorges Foxito in 97; all that, and I run a boat factory in Kentucky. I like to drink Martinis, I like to drink Rum and Coke, and I like to tithe lots and lots and lots and lots of muunnnnneey….hee-frickin-haw.
Yeppers…all you young whipper-snappers who get all bent out of shape about yer future and what not, Whyyyyyyy you oughta just try Vicadine. I stumbled upon it myself after i donated my right kidney to a needy recipient in spring of 2001. Tell you what—it does wonders for the peace of mind.
All that book-learnin and Theeeee-ology just got my head-a-knockin, and my heart-a-tockin’. (Ol’ Doc Willoughby says i ain’t supposed ta’ mix Vicadine with alcohol, but he can just go straight to hell)
Nowwww….where was I…oh yes…gumbo soup. Terrific…absolutely terrific. Human fingers (cut off and skinned, of course) are just dee-lightful amid the herbs and spices my wife likes to throw in.